Blackness and Whiteness Represent
 

          In her book Black Looks, bell hooks dedicates a chapter to the “Representation of Whiteness in the Black Imagination”.  Hooks covers a variety of ideas and concepts related to whiteness and how it affects society, specifically in relation to blackness.  Hooks believes that “Systems of domination, imperialism, colonialism, and racism actively coerce black folk to internalize negative perceptions of blackness, to be self-hating”(hooks, 1992, p.166).  This means that the inequalities that exist between races are created, and have been in the past, by people who associate themselves with whiteness.  Colonialism, and specifically slave ownership, has given whiteness the ‘upper hand’, making people outside of this minority group feel inherently lesser, even though this is certainly not the case.  Hooks argues that whiteness is its own entity, and that people who find themselves under the category of whiteness do not necessarily see blackness, or in other cases, just simply ignore the fact that blackness exists.