Graham, 12/2

I thought that the class activity that we did on Bell Hooks piece was really interesting. By forming multiple groups, it was nice to get various interpretations on the reading. From the reading, the main point I understood was that she was saying men are dehumanizing African American women by making them into a commodity that they are ultimately “shopping for”. This strips these individuals of their extensive histories and makes them into simple individuals that are used for sexual purposes by white men.
While meeting with the groups, I found that the piece related a lot to Habermas and the idea that people are always looking to have things that are new and modern. The fact that the white men are trying to experience something new by having sex with the black women shows that they are trying to have a new experience, because it is something that they are not used to. However, my group also concluded that what is currently modern will soon be changed, and then individuals will continue to look around for something else that they can call new. We aggressively pursue what is currently modern, making it a thing of the past in a short period of time.
In my CMC200 class we discussed the idea of “othering” people, and making them seem different just because they look different. I think that this was a main idea of the article, because it is assumed that people are more exotic or sexual based on the color of their skin which is not the case. When we looked up “exotic women” it brought up a large selection of basically every single race except for white women. So what is exotic? Is everyone exotic if they are not white? The term exotic was a term created by society, and it has multiple meanings. I do not think that there is one certain type of woman that is exotic, it is anything that is different, new, or interesting to people.