Penny Lane- Bell Hooks

After reviewing Bell Hook’s piece, I find that her thesis is very relevant to the concept of manifest destiny. During the colonial period, this philosophy justified our imperialism in order to conquer the land. However, this narrative could be expanded and applied to the rape and abuse of native women by European settlers. This form of domination and humiliation of the female served to establish authority over the tribe as a whole. ‘We will conquer your land and your women, and there is nothing you can do to stop us.’ The white male fascination with the exotic female remains in the social consciousness of modern society. Differentiation of race is creates a latent desire to penetrate the unknown. White females are safe, familiar, and innocent in comparison to the ‘other.’ By sleeping with an ethnic woman, a sense of power expands beyond the individual over the race as a whole. Hooks elaborates this thought by stating: “When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders, and sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relationships with the Other” This power dynamic was show cased in the point system of the Yale Boys. Fucking the ‘Other’ became more than a game; it is a metaphor of exploitative gender, class, and race relations.