Writing Remix Ep.117: Note From Dan & Reflection Questions

A Note From Dan

“In the conversation with a colleague of mine he said something interesting, which is bell was more accessible as a thinker, and maybe that’s why she paid the price of her radical vulnerability.”
-Dr. Malaklou

My first-year writing students read bell’s All About Love last semester and will read it this semester, and probably every single class from here on out. There’s an assumption that students don’t want to read, that they can’t read long texts or even sit long enough to read a book. They read All About Love. Not only that, they also read Exile & Pride and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. They read books. They had conversations. They shared, openly and honestly. They practiced radical vulnerability.

They read All About Love.

If bell hooks paid a price for being accessible, for writing work that was radically accessible and radically vulnerable then so can I. This episode with Dr. M. Shadee Malaklou, the Founder and Director of the bell hooks Center at Berea College, is a practice of radical vulnerability. Each one of us bared ourselves to each other, to the audience, and to ourselves. We found those moments of shared humanity in a world that seems to be thriving on dehumanizing. We laughed. We told stories. We expressed love.

This is pedagogy in practice. Pedagogy in the wild. It’s theorizing and praxis and humaning in the wild. It’s what we do as teachers, and yet we’re having this crisis of identity with the overwhelming sense that we’re losing contact with our students and each other in an increasingly AI separated world. Yet, radical vulnerability is something AI can’t do. It just can’t and that’s how I’m choosing to move, no matter the risk.

“And so, in that way, I thought, I wanna understand this world through theory, but what bell taught me is I have to understand and be brave enough to look at myself, to look at my country, to look at my family, to look at the land that I step on.”
-Dr. Malaklou

A big part of practicing radical vulnerability is what Dr. Malaklou says in the episode, “what bell taught me is I have to understand and be brave enough to look at myself, to look at my country, to look at my family, to look at the land that I step on.” There’s no practice of radical vulnerability if it doesn’t include a deep and lifelong reflection of self, of my family, of my country, and how I treat the land I’m coexisting with. We all want change from the people around us, though are we willing to also change, to hear about how our own actions are harming others, even people that we have deep disagreements with, are we open to hearing about the pain we are inflicting even in our righteousness? This is the root structure of change and radical vulnerability, to engage in a lifelong practice of reflection and accountability which is wrapped in a love ethic.

Episode 117 Reflective Questions
These Reflective Questions ask us to consider how deep we can get into ourselves to remap our root structure.

• For 5–7 minutes, write towards the root structure of your own vulnerability to explore what’s hidden. Don’t judge. Don’t stop. Embrace the pain it might stir up and greet it all.

• Once you’re at the furthest depths, begin to develop a map of this root structure. Describe what it might be like to travel and tour this root structure. Be specific.

• Find a place in that depth along the map and sit there, breathe, and write your way into the mind, body, spirit of self

Share your writing with us at writingremixpodcast@gmail.com, or post your thoughts on Instagram and tag the podcast @WritingRemixPod #InspiredBelonging and we’d love to read them on the next Inspired Belonging episode!