I mentioned in an earlier post that I am reading a book over my semester break called Rhetorical Listening, about which I will write a book review.  Well, as I am finishing it up, I came across a passage in the text that was so compelling–I have to share it.  To provide some context, all people(this could be argued as essentialist, I know) navigate their social and cultural worlds through a filter of accountability.  We make decisions about what to eat, buy, etc. based on what we will be accountable to.  The author of the text, Krista Ratcliffe, poses the question: What is accountability?  She then frames a response to this question drawing from bell hooks’ work “Race and Feminism: The Issue of Accountability.”  It is the reference to hooks that most intrigues me.  The passage states:

…accountability does not mean continually beating oneself up for one’s history, culture, or Freudian slips; such a move is, at best, narcissistic.  Nor does accountability mean believing that apologizing for unintended slights is enough; such a thought is, at best, self-indulgent.  Nor does accountability mean claiming that the past is the past and, thus, has no effect on the present; such a claim is, at best, myopic.  Nor does accountability mean arguing that things have always been this way and that acting for change will do no good; such an argument is, at best, cowardly, self-interested, and/or self-defeating.  Instead, accountability signifies recognizing that none of us lives autonomous lives, despite the grand narrative of U.S. individualism.  Accountability means that we are indeed all members of the same village, and if for no other reason than that (and there are other reasons), all people necessarily have a stake in each other’s quality of life.

Ratcliffe further suggests that working from this type of accountability logic forces us to confront an “ethical imperative” that makes us responsible to recognize our privileges and nonprivileges and then act based on that recognition.  She is working from the framework of racism and sexism.  In concert with hooks, Ratcliffe does an amazing job shedding light on this difficult issue.  What a sobering passage….