"Poor white folk who, we were told, were rabid racists ... "

This is an outstanding piece of writing. The chapter ‘To Be Whole and Holy’ is not religious, but is a kind of confession of assumed prejudices and then the gradual dissolving of those. The focus of those prejudices was the 'poor white folks', her neighbours in rural Kentucky. The author, Gloria Jean Watkins, published Belonging: A Culture of Place in 1989. She is better known for her maternal grandmother’s name, ‘bell hooks’, with deliberate lower case initials. There is an institute in her name at Berea College, Kentucky -  a place that many posts here seem to gravitate back to.

• Read 'To Be Whole and Holy' - click here