Postmodern Blackness

Postmodernism for contemporary black experience vs. white onlookers are very different approaches with different concentrations, values, and/or concerns within our so called "diverse society". I think Hook makes a good point saying "apparently no one sympathized with my insistence (speaking in the presence of white onlookers) that racism is perpetuated when blackness is associated with the idea that there is no meaningful connection between black experience and critical thinking about aesthetics or culture must be continually interrogated". In other words Hook is saying, racism increases only because people (largely white) believe all black people are against the dominant (white) ways etc. And it is hard for Hook to explain further because his audience is majority white who share "white" ways of thinking and understanding: "I found myself outside of the discourse looking in". The hierarchy of postmodernism, according to Hook, blocks out (or forgets to give credit to) certain groups, especially those of color and particularly women (black women). Hook's overall arguement is that our current society fails to address a critical presence of blackness. "Differences and otherness" are topics of huge consideration now (as claimed) but is not expressed and included in the academy of our society. The black power in the modernist stage has died away a little in the now postmodern phase because the common audience and the common language have dominated. The contemporary discourse claims to recognize "others" but that is a lie. Blacks struggle to make their voices heard.