The Notion of Servitude

"The pastor was telling me that in the past months, a number of black ministers have committed suicide. And he was saying that they had committed suicide in part because they feel they can't live up to what we are told is the kind of standard one should have to be able to serve."

-bell hooks

A Public Dialogue Between bell hooks and Cornel West (Time: 17:30)

The notion of servitude was presented in two distinct ways by bell hooks in two separate pieces of media. The first is the YouTube video above of a dialogue between bell hooks and Cornel West in which the above quote can be heard. The impetus to serve in this sense is presented as noble (a black minister doing his duty to uplift his congregation), and a perceived failure to fulfill this duty leads to suicide. In this sense, "to serve" is a vehicle toward social uplifting and something to be admired, and a failure "to serve" is stressful and a cause of depression.

The second mention of servitude is in bell hooks' essay Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. In this essay, bell hooks explores the barriers that a black woman faces in trying to become an intellectual. She points to a combination of the self-imposed marginality of intellectual work in black communities, citing the inward exploration of one's own ideas (intellectual, often in isolation) as being opposed to the expectation of social service, and the expectation placed upon black women as ones who serve. Because black women are "socialized to devalue or feel guilty about time spent away from others," it is difficult for black women to place value in intellectual work because it will necessarily force them into isolation in order to explore the realm of ideas. In this sense, the notion "to serve" becomes a social construct which obstructs the black woman from seeing the intellectual life as one of value.

Both instances of servitude are forms of social support in which a community benefits by the actions of the one who serves. There are, however, some differences in the settings in which the servitude comes to be. The black minister may feel that he ministers because of a divine calling to do so, and he may be socialized to see this calling as noble, but he is not socialized to feel that being a minister is correct and required. On the other hand, a black woman is socialized to believe that her social service to her family or as a nanny, a "mammy", an older sister, a wife, a teacher, a therapist, a counselor, a priest, as "that all nurturing breast", is correct and the proper way to live. As a result, ways of life (such as intellectual) that take away from her ability to serve are frowned upon as getting in the way of her duty and are met with resistance.

It would seem that the idea of servitude itself is not so much the issue. The issue is when the idea of a predefined role is socialized into a person (in this case, a black woman), a role which may not be desired but when gone against is met with resistance, thus preventing the person from realizing a freedom of choice and way of life.