West Hooks & Foucault

        Cornel West is a political and social rights activist. He questions the role that race, class and gender play in America today. Bell Hooks is a feminist and an activist for race. She has written several books about gender, race and how they can create systems of oppression. Michel Foucault critiques the way in which knowledge and power can create oppression within society.
        Each of these people deal with postmodernity because they do not accept the idea that truth is universal. They each question what society has whole heartily accepted as the "norm." They see understandings of politics, race and gender as relative and therefore alterable. In terms of deconstruction they question the ways in which old schools of thought have impacted the nation. They seek to deconstruct old meaning and then construct new meaning within specific social issues.