What It Means To Teach A Revolution

           

Jasiri X (from http://www.communityjournal.net/
rapper-jasiri-x-releases-video-inspired-by-police-brutality-report/

Jasiri X is a Philadelphia based rapper and educator. He often warms up audiences at the academic hip-hop conferences I attend with quick spurts of what he defines as "edu-tainment". He is not into "the college thing." He started, didn't do real well, and dropped out. But he educates all the time, and the vocabulary embedded in his raps makes it clear that he understands the language of academia quite well.

            He also understands politics, as this statement delivered at the Hip-Hop Education Center's Think Tank III aptly illustrates:

            "Hip-hop is a counter culture," he said. "As such, it's a direct response to white supremacy. When we bring it into the classroom, we cannot forget that."

            I hear iterations of this statement at numerous hip-hop education conferences and I appreciate its value. I feel like it's the reason why the songs by Seattle artists Rogue Pinay and El Dia, and other women who rapped about the intersections of race and immigration among Asian Americans moved me so much and made me feel that it was vital to bring them into my political science classes back when I was still teaching political science in the Seattle area. It seemed like the message brought together history, economic, politics, and society in a way that I could not get students to grasp through readings, lectures, discussions, free writes, quizzes, role plays, and all the other tactics I had tried. I also appreciated the fact that the music was fearless. It seemed to suggest that telling the truth could be done without leaving one with threats, guilt, or defensiveness. One didn't have to point fingers or blame or nag about the need to step outside a comfort zone and get involved. It was almost as if knowing the truth -- or what I would describe as the realities of the conditions of the time and place in which one lived -- would be enough to motivate one to make a change.

            And, so I wonder, can one bring a statement like hip-hop is a direct response to white supremacy into a classroom and get away with it?

            I suppose that's what we do anytime we talk about the history of slavery, the legacy of white privilege, working class struggles for justice, immigration history, and continued inequities in society. But I think we bury the statement in a lot of material and sort of wishfully hope that the students will wade through and hit a point of understanding and consciousness, instead of stating it directly and providing the evidence that supports the statement. It might be because we ourselves are afraid of the statement and what articulating it might do to our careers.

             I often think back to an interview I gave in March 2000 to KHON-TV in Honolulu after spending the night sleeping at the campus center in support of Hawaiian sovereignty and in protest of the Rice vs. Cayetano decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that severely disempowered Hawaiians in their quest for rights and a voice in the self-determination of their lands and their lives. I was a working journalist for a mainstream newspaper at the time so the action had decided consequences: My employer put a letter of sharp rebuke in my personnel file, and invoked a steep cut in my hours which resulted in a significant loss of salary. At the time, I wasn't sure I would survive the repercussions, or if the personnel letter would follow me. (Given my post-2000 resume, I am guessing it has not.) Over the years, I have wondered if this incident made me timid or if it made me wiser. It certainly made me more aware of economic power of corporations in the United States and probably the world. It also made me aware of the difficulties one faces if they go it alone.

            And, I guess that's what gets me to an interchange that has been bothering me for several days. At the Hip-Hop Education Center Think Tank, I was speaking at one point with a white male who started out by flattering me, saying how much he appreciated the work I was doing and the things that I had to say. The conversation went into some rather odd directions as he kept interrupting me for a pen, to write something down, to ask for two sandwiches when the conference organizers had explicitly asked us all to take just one, and then not letting me finish a sentence. I was trying to explain how there was a different answer outside of the capitalist structure and how one needs to look at the socio-cultural milieu in which one operates when one frames one's activism. He kept insisting that participation in the revolution was essential and that participation was making noise, protesting, marching. He interrupted me so many times that I finally said, "You know,  you need to stop interrupting me if you want to hear what I have to say." That statement stopped him short in his tracks. The rest of the lunch was more or less me finishing my thoughts and him staring at me with a stony silence.

            I felt bad later because I felt I had excluded him from the cipher. But I also felt bad because I felt as if what I was trying to say was being devalued because it was not within a frame of understanding that made sense in this individual's perspective.

            After that incident, I saw Jeff Chang. I decided to introduce myself. He was the keynote speaker in the morning, and I appreciated what he had to say. Reading over my notes, I feel several days later as if they address the question of "what it means to teach a revolution". I offer my notes here:

            "Not a rapper; that’s why I teach, why I write."

            He followed with a rather stodgy bit of verse, and then described it as "the oldest story ever told; underdogs achieving against all odds. Finding their voice. That’s the story of hip-hop."

            "Hip-hop has said a lot of things that need to be said.

            "It's also said a lot of things that didn’t need to be said – global commodity culture is displacing radical movements and helping to privatize the world.

            "But it’s still capable of a radical different consciousness.

            "It didn’t begin with a manifesto, as a political movement. It began with kids saying, 'We are here.'

            "That might be a reason why it looks chaotic to others.

            "Call and response is a mode of correction in a lot of ways.

            "Cultural change precedes political change, which is why we continue to believe hip-hop has the power to change the world.

            "We start with hip-hop education with gratitude and humility – homage to the pioneers, perhaps fewer than 300 people.

            "Hip-hop is a testament to power of youthful creativity to take over the world. Consequences of the movement resonate everywhere we travel in the world. It still unites people above the babble of confusion of languages, cultures, religions."

            "Hip-hop study in the academy is what’s recent. The early journalists and some of the early students – Marc Anthony Neal, Tricia Neal – are the academic pioneers in a lot of ways."

            "Scholarship precedes the journalists and us. It goes to the beginnings of the culture. When Herc et al were loading up their crates, they were building a body of knowledge. It didn’t become knowledge because we put it in the university. Hip-hop doesn’t need the academy, but the academy needs hip-hop because it’s an institution in dire need of transformation.

            "Putting it into classes/schools doesn’t automatically make it more relevant. Lot of people are interested in it because they see it as a magical solution … no. There’s issues of bad policy, bad funding, bad leadership.

            "Good hip-hop pedagogy is good pedagogy, period. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to transform teachers, students.

            "Much of the published research is probably years behind the point where most practitioners are currently working.

            "Advantages of gatherings like this – allows practitioners to reflect.

            "We can’t be shy about hip-hop’s contradictions. We have to teach the same criticality that we impose on ourselves. We have to instill in them that they have the power to bring about what’s not there yet but can come."

            "Hip-hop is not so much a movement as much as it is a living, breathing entity."