I hate to break it to you, but...Black History Month is just not cutting it...

Black History Month 2013 kicked off last Friday, February 1. In elementary school, this was one of my favorite parts of the year and curriculum. Thinking back, I can trace the roots of the work that I am doing/passionate about today to learning about some of the iconic figures of Black History Month: Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, etc. I remember being in the 3rd grade and doing our first project for Black History Month (I'm not going to get into the nuances of how and why this was problematic/cliche/privileged...I am totally aware of them and really want to get to the task at hand); this was the point at which I became particularly intrigued, moved, and troubled by the Civil Rights Movement. I could not comprehend the levels of racism, the violence, the inequality. And at the same time, I remember being so moved by the incredible strength, courage, and sociocultural and political acts set into motion by Black Americans that led to the end of racial segregation and changed the course of American history in many ways. I studied this era throughout elementary school, middle school, high school and into college, at which point I began to move forward in history to the birth of hip-hop, focusing especially on the Golden Era in NYC (late 1980s-early 1990s), making greater connections between the social, cultural, political and economic parallels that could be drawn between the Civil Rights Movement and Manhattan and the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s. In graduate school, my perspective got rocked and matured when I became aware of my own racial privilege and began accounting for my positionality when thinking about these deeply racialized issues/topics. My interests in and studies of hip-hop have most recently evolved into thinking about hip-hop based education, youth voice, and how the next generation(s) of urban youth [read: youth of color] are breaking new and unprecedented ground in the course of [Black] history. That is where I 'am' right now, in my research, at the moment in writing this post. I'll explain more as I go (slash, as you scroll down). Below you will find a few recent examples (texts, artifacts, etc.) that I feel illustrate the ways in which we, as a society, are reinforcing and perpetuating images and messages that are preventing change at a meta-social level; followed by a few examples of the people and things that we should be focusing our energies on. Thoughts, comments, suggestions are very welcome below. Thank you for taking the time to read, think, reflect.

The faces of Black History Month (photo credit: www.iaohra.org)

Below is an except from a piece that Mark Anthony Neal, a Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, wrote for the HuffPost that was published on the website last night. His explanation of Black History Month is very close to what I was trying to put into words about why I felt a need to write this post. He says it much more eloquently than I was able to and I hope that by echoing his sentiments, I am able to reinforce my commitment to and passion about antiracist education, critical whiteness studies, and being a white ally for issues/topics surrounding race, racism, and social change:

Excerpt from Mark Anthony Neal's HuffPost article (2/4/13)

HuffPost's Black History Month 'Photo of the Day'

The Huffington Post is featuring a photo-of-the-day for Black History Month. Above is a photograph from May 3, 1963. It depicts a "17-year-old civil rights demonstrator, defying an anti-parade ordinance of Birmingham, Ala., who is attacked by a police dog." I was struck that this was the first photograph featured in the HuffPost's series. A photograph capturing a victim of police brutality. I'm sure that there could be endless debates about whether this is problematic or not. My main issue with this image (especially because it was the first one featured) is that it wholly represents what Mark Anthony Neal is talking about above: the sensationalism, the commercialization, even the romanticization of such images from eras like the Civil Rights Movement. Why do we feel the need to re-publish these images only in February for Black History Month? Why don't we throw them in the mix when we are talking about police brutality today? About Stop and Frisk? Another thing to note about the caption for this image: the text goes on to say: "Bill Hudson, an Associated Press [white] photographer whose searing images of the civil rights era documented police brutality and galvanized the public, died Thursday, June 24, 2010, in Jacksonville, Fla. He was 77." We get a description of the photographer's life and death, yet we are not even provided with the name of the victim in the image...

...a quick Google search told me that his name was Walter Gadsden, a student at Parker High School in Birmingham, AL. #justsaying

Django: Unchained Action Figures 

Maybe I was out of town when news about these figurines broke. Maybe the story didn't gain much traction. Maybe people made conscious decisions to not report on the story and not give it undeserved attention. I don't know. I also did not spend much time trying to dig up the background story of these dolls. To be honest, I really don't care about the background story. Whether people saw the movie or not, whether they liked it or not, we are all aware of how controversial this film has been in the last few months. I, unfortunately, am not necessarily 'surprised' by the fact that these dolls were made, but that also doesn't change how offended and disappointed I am about them either. 

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Moving in the right direction...

New York Times' list of "Books to Match Diverse Young Readers" (December 4, 2012)

Above are the covers of a number of children's books, compiled by the New York Times, that feature youth of color protagonists. The rationale for the list is that the majority of introductory chapter books for 2nd-4th graders, "reflect a suburban milieu with white protagonists." Ok, yes. I was happy that this was being acknowledged and that here we have a number of books that star youth of color. The reporter, however, goes on to say that "...students of other races and ethnicities seldom encounter characters like themselves in books, and some education experts say that [this] can be an obstacle to literacy" [emphasis added]. I scrolled down past the image to read the rest of the story, thirsty for some interview excerpts from these 'experts' or something, but no. That's where the piece ended. I get that perhaps there wasn't room for a longer article or that further discussion wasn't relevant in this section of the paper, but I was disappointed that the books were left to speak (very briefly) for themselves. I will say, however, that this is good. It's a good starting point. If nothing else, it is important that this bricolage of 'culturally relevant' texts be featured in this highly visible and well-respected publication; if these books gain traction and recognition from this piece, then we are taking steps in the right direction.

A friend recently introduced me to this up and coming hip hop/rap artist Joey Bada$$. He's 18, born and raised in New York City. is rapping about real things and is incredible talented lyrically. Listen to him and what he has to say, especially in this song.

All in all, this post is about two things: 

First, that we need to expand and strengthen the 'list' of Black Americans who we consider to be greatly contributing to Black History (and American history) today. We need to acknowledge the people in the spotlight as well as those in 'underground'/less visible (but just as important) circles, young and old, with remarkable voices and visions--I'm talking about Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Imani Perry, Patricia Hill Collins, Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Crunk Feminist Collective, FAAN Mail, Chris Emdin, Ernest Morrell, Marc Lamont Hill, Shaun Harper, --those who are still fighting for equality, rights, space, power, because we do not live in a post-racial/racist society. 

Second, given this ground-breaking reality (to some) that we do not live in a post-racial/post-racist world, celebrating 'Black History' for 30 days...no, not even...for 28 days (29 every once in a while) IS. NOT. ENOUGH. Don't get me wrong. I think this month is an incredibly important time to honor the beautiful, groundbreaking moments of our history, as well as to remember the ugly and repulsive acts, moments, attitudes and laws of the same periods of our history. But doing one class project on the Underground Railroad or the Freedom Riders, having one school assembly a year about the 'token' figures of the Civil Rights Movement (seen in the first image of this post), or worse, screening Remember the Titans is. not. enough. Educators, parents, people: we do not need to wait until February to talk about these monumental people and times in history. We also should not be afraid to talk about race and racism with our students, children, hell, with each other. Granted, I know that is easier said than done. I'm still working on it, and will be for the rest of my life, but we [white people in particular] need to try. I'll provide some excellent, seminal resources in my next post, so stay tuned. 

"Let Me Pump Ya Brakes"

A Short Film About a Young Artist Collective 

Who is Redefining "Cool" by Challenging Stereotypes and Assumptions 

about Urban Youth's Relationship to Hip Hop

For two hours this past Wednesday evening, I had the privilege of watching 19 films, created by my classmates, that delved into issues ranging from hypermasculinity, heteronormativity, and gendered identities; to body art and piercings as forms of self-expression and the epidemic of skin bleaching in Jamaica; from cellphone etiquette and voter rights, to reconciling tensions in transnational identities and ideas of democracy; from dispelling assumptions to calling for action, this collection of media pieces was nothing short of brilliant. 

The assignment for the second media project was to: Create a piece of media--video/film, audio/podcast, photo essay--that reflects a perspective on a social issue. Texts can be no longer than 3 minutes. That was it. That was all we got in terms of parameters for the assignment. Great, right? Well sure, in some ways, this was awesome: we were given the opportunity to pick a social issue of interest and relevance to us and to explore that topic through a variety of media and modes. Open-ended, personalized, excellent! In other ways, however, this proved to be way more difficult than I had initially anticipated: not only did I have to determine how I was thinking about the notion of a "social issue," (which I'm loosely defining as a topic and/or reality, situated in a social space or occurring within sociocultural practices that is in need of attention. "In need of attention," however, does not necessarily mean that it is a problem, nor does it mean it is something that needs to be "fixed." No, it is rather a practice, a phenomenon, a noteworthy piece of a new layer of the social fabric).   

Members of Tribe NYC

I first saw the members of Tribe NYC hanging out on the Union Square steps, a place where I spent a lot of time hanging out as a teenager. The steps are as much of a landmark of New York City as the Empire State Building as far as I'm concerned. I can attribute much of my exposure to other cultures and subcultures, races, ethnicities, and religions to the experiences that I had sitting on those steps on a Friday or Saturday evening—whether my friends and I were simply watching the passersby or engaging in conversations with young strangers sitting next to us—for me, those steps represent a safe space for self-expression, identity formation, and exploration of alternative lifestyles. The high flat top haircuts, the retro clothing, and the old school Jordans first caught my eye back in June, and I saw them a few more times in the same spot throughout the summer. As Greg Dimitriadis (2004), in his examination of hip-hop as text, pedagogy, and lived practice, explains, “…young people today are using [hip hop] texts to construct locally validated selves and senses of community linked to shared notions of what it means to be black and marginalized in the United States and around the world today” (p.2). I was so curious to know why they were dressed like that, but I had yet to figure out a way to approach them and attempt to quickly negotiate a space safe enough for me to inquire about their style. The hesitance was solely rooted in the fact that I am a white, blonde-haired woman and Tribe NYC is predominantly, if not entirely, made up of black and brown young adults. It was not that this was physically preventing me from approaching the group; it was that given my passion for and work in critical whiteness studies, anti-racist education, and hip hop pedagogy, I did not want to be “read” physically as “just another white girl.”*

In October, I finally got in touch with one of the co-founders of the group, through someone who I met at a hip hop education conference in September. Clifton Johnson is a 22-year-old, black male, born and raised in New York City. He recently graduated from Penn State in 2011 with a degree in business management. In our first meeting I learned that he never listened to hip hop growing up; that he was one of 6 out of 27 students who graduated high and went to college (he started high school with 300 students in his class); about why he’s so passionate about music and creating positive messages through his work; and why he wants to go into politics in order to make changes to the broken systems he grew up in.

Cliff '80s Baby' Johnson

For my project, I was particularly interested in conveying how this group, comprised predominantly of black male youth, is creating a counter-narrative to the dominant ideologies of what “hip hop” is today, who they are expected (or assumed) to be and how they need to dress and act to be considered “cool.” Many of the members of Tribe NYC, made up of artists: rappers, models, actors, designers, singers, dancers, etc. were infants in the late 80s, some were not even born until after 1990, yet they dress in the retro styles from that time period not only to pay homage to what the Golden Era of hip-hop represents for urban Black Americans—a time and space of cultural significance and artistic expression—but also to set themselves apart from the mainstream assumptions of what urban black youth look like and stand for today.

Hip-hop is more than a musical genre. It is a lifestyle, a subculture and a sociopolitical movement that began in the late 1970s/early 1980s in response to a time characterized by “‘deindustrialization, economic restructuring and a resurgence of racism’” (Lipsitz, 1994, in Clay, 2003, p.1348), particularly in urban areas like New York City. Hip-hop provided a new and unique space and platform for marginalized populations to speak out about and push back against oppressive, dominant ideologies and cultural practices at work. As it has evolved over the past few decades, “…the creative practices and messages constructed in [hip hop] music [have] woven into the processes of identity formation by which youth and young adults conceive of themselves, others, and the world around them” (Petaucher, 2007, p.947).

My interview with Cliff lasted for almost two hours. I came into the interview with a few general questions that touched on an array of topics that I hoped would help to guide our conversation. We touched on many of the topics during our initial conversation in October, but Cliff did not mind answering the questions again in November, and he provided more information and insight the second time than I think either of us expected. He is incredibly knowledgeable about the history and business of hip hop, and is also highly media literate and voraciously committed to spurring social change through his music and activism. 

The topics he talked about included: the crucial role that social media has played in creating and sustaining Tribe NYC; how the members of the group are all helping each other to “make it” in the entertainment and arts industries, while also working for social change through creation and dress; why they wear vintage clothing not only to represent the Golden Era, but also to make a statement about how they can inexpensively put a stylish outfit together;** how the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway catalyzed the birth of hip-hop in New York; why rock and pop music provided more of an emotional outlet than hip-hop did when he was growing up, and how he ultimately came to love hip-hop because of Lupe Fiasco; why all hip-hop music should be “conscious,” but how the politics of the corporate music industry have watered down the genre; about how Puffy, Kanye West, J. Cole, and 2 Chainz all have college degrees, but how this important fact is very rarely included in the meta-narrative about hip-hop because it would run the risk of the making the product less “authentic.” This list merely scratches the surface of everything that we talked about in our two hours together. Needless to say, it was challenging to discriminate which aspects of the interview were really interesting and which segments were necessary and relevant to the task at hand.

"Let Me Pump Ya Brakes"
Social Issues Media Screening

At the screening, my piece was assigned to the category: “I Stand Corrected.” My professor noted that the three pieces in this group proved to be a bit harder to classify than the other sixteen, which I think had more explicit takeaway messages. As soon as I saw the title of the section, I thought to myself, “Yes, perfect!” The phrase fully captured the sentiment that I was striving to convey in my film: providing the space for a youth voice and perspective on evoking social change to be heard. After conducting my interview a few weeks ago, it became clear that Cliff’s voice and presence on-screen were mandatory and crucial for telling this story, because it was his story. As a result, through the editing process, the piece took on an increasingly narrative form, which I was aware of, but did not realize just how narrative it was until it was contextualized amongst the other films. I phrase it in this way not to compare it to the other approaches and determine whether it was the “correct” way to convey a social issue; but rather to reaffirm that this was absolutely the best and right way for me to present my social issue.

The reactions that I received during the brief question and answer session afterwards also reaffirmed that I had successfully conveyed my message; but it was my classmate (and good friend), a black male in his late 20s, who provided me with the most touching and reifying feedback. He said that he really appreciated my topic and was especially moved by Cliff’s story about not listening to hip-hop as a kid because he did not feel like it represented or spoke to him. With big eyes and an honest look on his face, he simply offered, “That was me growing up. I know what that feels like.” I got chills when he said this, and there are tears in my eyes as I type this now. I think my friend was able to connect to Cliff’s experience because it was Cliff who got to tell his own story in the film: we not only heard his voice, we saw his face, and saw footage of his music video Arizona Tea, a song largely about his childhood. Vasudevan (2010) argues that the relationships between literacies and modalities “profoundly impact and are shaped by the spaces in which they are engaged and the spaces produced through their engagement” (p.77). I think that the audience was able to “read” Cliff and interpret my film as a social issue because of the piece’s multimodality, which “afford[ed] not just a new way to make meaning, but a different kind of meaning” (Hull & Nelson, 2005, p.2).

The past fifteen weeks of this course have been nothing short of monumental in my own doctoral studies, as well as in my growth as an academic, as a woman, as a media literacy educator, as a white ally and advocate of anti-racism, and as a member of the Millennial generation (someone who knew childhood without the Internet and cell phones, but who is also incredibly comfortable and excited about the prospects of how bringing new technologies and media texts into the classroom may help to fundamentally change education. This course embodies the notion of a “pedagogy of collegiality” (Soep and Chavez, 2005), where young people and adults, or in this case adult students and professors, mutually depend on and grow from one another’s skills, opinions, experiences, and collaborative efforts to authentically engage and generate original work. This is what I imagine a classroom informed by and committed to the tenets of media literacy and critical pedagogy should look like, and Lalitha’s vision and structure of the course demonstrates how both can be seamlessly integrated into a curriculum. I have been repeatedly inspired in and by this class and I’m grateful to have been a part of the work that we collectively produced this semester.

As previously mentioned, my main goal for this project was to challenge the assumptions that people may have about the kind of relationship that urban youth have to hip hop; and more importantly, to convey this message about youth and social change from a youth’s perspective. I wanted to raise/promote awareness about the power and importance of youth voice and expression. If this sparks conversation or peaks interest among educators—especially young, pre- and in-service teachers who are a little closer to this music genre, sociocultural movement, and generation—about learning how to better incorporate student narratives into the classroom, or recognizing the significance of youth social movements, then I will be happy.

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* I recognize that I too was “reading” the members of Tribe from afar for months (and that people of color get read in negative ways on a daily basis, in ways that I have the privilege of not having to think about on a daily basis), possibly making assumptions about them, but I like to think that I was reading them in a different and more critical way—not as a typified group of “urban youth,” but as a unique group of youth of color who were being purposeful in their dress and behavior for a reason. 

** In this part of the conversation, Cliff talked about the messages in celebrity culture (hip hop and rap artists in particular) and the residual social and peer pressures that urban kids feel to dress a certain way to be “cool.” He views Tribe NYC as affecting social change through their dress, conveying the message that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to look stylish.