Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Racial Battle Fatigue

• In Event: 63.061 - Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Racial Battle Fatigue: The Untold Stories of Critical Educators

Abstract

According to Williams (2009), hip-hop can be a source for raising the critical consciousness of youth because rappers, through their rhymes and commercial personas, are public pedagogues. Moreover, Gosa and Fields (2012) suggest that hip-hop pedagogy provides a framework that can enhance both the criticalness and cultural relevance of schooling with a social justice perspective. In addition, the predominantly visual space of social media allows hip-hop consumers a communal space to "witness" contemporary Black trauma. Social media coupled with hip-hop pedagogy creates a space for young people to wrestle with the realities of race, racism, discrimination, and injustice. For hip-hop pedagogues, this space investigates how the complexities of students’ identities are tied and tethered to the so-called “post-racial” America through the lens of social media. For example, Trayvon Martin’s death in February 2012 amplified the messiness of new media as a site of resistance and trauma. Martin’s death is situated in a moment where racial trauma is considered nonexistent and mobilization for racial justice is considered irrelevant. The Martin case exemplifies these current anxieties. His murder sparked national debate that jarred Americans’ investment in an American post-racial agenda that worked. He represents the failure of claims of post-raciality while simultaneously bolstering the drive to claim a post-racial American society. Much of this discourse took place on Internet discussion forums, Twitter, and online periodicals. Martin’s death spurred a call for racial justice that bridged the Civil Rights Movement and contemporary calls to action seen in the reaction to Rodney King and Jena 6. Unlike the Jena 6 or King, however, Martin’s death stirred a multicultural response embedded in reaction to what was available to people online.
Through narrative inquiry, this study examines how 17 seventh graders learning about social justice through a hip-hop pedagogy framework reflected on the death of Trayvon Martin and injustice in their local community. Narrative inquiry focuses on participants’ experiences and how those experiences help participants come to view the world (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Moreover, narrative inquiry allows the participant and the researcher to co-construct a story (Phillion, 2008). Throughout the study, multiple methods of data collection were used. The data collection plan consisted of interviews and observations of students as well as documents of student work. Each student was interviewed for one-hour. Field notes captured what the researcher saw heard, and experienced in the field. The interviews consisted of semi-structured, open-ended questions. Data was crystallized in order to observe how themes emerged naturally. Three subsequent themes emerged from the data: (1) students experiencing racial battle fatigue because of the context of the class; (2) social media as a space of Black trauma; and (3) local politics impacting how students viewed their agency.

Author

• Bettina L. Love, University of Georgia