When Blackness Ain't Enough: Reflections on Teaching in an Urban High School Hip-Hop Classroom

• In Event: "You Ain't Gotta Lie to Kick It": Exploring Teacher Identity in Hip-Hop Education

Abstract

Objective
Social location and identity impact our lived experiences and the interactions we have with our students. Being an insider because of one’s race does not mute other social locations that can serve to uphold systems of oppression. People have incorrectly assumed that connecting with students of color was easy for the author because of a love of hip-hop and shared racial classification. This assumption that being a Black male gives one the ability to automatically connect with other marginalized populations is shortsighted and dismisses the complexity of the experiences of Black males. Furthermore, it undermines the process of building trust and creating safe spaces to engage in critical discussion with students. This presentation highlights the experiences and critical reflections of a Black male professor working with Black and Latino male students in an urban public high school.

Conceptual Framework
The scarcity of Black male educators in K-12 has been noted in educational research. To address the shortage, some institutions have developed initiatives to recruit and retain Black male educators (Lewis, 2006). However, Blackness is not enough to connect with marginalized youth. Similarly, a love of hip-hop is not sufficient for authentically engaging students with hip-hop culture in critical ways. In this paper, the author reflects on the complexity of navigating identities as a racial and hip-hop cultural insider while simultaneously existing as a socio-economic outsider in a hip-hop based program designed to help students gain critical perspectives of their world through hip-hop pedagogy (Akom, 2009).

Modes of Inquiry and Data
The author’s lived experiences as a Black, male, first-generation college student with a Ph.D. has shaped his research and teaching practices. For this paper, the author uses critical auto-ethnographic storytelling grounded in critical race theory to “disrupt forms of knowledge that render the author’s identity inconsequential” (Chavez, 2012, pg. 335).

Conclusions and Significance
Critical reflection is crucial to the practice of culturally relevant pedagogy (Howard, 2003). The author argues for increased critical reflexivity in hip-hop based education (HHBE). Critical reflection is not stress-free and can be painful, but it important to create educational spaces conducive to the disruption of oppressive practices. This work adds to that of scholars interested in pushing practitioners of HHBE to engage in reflexivity and an understanding of how our identity shapes the work we do as hip-hop educators.




References

Akom, A. A. (2009). Critical hip hop pedagogy as a form of liberatory praxis. Equity & Excellence in Education, 42(1), 52-66.
Chávez, M. S. (2012). Autoethnography, a chicana's methodological research tool: The role of storytelling for those who have no choice but to do critical race theory. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(2), 334-348.
Howard, T. C. (2003). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Ingredients for critical teacher reflection. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 195-202.
Lewis, C. W. (2006). African american male teachers in public schools: An examination of three urban school districts. Teachers College Record, 108(2), 224-245.

Author

• Don C. Sawyer, Quinnipiac University