Liberation through Literacy: A Critical Ethnography of Black Youth Poetics Through Hip-Hop Based Education

• In Event: Rhythms of Resistance: Black Aesthetics, Sensorial Literacies, and the Architecture of Educational Liberation

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: The purpose of this research is to explore the significance of spoken word poetry in out-of-school literary spaces as a means of transformation for Black youth in predominantly white suburban areas. It’s intended to inform educational researchers, expand the scholarship on where Hip-Hop Based Education is applicable, and urge youth workers to consider more opportunities for spoken word outside of the classroom as an authentic method of social justice pedagogy.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: Due to the geographic limitations of suburbia as it pertains to Black diasporic presence (Massey and Denton, 1988), there is a lack of commitment to develop and sustain culturally authentic programs that provide students of color with creative literary spaces within and beyond the classroom. This deprioritization of Black lives and literacies position their experiences as marginal, which brings me to the focus of my research. Within the New eEngland town of Maroon (pseudonym), which is 76% white, there is a population of Black students I have been working with for 4 years that are interested in exploring spoken word poetry spaces, of which do not exist in the same capacity as youth programs in major urban areas. This lack of accessibility to engage in spoken word and Hip-Hop Based Education (HHBE) (Keith, 2023) experiential learning is stifling to the holistic development of adolescents who are seeking outlets of creative expression beyond what their classroom spaces can offer (Kinloch, Burkhard, & Penn, 2017). Youth spoken word scholars discuss the artform as liberatory and a vehicle for critical pedagogy (Kesselring, 2016), thereby providing Black students with expansive mediums to perceive and discuss world issues. I posit that the transformative impact of culturally relevant out-of-school literary spaces are pivotal to the sociocultural experiences and sociopolitical identities of Black youth who live and attend schools in predominantly white suburban areas. This study focuses on the counter-storytelling tenet of Critical Race Theory.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: This critical ethnography observes the trajectory experiences of Black youth between the ages of 17-21 who collectively participated in a high school poetry club through utilizing group observations, semi-structured interviews, and poems as artifacts with a Critical Poetic Inquiry method of analysis.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: The preliminary themes that emerged from an analysis of the pilot data explicate the relevance of spoken word poetry as a vehicle to affirm cultural identity amidst being subject to white gaze, to critique oppressive power structures, and display advocacy for liberatory values. These themes suggest that Black adolescents in suburban areas would benefit from poetic out-of-school literacies as a means to build community, feel empowered, and be social justice oriented thought leaders.

Scientific or scholarly significance: This study offers insight to youth workers, arts-based researchers, ELA teachers, and Hip-Hop educators on the experiences of Black youth in predominately white settings who gain access to poetry beyond the classroom as a vehicle for personal development, critical consciousness and counterstorytelling.

Author

• Imani J. Wallace, University of Massachusetts - Amherst