by Tyson Amir
Yo Shorty, you don't even gotta go to summer school
Pick up the Wu-Tang double CD
And you'll get all the education you need this year
You know what I mean”
To a certain degree the RZA was right. I wouldn't recommend that a parent or a teacher allow a student to listen to hip-hop albums and think that will educate them enough to achieve a high school diploma and go onto higher education, but there was value, knowledge, and wisdom in much of what some artists put out at that time. There was a raw commentary that inspired thought and encouraged critique of your surroundings. That type of knowledge and wisdom was nowhere to be found in classrooms. There were many times when something I heard in a verse made me more interested in learning about the subject once it was brought up in class. This is why I say those teachings were very valuable. One particular song was better than any history lesson I ever had in a classroom setting. Ras Kass' “Nature of the Threat.” What that man did with that song in my opinion is unparalleled. He was able to condense more than 2,000 years of history into an eight-minute song. Complete with analysis and Cress Welsing race theory, and much of what was said is historically and contextually accurate. It is written from a specific point of view, which colors the interpretation of the historical facts, but overall the piece is an exceptional work. I can't recall how many times I've been in a social science lecture when I heard something that triggered a memory from a line from Ras Kass' song.
If it wasn't for these nontraditional educational experiences, I really do not know what would've been my fate as a student. I learned to think and reason outside of school. I had pride in myself and my people due to courses I took outside of school. I had mastered what was my hardest academic challenge, mathematics, up to that time with hard work and dedication through the Jose Valdes Math Institute. And little by little, my favorite rappers kept dropping jewels on me that helped broaden my understanding of the world. As rap grew in influence and scope, so did my perspective with the music I was listening to. By the time I entered my ninth-grade year, I had confidence in my learning ability because I knew that if I focused enough, I could learn anything I put my mind to. I do not want to claim that my learning experience was an exception, but many students did not have the same extracurricular academic experiences I had. When I look at the students who I teach in my courses, most of them have never in their lives experienced anything remotely similar to what I went through. They learned primarily from school and whatever was around them. One of the first things that I try to do as a teacher is help them develop confidence in their ability to learn. I think this is one of the most important concepts when trying to teach. Your students have to feel affirmed in their own cognitive ability to be successful in acquiring knowledge; you can be the most gifted teacher on the planet, but if your students do not feel confident in their ability to learn they will still experience difficulty in acquiring the information. Once that is established, there really isn't any task that your student will not be able to complete because they understand that with time, patience, and hard work, they will eventually be able to master the concept, and they trust you enough to be their guide as they work through the subject matter.
Origin of ‘The Rose’
I hate jail. I hate prison. I hate what it can do to men and women, to girls and boys. The concept of the institution is to completely strip away all humanity and dignity. A person is referred to as a prisoner or inmate. They are issued a number for identification purposes and given a common uniform to prevent uniqueness. Those are just a few of the signs of the dehumanization process men and women experience inside those walls. I seriously despise the entire institution of locking up human beings. The philosophy is socially immature and even more backwards when it is paired with a system of racism and widespread institutional discrimination for monetary gain. Jails and prisons in America have literally destroyed generations of people. Walking in and out of jails and prisons as an educator for years has its impact. Inmate, Officer/Deputy/CO, or civilian staff, it doesn't matter what your role is; all are affected by their time in those places.
You become saturated in the funk and stench of incarceration. It encroaches on every part of who you are. It's a dark and cold place that wields the hellish power of breaking a man or a woman down. You're locked up, in some instances without access to any piece of the outside world. No sunlight, no sky, no breathing in fresh air for days. Your entire existence takes place in an artificially scheduled world. Completely isolated from everything and everyone. If you're a parent, your children are hopefully being cared for by others, and if not, then they are constant worries in your heart and mind. You're most likely stressing out about your case or simply trying to do your time. There are so many things out of your control that stress you out because you wish you had some say in what the world was dictating to you. It's an experience that leaves you utterly helpless, and, as a result, some become hopeless. Some are able to adjust to "doing their time." They might create a program, routine, or regimen for themselves. Everyone who is in those facilities has to figure a way to survive it. What works for one might not work for the next. Some folks who work in those environments find outlets in addictive behaviors or extreme sport activities. Folks who live on the inside design multiple ways of coping with being locked up. Drugs, relationships, programming, fighting, working out, learning to be a better criminal, reading, writing, games, religion, clean living, prayer, or memorizing the program, schedule, and habits of those who work in the jail.
My school has become one of the ways that incarcerated men and women do their time. The educational programs are compulsory for all folks without a high school diploma. I don't agree with this policy at all. I understand where it comes from, but I don't think the best way to build an educational environment in a setting where every action is controlled by someone else is to tell people they have to go to school or face some punitive consequence. The very idea of the power and application of education is freedom, but folks are being forced to go to class. I think jail and prison environments would have a much greater impact on their population if they incentivized education. Grant folks a reduced sentence for achieving academic goals or some other perk that would inspire men and women to see education in a new light. That's my aside; now when folks go to class many become focused on lessons and learning, and in the process notice how quickly their time passes. This is the goal of almost all folks locked up. They want time to pass as fast as possible and get out. So anything that helps with making it seem as if time is passing more quickly is coveted.
I get men and women who come to my class ready to learn and or be entertained for a few hours. Some folks really begin to realize how important it is for them to educate themselves, I do my best to impress upon them the value of education. I don't sell wolf tickets though; I know and I tell them that becoming "educated' will not solve all of their problems. That is not the way our world works. There are many other steps to take, but becoming empowered through education is one of the steps that must be accomplished in order to move forward.
If you want to control a people, you keep them ignorant. A mind that does not receive the proper intellectual stimulation to grow and develop is a tool in the hands of those who seek to control and wield power. It is imperative that you educate yourself to become your own master; if you don't, then someone else will assume the position of your master. I also try to appeal to the men and women I have who are parents to empower themselves with education, so they can be there for their children to help them whenever they need help, at the very least to be an example of acquiring education and applying it to break the cycle of death and destruction that many of us are confined to. And, as we pointed out earlier, most of their children will be going to schools that are ill-equipped for providing them a solid academic foundation.
I realize that every time I step in my classroom that so much is at stake. I'm not responsible for the personal decisions that my students make, but I feel responsibl
e for doing all that I can to deliver quality instruction and speak to them straight about the world that they live in. I owe that because that is part of my calling as a man. I was raised to do your part when it is your turn. I do receive a paycheck for my labor, but my connection to the work is bigger than my salary. I also have to keep a careful balance between responsibility and savior. It is easy to lose focus on the mission if you get the savior thing wrong. I cannot help save anyone, but I can support someone who is working on changing. It would be false for me to put that on my shoulders. However, I am driven and committed to helping my people to the extent my responsibility will allow by any means necessary. In those hours that I have my students, my means is education and whatever example I can give them to show that we are at war with ignorance and a discriminatory society. I try to demonstrate the knowledge that we can win enough battles in the fight to eventually win the war. The first battle that we must win is mastering our minds, souls, and bodies through education.
That's exactly what I tried to place at the heart of “The Rose.” It's about my people, my students, these men and women who so often are fragmented, extra delicate but have the toughest exteriors. External edifices cast in steel and bronze. On some Mac Dre, too hard for the radio. I know the secrets to their hardness. I've had to master it too. Once they recognize I know the language of protecting self through an impenetrable exterior, I am able to get them to take off their masks. This allows me to know them in moments when they let that guard down and reveal some of what the world has made them cover up with various facades. That's who I teach, and that's who I was attempting to remind was “The Rose” that Tupac Shakur spoke of. We are that rose. We are that thing that in the face of the most outrageous circumstances; we can still produce some of the most amazing beauty the world has seen. We are tough and thorny but our beauty is like nothing the eye has framed before.
I've never had a major fanboy connection with Tupac. His work that was "conscious" always caught my ear and really spoke to me. I wasn't able to fully embrace Pac because I didn't understand how a man who could make conscious material could turn around and make songs that celebrated thug life and denigrated women. I was young then. I was judgmental in my youth. I didn't fully recognize that Pac was killed when he was twenty-five; he was a young man who was afforded this incredible platform and had all this knowledge in him, but was still trying to find the wisdom in how he walked and applied it. He was searching for the balance between the fire in his heart, his gut, and the wisdom in his soul and mind. His heart and mind were for his people. While at times his gut had him acting a fool in the street. As history would have it, we didn't get a chance to see him mature and grow. Yet his work is still powerful and lives on. I wanted to channel some of Pac's genius in this piece for my students.
When I write, I first write for myself. My art is my way of coping with what I experience in this world. I rarely write for others. This poem was a complete opposite of that because I was writing for my students. I wanted them to see themselves for who they are. I also wanted to show them how amazing they appear in my eyes because they are able to overcome and survive some of the worst of what we have to go through on a daily basis because of the color of our skins and the reality of our birth.
The commencement celebration is the biggest event in our school year. We have one in January and one in June. I was asked by some of my supervisors to give an address at the event. I personally am not a fan of speeches. I prefer actions to words. I expressed my desire to do something else aside from speak, and we compromised on me reciting a poem. My school is aware of my music and poetry, and they were receptive to the idea of me writing and reciting something. I told them I would draft something new for the students and recite it at the event.
I don't like restrictions around my creative flow. Deadlines are helpful, but I'm more driven by the inspiration. That is the source of it all. This piece was a challenge for me because I struggled to find my creative spark to start building. I do not write with concepts in mind. I have some friends who are creatives, and I marvel at how they can have an idea of what they want to do before they put proverbial pen to paper and then set out to create what's in their minds. My creative process is more in line with old school jazz musicians because I feed off of improvisation. I improv until I find what the music is revealing to me. That's why I prefer to work with music, but poetry is always different because for me it's creating on a blank canvas. Writing music allows me to develop a relationship with the musical composition I'm listening to, and then I write as an accompanying instrument. I try to find what the music is missing and provide that vocally. Poetry is the opposite of that to me because the blank page is an empty space. There is nothing to spark the inspiration. When the inspiration strikes, it takes hold of the paper for me, and I become more like a sculptor with a slab of stone chiseling away the excess and revealing the potential underneath.
I knew I wanted this to be about my students; that was the goal that I wanted the stone slab to look like once I chiseled away everything else. I wanted them to see themselves; I wanted them to hear who they are. I wanted to inspire them and remind them of the lessons that we discussed in class about self-worth, value, and the beauty they carry. I wanted them to see that and also to know that any change in their lives will have to start with them. The system is not going to do it for you, and neither will anybody else. It didn't matter that hundreds of folks would be in attendance. Local public and political dignitaries as well as news media would be present taking in the proceedings. There could've been thousands present, but the conversation I was forming was to be said in a sacred space just for them.
The essence of the piece is the beauty we possess in the face of the ugliness that has been forced around us. It is the power that we have and how strong we can truly be when we know how to cultivate our skills and resources and use them properly. It is the unfair battle that we must wage in order to survive. We have to fight it, and our children will have to fight it. We cannot depend on them or the system; we have to find ways to bloom and blossom for our sake and the sake of our progeny. No wolf tickets ever; it is saying this is not easy; there is no shortcut way around it. We have to scrape and scrap every day to make it through. But it is possible to win some battles. It was also intended for them to see that I too am a soldier, and I fight the good fight with them. And I'm ready to support my fellow brothers and sisters in arms whenever they are ready to fight on.
For many of us this system does not teach us to dream of being free. To imagine that we can be other than what is already around us. We attend schools which are staffed with teachers that have no clue how to teach black and brown kids let alone teach black and brown kids to be free and liberated. Schools in many ways prepare young black and brown kids for lives of alienation and imprisonment. For too many of us the only way to discover our true power and a sense of freedom is through what we learn on our own.
Learning to be free is essential but equally important is learning to believe in yourself. "The Rose" speaks to this as well. The world that my students and I live in did not and will not teach us to have a sense of self that is positive. The messages we receive about who we are are constantly filled with pejoratives. If we were to believe what our society says we are, we would kill ourselves because we do not fit in and will never belong. So many illustrious minds have spoken to this very reality and a summation of their statements is the fact that we are totally dependent upon our oppressors for everything that we feel we need in our society. That includes educational institutions. We are "educated" in schools created by our former enslavers and now their offspring. What type of education do you think you'll receive at the hands of those who have been exploiting our existence since our arrival. We are not taught vital pieces of information we need for our own worth in our schools. A sense of love for self has to be cultivated somewhere else. We have to construct the institutions that do that. That's the secret of the rose. The rose is a beautiful flower because the r
ose knows itself. And Pac's rose grew from concrete. It grew where it wasn't supposed to grow. We have to do this every day because we've been marooned in urban America where things are not supposed to grow. We were sent here to die. This is why we are forced to develop nurseries in the most inhospitable conditions possible. Out of necessity, we become master gardeners who pioneer new techniques for sowing and growing.
In this space we can witness the fertilizer for "The Rose." Books symbolize knowledge, and knowledge symbolizes growth. Staying with the metaphor of the rose, the blooming process symbolizes the application of that knowledge for self and community betterment. There are many ways for us to learn in the modern world, which is a blessing. Information is plentiful and widely available if we know where to look and how to access it. For many of us, we are swimming in information; however there are numerous folks who are still digitally divided and unable to access much of what is out there. That's one major barrier, the simple reality that not everyone has equal access to information.
Another barrier is the fact that some of us belong to cultures that do not put much worth or value on acquiring knowledge. The devaluing of education is a response to the inadequate educational resources provided to black folks. As a result, my generation has created its own mantras to help reinforce this idea. We say things like, “Mind on my money and money on my mind.” Or another popular mantra M.O.B., which means “Money over bitches.” And probably one of the most iconic of all the mantras C.R.E.A.M., “Cash rules everything around me.” I can go on. I'm not one for censorship; I think people need to be able to tell their stories, but the problem of an oppressed people who sing songs and create mantras to justify their self-destruction is multiplied by the force of the oppression they are constantly under. What these mantras reflect is an overvaluation of money and a devaluation of knowledge, knowledge of self, and self-development.
