Authenticity debates exist outside the realm of Hip Hop Culture and rap music.
Let me give an example from my archives:
I met with tenured Professor Guy X (or your favorite alphabet letter) back when I first started my MA. He called me into his office of books - I'm a fiend for and always salivate at a sexy library - and asked me where I saw my career heading in the next twenty years. Twenty years? Chile boo. Can I get past this first semester? Not pee a little when I look at my weekly reading schedule, who, if it could talk, would probably say "do you really want this ass whoopin'?!"
"Well, sir, I.....I hope to teach and really contribute something to the understanding of people of color," I stammered. If one my best girlfriends the superdiva pageant queen heard my response, she would just shake her head. I didn't move him at all.
"Miss Barnett, seeing that you are fairly young and inexperienced in the academe, let me stress to you the importance of not only dedicating your life to your work but also understanding how cut throat the academy can be, especially to scholars of color. You have to prepare yourself, immerse yourself..." I zoned out after that.
There go those damn moon crickets again.
I quickly scooted from his office. I barely committed myself to pursuing a graduate degree and dude was pushing for a lifetime commitment of scholastic excellence? No dinner and wooing first? Apparently not. As a first semester, 22 year old MA student, it scared me shitless how some professors expected some ingenious, carefully crafted theoretical framework to speak to the ills facing the African Diaspora. Basically what the brotha was trying to tell me was that all that "leisure" time was dead and gone. No more going to Club Pendergrass Sunday through Thursday nights, professing full out support of procrastination, and just merrily drifting through my twenties. Oh no, not you, you wanna be scholar.
That's when the panic attacks and four or five times a day phone calls home and to my future husband started. I couldn't handle being seen in a strictly academic lens. *Cue Rocky theme music* But I adjusted, I adapted, and carried on. And then, something bad happened. I went home.
My first trip back home, I felt a big disconnect from those same friends, sorors, and bruhs I was JUST clubbin' with not even six months before. How the hell do I feel like a visitor to my own city?! Just like that, I lost my pass. All I wanted to talk about was...school or some interesting theory I was tinkering with or some ideas I had floating around in my head. And I expected my folks to know where I was coming from because they knew me. That got shut down when one of my boys kindly shrugged it off and said, "Gina Mae, that ain't got shit to do with me or what's going down in life. How is that relevant?" Pow.
One of the drawbacks to being, ahem, a "schooooooluuuuuuuh" is often losing the ability to link your academic approaches to the real world. Bruh was more scholastic that day than me with his observations. And I didn't understand where he was coming from until this past January. Oh yes, it took me until my candidacy exams to realize that in order for my interests to make sense they HAD to stay relevant and current.
In my Hip Hop writing course this past spring we discussed how to situate Hip Hop into and write about it in the academy. Our textbook was Mark Anthony Neal and Murray Forman's edited anthology That's the Joint!: the Hip Hop Studies Reader (2001). We discussed articles anchored in the following questions:
1.) What makes this cat an expert in said area of Hip Hop Culture?
2.) How do they keep their research fresh and relevant?
3.) What writing approach do they use to address these themes and issues seen in Hip Hop Culture?
Our conversations often rested on the third question and their responses were fascinating. Eric Michael Dyson, for example, really "got did in" by my students because of the arduous language he uses to talk about rap music. One of my students opened the conversation with "it's a damn shame I have to pick up a dictionary to understand every other word Dyson is attempting to use." There it is.
While it's pretty apparent that Dyson's audience is majorily academic, his realm extends outside of the Ivory Tower into a lay audience of everyday folks. In my own studies, I'm always intrigued by those experts in the field who pompously speak for all, transcend all, and are superior to all. Dr. Such-and-Such writes about rap or popular culture yet you also blatantly and frequently profess you stopped listening, stopped watching, and gave up on the exact topics you claim expertise in?
Everyone has their beautiful struggle. For me, it's maintaining a sense of where I'm from with my training as a scholar. There is a constant struggle between the 'Bany girl "Gina Mae" and the doctoral candidate "Regina," with little room for the two to exchange fluidly and fluently. I am attempting to navigate a rigid space that allows for little breathing room. On top of that, you'll be damned if you breathe the wrong way. I, like many other next generation cultural and social critics, am trying to keep a choke-hold on my passion and experiences while finding a way to make what I am passionate about academic. Like an IV, the academy, popular culture, and "real life" are slowly dripping into each other and becoming inextricably linked. When will our scholastic approaches indicate this on a grand scale?
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Gina!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post so much. As I am beginning my journey into grad school this really hit home for me on what to expect in terms of how to balance academic life and real life. Being a first generation college graduate I've alreaadu experienced situations where I've attempted to discuss certain issues with people back home and it goes over their head or they are not interested in hearing it. So I feel you on that one. I am also concerned with the ideal that I have to in essence "lose" a part of myself in order to gain something academically. I want to be able to utilize my future courses that is beneficial to me as well as others. I never want to become a scholar that is so full of themselves that they have to use big words and be flamboyant just to get their point across. In the end, they are trying too hard to say something with nothing. I think that is also a source of discontent with me as well. I think too many established black scholars put on more airs than need be. But then again, they may be doing it to prove something to the mainstream academic world that they are just as trained and scholarly as them. Who knows. I just hope that there will be a time where the academic and real worlds can co-exist without opposition from the other.
Thanks for this post, Gina. I'd like to offer that there are two different conversations going on here. One is more pertinent to how you're going to get through your program. The other is how your scholarship will be relevant to you and the world around you. And for me, what is more relevant than African American Literature (your program)? I mean, really?
ReplyDeleteWhat was that dude responding to and how dare he ask how it's relevant? Well, you know what, just because you KNOW the relevance doesn't mean that you won't have to communicate it to others. I'm more curious to learn from you what was so distant, just six months later? Often times, people don't understand that literature, itself, can communicate truths far beyond our collection of facts. Would this dude understand a poetry event? Politely remind him that poetry is a form of literature---it's just not prose. Theater scripts are a form of literature. I could go on but you get my drift, yes?
Back to getting through your program...like any DISCIPLINE, it's going to take discipline to get through your program. No, you can't hang out every night; but it doesn't mean you have to give up all of your partying or socializing either. In fact, I consider it mandatory for you to make sure you do things outside of the realm of your discipline (even if it's still on campus) to keep yourself sane, focuses, stress-free and well-rounded.
One of my advisors used to wok all week, write heavily on Fridays and then get his relaxation/party on during the weekends. I have yet to match his great ethic but it's an ideal, for sure.
My only point is that just because you still love Hip Hop and you want to hang with the peeps does not preclude you from graduating, staying focused or being relevant. Don't fall for that trap because Africana Studies (which includes AA literature) was borne out of revolution and community engagement. By its very nature, your work will be relevant.
All you need to do is choose a topic, homegirl!
Excellent essay! The advice from my black-Harvard-educated-MPA a$$ is f*ck those niggers; you're growing and they ain't. They either rise to your level or you find new friends. Don't let your personal and/or intellectual growth be hindered by their ignorance or lack of desire for continued growth, learning and studying. F*ck 'em! And if you put yourself on a schedule - and adhere to it - you'll sail through grad school. Good luck!
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