Why Jason Lewis is Wrong About Hip Hop Arts Programs in Schools

On May 2, KTLK-FM’s Jason Lewis launched an attack against local hip hop artist and activist Tou Saiko Lee of Delicious Venom and PosNoSys. Lewis claimed that Lee’s work with sixth graders at Lake Junior High, which included helping them write collaborative poems about their homerooms and performing at a single school assembly, somehow represented a sinister threat to the supremacy of Western thought and culture, and that teachers wanted to replace all math and science classes with hip hop tutorials.

“And this is the PTA,” Lewis states. “Along with the school district in South Washington County: to hell with Shakespeare, to hell with Tennyson, to hell with science and math; we’re going to teach our sixth graders how to be hip hop emcees.”

“I was teaching about self expression, self esteem, creative writing and Hmong history and culture,” Lee tells me a few days after listening Lewis’ show. “I don’t teach students to become hip hop emcees; I just expose them to hip hop music as a medium to speak through. I teach about the craft, history and culture of hip hop.”

Lee, who was recently profiled in the New York Times Magazine for his work around hip hop and Hmong culture, continues: “I feel that hip hop emcees are modern day poets, and that studying them can open doors to having more interest in learning about the classics such as Shakespeare, Robert Frost and so on. It did for me. We learn about these poets in high school anyways.”

Perhaps the scarier thing for people like Lewis, however, is that on top of pulling a few sixth graders out of class for an hour to talk about culture, the school pulled a few sixth graders out of class for an hour to talk about the wrong culture.

“We are a Western nation,” Lewis says. “We are not a nation of other cultures, we are a nation of our culture… Culture, by definition, enforces. If we all have common agreement on a culture, on a language, on a history, then that…convinces people, moves them in the right direction.”

Lee wonders what that the right direction means: “When I was growing up as a Hmong-American kid, there were always comments towards me such as—go back to where you came from” and ‘why are you in this country anyways?’ I feel it is important for people to learn about our culture as well as other cultures so there won’t be this type of judgment and hatred toward each other.”

But a world without judgment and hatred would put Jason Lewis out of work.

“And make certain that we teach everyone the Hmong culture, because there’s a large Hmong population in St. Paul and we have to bend over to them—they don’t have to assimilate to us,” Lewis sarcastically jokes before getting serious: “You know, it might be a good idea to teach Western culture before we start going into all of the other cultures. Might be a good idea for our friends in the Hmong community, and the Somali community, and any other community, to learn our culture. Let’s have an assembly and a week long fine arts program teaching them Shakespeare.”

Look at that: a perfect storm of cultural ignorance, outdated conservative views on education, blindness to privilege and good ol’ fashioned racism.

“I remember learning about Western culture every day when I was in school,” Lee responds. “Mr. Lewis felt that one week of learning about another culture was too much?”

If American schools are failing, it’s not because we’re trading history classes for diversity forums – we’re not. It’s not because people like Lee, Tish Jones, Truthmaze, myself or any other artist who works in the schools have excessive influence – we have to fight and claw for every gig we get. And it’s certainly not because Western culture isn’t given enough emphasis in the classroom. To somehow suggest that Shakespeare is taking a backseat to 2pac in our public schools is, even for conservative talk radio, laughably ridiculous, unfounded fear-mongering.

No, Mr. Lewis is fighting a straw man; no one is ever going to suggest that we replace math and science (or Ethan Frome, for that matter) with hip hop. When these programs happen, they’re generally either optional after-school programs, one-time in-school events or short residencies that coincide with a specific English or social studies unit.

And I would argue that we need more of them – whether it’s Sha Cage of the Minnesota Spoken-Word Association teaching eighth-graders how to muster up the courage to perform their poetry in front of others, Big Quarters running music production workshops through the Beacons program or Tou Saiko Lee talking about Hmong history through the language of hip hop. These programs take a minimal investment and turn it into potentially life-changing experiences for kids.

“The students learn to express themselves honestly, to think of their dreams for the future and interests in life,” Lee says. “Students learn to have self-esteem, communication skills, media literacy skills and public speaking skills through performance activities.”

Perhaps most importantly, arts programs, and specifically hip hop and spoken-word arts programs, are one of the few things I’ve seen students actually get excited about in school. When they engage with these artists and this art, they learn more about themselves, they increase their self-esteem and they have fun. When curriculum isn’t relevant, when school seems like an oppressive place where they’re forced to memorize random facts, when dropout rates are staggeringly high – arts programs are a pathway back to caring again.

Yes, our schools are in trouble. But people like Tou Saiko Lee are part of the solution, not the problem. Programs like his are stepping stones toward making our children healthier, happier and more aware of both themselves and the world around them.

“Every generation has its own music that speaks to the youth,” Lee says. “For this generation, hip hop is what youth can relate to; if we can get them to think of it as empowering and positive for their lives, we are encouraging them to embrace and respect music. There is music that is hated on in every generation because close-minded people do not understand it. Hip hop was created here in America and is a part of its history.”

My philosophy is that success is the best revenge. The purpose of responding to Lewis’ remarks here is not to convince Jason Lewis himself that diversity is wonderful or that hip hop is beautiful music; it’s to let everyone else out there know that there are some amazing people in the Twin Cities putting on effective, engaging arts education programs. If you are a teacher, administrator, parent or student and you’d like to bring Lee to your school, check out his website. Also, check out Community Programs in the Arts (COMPAS), one of the organizations that sends Lee into schools.

The Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT) also hosts a radio show on KFAI every Monday at 8:30pm. On their most recent program, they addressed these issues; listen to the archived program here.