under dressed — or “you must learrrnn”
Do you ever have those dreams where you miss the bus, or late for class, or have you been to an event where you feel underdressed (we did about a year and a half ago, when i learned the real meaning of “black tie optional”)
I got to the school to set up my equipment, and saw parents bringing in all sorts of food (i figured that much) and flags (enh sorta), and displays about their home countries, with maps and writeups, and outfits (not even anticipated–it’s a *kindergarten* multicultural night! the outfits i’ll give ‘em though–easy to understand)
Well we had the “African-American” table, and i didn’t have jack, but some stereo equpment. We didn’t have jack. This made me think about what we do and don’t have around the house. We run a pretty “race-neutral” house. You can go on for days trying to debate whether its good or bad, but we just don’t do much history teaching either way (although we did recently sit down to (re)watch the “eyes on the prize” series in february, and tried as much as a parent could to a 5 and 3 year old, explain what was going on). I think Joy & I have subconsciously both made a decision that our focus is to make sure the kids know what it means to just live, follow Jesus, make mistakes, get up, and continue to live. I’ve realized how much of my (i.e. jon madison’s) “culture” is more rooted in Jesus, hip hop, and my family, than in my skin color. I guess the residual of being so in tune with hip hop culture is that through it, I learned a lot about black history, and even scripture. I grew up on PE and KRS-ONE, Native Tongues, Zulu Nation. For example, it was KRS-ONE who even got me interested in trying to find out who Garret Morgan was! It was early in my following of Christ that i was introduced to SFC/Super C/Soup the Chemist who was one of the first good “christian rappers”. Chris used to always throw scriptures up in his raps (actually he still does when you listen closely :), and got me looking them up like a Berean.
Not that i don’t enjoy learning about other cultures, or even my own–human anything is always so interesting to me. I just realized last evening how unimportant it has been in relation to our kids. Aight enough with the self-analysis.
What i regret the most about last night is that i didn’t spend some time figuring out what to do. i would have really loved to help explain the history of hip hop to the kids there, as well as give a demonstration. Jaylie, I’m sorry that I played the role of uninformed uninvolved
I was asked to come back next year however for the 5th & 6th grade music class. that will absolutely be a blast. i really appreciate the music teacher understanding music. ;)
big ups to john for the cracking photo.