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June 2016 | Volume 58 | Number 6
Sarah McKibben
Hip-hop culture is woven into every facet of society. We hear it on the radio. We see it on TV; in film, fashion, and art museums; and on buildings and train cars. Hip-hop is youth culture. So why is it not in every classroom?
When teaching Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Brian Mooney found striking parallels to Kendrick Lamar's Billboard-topping album To Pimp a Butterfly. He saw a "pedagogical opportunity" to help his freshmen understand the intersections of racism, beauty standards, and internalized oppression woven throughout both texts.
It made sense: they knew Lamar's music, and Mooney knew Morrison's novel. "To be a culturally engaged teacher means you have to listen to students and value what they're into," he acknowledges.
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