A note about an Aequitas Week workshop for your student

[Neil Basu]

Hello parents and guardians,

The ASL Social Justice Council along with the high school faculty and
student body have devoted a week of each of the past four years to engage
with the themes of equity and justice in our world. Through keynote
speakers at assemblies and interactive workshops, every student in the high
school is engaging in this Aequitas Week to learn more about how they can
be a part of creating a more equitable and just world. For this year’s
Aequitas Week, together with ASL Senior Ryan Lazar, I will be presenting a
workshop on hip-hop music as a mode of social activism. Your student has
signed up for and been placed into our workshop for either this Thursday or
Friday.

The two of us have carefully constructed a workshop that engages with very
relevant and deep themes that reveal how some rappers have used their
musical platforms to engage with social justice issues over the past 40
years. The topics we will be discussing are powerful and significant, and
we are so excited to see what your student will bring to our discussions
and analyses.

The reason I am writing to you is to be proactive about an aspect of some
hip-hop music that has caused controversy over the years, about which we
are quite cognizant. Aggressive language and language that is generally
considered to be inappropriate for a school setting is sometimes used in
rap music to communicate the difficulties that some members of the rap
genre have encountered. We will help students see the reason for the use of
language and the power that rests within those words. At the same time,
using radio-friendly tracks or printing redacted lyrics would dilute the
aforementioned sentiment of anger, frustration, and disempowerment that
some rap music embodies. We are confident that the maturity of your
children and the way we are presenting and handling the issues within the
music will not allow this language to override the social justice messages
that they contain.

I want you to know that as an educator this is a topic which I understand
can be troubling and on which I see the varied opinions. I have consulted
with Devan, our HS principal, and other colleagues to work through the
educational decisions that Ryan and I have made in curating our music for
the workshop.

Thanks so much, and I hope that you have some great discussions with your
kids later this week about their experiences and learnings. I also hope
that it allows you to have conversations about the music they listen to
now, given more context about the historical and social power that it has
had. Please email me with any thoughts, questions, or concerns you may
have.

Take care,

Neil Basu

Mathematics Teacher and Social Justice Council Faculty Sponsor

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