Love, Hip-Hop, & Edification

"You see I loved hard once, but the love wasn't returned, I found out the person I'd die for, they wasn't even concerned...but she convinced me I was worth less when my peoples would protest, I told them mind their business, cause my s*** was complex, More than just the sex I was blessed, but couldn't feel it like when I was caressed" Lauryn Hill 

 One of the black boys I work with let it be known from our one-on-one conversations that he was struggling with his English homework, this particular student was taking high school English and they were at the point in the semester where they were learning how to not only write about emotions, plots, characters, settings, and perspectives, but to identify it in literary work. Not to diminish what we are taught in these classes, but when a class population can't identify with the stories that are being taught can we actually say they are being educated, as opposed to being schooled? So I decided to put The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe aside and plug my iPod up, we listen to different songs from the likes of Tupac, Chief Keef (yes Chief Keef), Nas, and Lauryn Hill. In most instances we ask the wrong questions, instead of pondering whether they can do the work we must ask ourselves whether or not they can relate to the work. Can they find themselves or others they may know in their school lessons. 

This was a teenager from Black Omaha, he lived on the north side, he doesn't know about the emotional attachment to ravens, so how can we expect him to find himself in this type of work that was being taught. When we listened to Nas "One Love" he was able to relate to knowing someone that in the petitionary because he later revealed that his father was there, during these moments he was picking up on characters, plots, and settings, but it wasn't until Lauryn Hill was played that roles switched and I was being taught. Lauryn Hill's verse on Manifest took me back, it had me thinking of my own past situations and caricature flaws. 

 At the beginning of her verse when spoke of her hard she loved and how it wasn't returned, that bar was profound in itself. Not to discredit the rest of her verse, but that one line spoke volumes. As men before we even hit puberty we have this underlined expectation to break hearts with the seeds of misogyny, patriarchy, and sexual promiscuous expectations planted in us, we aren't taught how to deal with our hearts when they have been mishandled or the love we are expecting hasn't been returned. We then begin the process of escaping the entrapment of collapse spaces to deal with our agony and despair. 

 We now become autodidacts when it comes to teaching ourselves how to deal with hurt. We are programmed to not take the time to deal with those issues, but to carry that baggage to alternate locations or vaginas. Like Boosie so bashfully spoke, "I got my heart broke at 14, that was way way back. So all the girls after that, it was straight pay back." On the surface we as men seem to not intentionally hurt women that may come after, but our willingness to trust them is compromised. We tend to charge them to this fictitious game of social interactions in the form of relationships or like Fabolous stated, "situationships." We develop this, "pimp or die," mental complex on the surface, but internally we are still trying to mend punctured wombs, and damaged hearts. 

 We begin to go through stages of blaming ourselves and conjuring meanings of why things went astray. Maybe it was someone else, or I didn't make enough money to keep them around. Men in todays world and historically have been defined on their ability to provide security. In contemporary times that security comes in the means of finances. When we begin to internally ask these questions we like L Boogie begin to feel like we are worth less than we really are. We begin to limit our abilities and feats to these expectations and desires of people who at the end of the day may not even be worthy of the potential that we have. Since men are taught that emotions are a sign of weakness we don't know how to respond when our existence starts to be determined by gaining another woman's favor. 

 I believe after men get betrayed once it's difficult for us to trust, or even have a functional relationship where trust can be 100%. Spaces are needed where men can have these conversations without the feeling of judgment or having their manhood questioned. Pain that was planted years ago may never surface due to social norms, but the implications can manifest itself on future crops.