Importance of scholarship found in hip hop

2. Value the importance of the scholarship in hip-hop.

Share a hip-hop lyric about fatherhood. Let’s widen our knowledge base about fathers and families in black communities! Share examples of how we have been telling our story through music all along, despite stereotypes about the absentee black father.

The book, Fathering from the Margins, celebrates the significant contributions hip-hop have made to a more valid and relevant understanding of fatherhood and family in black communities. By posting a hip-hop lyric analyzing fatherhood and families in black communities, you will help us expand what we know and help fathers recognize the similarities of their experiences across time and space. Tupac Shakur often praised hip-hop and how it helped him develop his critical thinking and his feelings of belonging. “It was black music, and that’s how, you know, the rap is, you know...It’s like, you know what I’m saying, it’s like the music lets you know that another person understands.”

How does sharing hip-hop lyrics help?

Help us take back the dialogue about fathers and families in the black community. Because, real talk (clap,clap), black men and black families have been demonized both intentionally and unintentionally by academics and journalists alike. One way we can change this is by being inclusive about where we find our thinkers and what we identify as scholarship. A study published in 2017 documents the lack of racial diversity among academics who study and produce research in the social sciences. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5293198/] “This matter becomes even more important if one considers that social and behavioral scientists in different fields all study human behavior and their interactions, and all can speak to the topic of equality and fairness through different paradigms. A fair racial and gender representation of the general public in the population of BSSR [Behavioral and Social Sciences Research] scientists would ensure a better understanding of the issues underrepresented communities may face.”

Until that happens let us expand what scholarship is and where it can come from!

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Join the movement dedicated to showing the true face of black fatherhood

Despite many studies disproving the myth of black men as “deadbeat dads”, the stereotype still exists. Enough!

2. Value the importance of the scholarship in hip-hop.