Pre-class activities: Ways to gauge class knowledge and beliefs

Use the course’s learning management system to poll students anonymously before a class discussion on race and racism. Possible questions:

• What experiences do you have with discussing race in an academic setting (either at this institution, or elsewhere)?
• What experiences do you have with discussing race and racism outside of academic settings?
• What are you excited about as we prepare to discuss race and racism in class?
• What are you worried about as we prepare to discuss race and racism in class?

Use the course’s learning management system to poll students anonymously before a class discussion on Kendrick Lamar. Possible questions:

• Have you heard of Kendrick Lamar? What do you know about him and his music?
• What’s your current opinion of Kendrick Lamar and his music?
• What are you looking forward to as we prepare to discuss Lamar?
• What are you worried about as we prepare to discuss Lamar?
• Kendrick Lamar includes a lot of explicit language in his lyrics. Are you OK with hearing and seeing explicit language in his lyrics during class time, or as part of homework assignments?

Ask students to submit (anonymously or not) an informal piece of writing responding to a reading or video connected to an upcoming class discussion on race and racism.

Ask students to submit (anonymously or not) an informal piece of writing responding to a song or music video by Kendrick Lamar.

Ways to ground class discussions in evidence rather than personal opinion

Watch lectures discussing institutionalized racism (e.g., Jones 2014; ask colleagues on campus for other good sources) and discuss as a class.

Assign short readings discussing race and racism (e.g., excerpts from Tatum 1997; Blum 2002, Kajikawa 2015; ask colleagues on campus for other good sources) and discuss as a class.

Share and discuss definitions for terms such as race, racism, stereotype, the white gaze, cultural appropriation, reclaim/reclaiming, and post-racial.

Ask a representative from your campus multicultural center to give a guest lecture or workshop.

Ask a colleague in another department to give a guest lecture or workshop.

Things the instructor might say or do to create a safer and more open class environment:

“Many people in the room were worried about . . . (insert answers here)”

“I recognize that talking about ‘difficult’ subjects may be something different for you in a music class”

“This discussion may involve risk-taking on your part”

“Get comfortable with being uncomfortable: within this discussion, it’s likely that you will feel uncomfortable, that that discomfort may not be resolved”

“In class we have a variety of visible identities (gender, race, role in the classroom) and also invisible ones (sexual orientation, nationality, social class, economic status, religion, etc.).”

“Let’s try not to assume that someone is speaking for a particular group of people just because they might share a certain identity.” (e.g., “I don’t speak for all music theorists when I say that Kendrick Lamar is the greatest living composer.”)

Suggest that everyone try to speak using “I” statements to ensure that all participants speak from their own experience and take ownership of their own feelings (e.g., “I felt angry when other students said racism doesn’t exist” rather than “You’re nuts to say that racism doesn’t exist”; “As someone who’s part of the white majority, I’ve never had to identify by my race” rather than “white people don’t have to identify by their race”)

Use group guidelines to add some structure to the class discussion, either creating them together as a class (creates more ownership among students but takes more time) or creating them in advance and asking students if these seem appropriate (creates less ownership but takes less class time).

Possible activities using To Pimp A Butterfly

Discuss how the text, music, and music video for “For Free? (Interlude)” engage with ideas of institutional racism in the United States. This could take many forms: students might brainstorm in small groups before a larger class discussion; the instructor might give a lecture on one section in class and ask students to analyze another section on an assignment; the instructor might assign different groups of students to address different themes or artistic elements in the song (e.g., one group analyzes the lyrics, another group analyzes the groove, another group analyzes the music video).

With any song on the album, spend a class period discussing possible text meaning, another class period discussing musical elements, and a final class period connecting the two.

With any song on the album, ask students to write prose essays analyzing the connections between text and music.

With two songs on the album, ask students to write prose essays comparing the stance on racism taken within each song, and/or the text-music connections in each song.

Ask students to write short reflective essays before and after a unit discussing institutional racism in Lamar’s work. In the pre-class essay, students might be prompted to share their prior knowledge and understanding of race and/or Lamar’s music. In the post-class essay, students might be prompted to share what they learned in the class(es), or to write about a particular moment where they had a strong emotional reaction to what was discussed.