Portland’s a city of great ideas. I hear this everywhere: media, friends, people in other states, professors, politicians, and sometimes even that strident voice inside my head. I still appreciate many of the civic feats that steered me here years ago. However, over the years my skepticism has grown exponentially. From ridiculous ideas like Dignity Village to civic boondoggles like the aerial tram I’ve lost faith in our process. I once saw Portland as a vibrant patch of green against the gummy grayness of most urban areas, a thriving garden consistently sprouting seeds into fruiting plants. However, upon closer inspection I began seeing the weeds. Not that I have anything against weeds. A lot of them are edible and you can even smoke some. A certain amount of them is both normal and healthy. But this garden is out of control. What we have is a jungle of idiocy.
Weeding is an essential task in gardening and, especially, in government. Thousands of potential civic projects are drawn up with our elected officials carefully choosing which projects will grow. Unfortunately, our leaders are idealistic idiots. Not that that’s a direct representation of the population or anything.
Once again, today’s Insalate di Merda, aka The Oregonian, reinforced my cynicism. One especially ridiculous item caught my eye: “Proposal for ‘hip-hop’ charter school gains support”. The idea is intriguing, especially to hip-hop lovers like myself. Why not teach kids how to rap, record, and generally succeed in life? There are several reasons why I don’t like it and I won’t like it. Here are 5 Thoughts on Hip-Hop High $chool.
- Pump up the Volume
When I first read about this idea a few weeks ago I immediately laughed at its potential acronym, HHH. Is it time for another appearance from Happy Harry Hard-on? Only this time Christian Slater stars as a teacher at Hip-Hop High School. He teaches the kids all about pirate radio and starts the electronic revolution right here in Portland-fucking-Oregon.
- Portland Public Schools are bad enough
Our schools already leave kids ill prepared for success in the global economy. Let’s not doom 200 more to an even worse fate. Studies show that learning the fundamentals of cognitive thinking becomes harder with time. Let’s not waste this essential period teaching kids about the fundamentals of rap. Even if that means giving them the inadequate education provided by Green City USA. It’s better than nothing.
- Hip-Hop isn’t an essential life skill
Life is composed of hip-hop (among other things) but not comprised by it. You can claim you live and breath hip-hop. You can claim you eat, sleep, and shit it. You can even claim you mainline it daily just to keep your blood flowing. It’s simply not true. You can’t literally eat hip-hop. It won’t shelter or clothe you. Successful hip-hop artists got there through a mixture of street and school smarts, sweat and tears, and a healthy injection of luck. Anybody want to argue that Jay-Z and Dr. Dre are bad at math?
- Is the Whitest City in America the right host?
Haven’t white people done enough to hip-hop? After Vanilla Ice, we owed it to African-Americans to stay out of hip-hop. Since then, hip-hop morphed into popular music. It spread across cultural, national, and ethnic boundaries. It’s hard to argue that hip-hop is completely black anymore. Regardless, white people aren’t logically qualified to express themselves through hip-hop. The only other hip-hop charter school is in Minneapolis, another liberal white city with a small black population. For the record, it’s not considered a success. But, the Portland school’s founders insist, this will somehow be different.
- Hip-Hop exists in a fantasy world
Hip-hop has become an expression of capitalism. Every successful artist is a sell-out. It means they literally sold their personal artistic expression to the highest bidder. Popular hip-hop is about big money, flashy style, and most importantly, that the rapper your hearing right now is indisputably the greatest rapper in the world, ever. What about underground hip-hop? Money changes people. Rappers are underground only because they don’t have the exposure or talent. Any one of these guys would take the money and run. Give him $100,000 and in two weeks you’ll have a song about how him and his crew are the shit because they ride around in nice cars and drink middle-shelf liquor while hanging out with the finest women up and down the West Coast.
Really though, this is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard. Luckily the proposal only passed through committee and is still subject to a full school board hearing on Dec. 14. Let’s hope this weed gets pulled. It’s growing fast and is becoming visible enough to attract the gardeners’ attention. Will the school board do the right thing? I say they take this weed and smoke it. It was a pipe-dream anyway.
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