John Harvard's Journal cross-registration have fallen; from the fall ies around preprofessional education. The College? The clearly preprofessional MIT of 2013 to last spring, the number of cross- risk is spelled out, too: the concentrations course “Corporate Financial Accounting”— registrations tripled, to nearly 300. with the largest numbers of cross-regis- an obviously useful bit of learning for the The rationale, explained in a handout, trants are those most professionally ori- (many) new graduates who still head off to is straightforward: to safeguard “the in- ented: economics, government, computer Wall Street or consulting. tegrity of the College’s liberal arts and sci- science, and social studies. And the most The proposal was adopted at the FAS meet- ences degree” by posting some boundar- popular option for enrollment outside the ing on December 5. vj.s.r.

THE UNDERGRADUATE Teaching Hip-Hop in China by tawanda mulalu

e flew into Hangzhou and harshly competitive. When they asked through pop culture, the Internet, and their with swampy armpits me about Harvard, I said that it is perverse- own Harvard aspirations. What they didn’t and jet-lagged eyes. Each ly exam-focused, somewhat interested in know is that it is also home to a deep and of us had our own class- students’ personal thoughts, and harshly historic black struggle and the rugged art Wroom dreamscapes, with syllabus titles like competitive.) We could teach anything we born from it. Going on a fast-forward ride “(Post)human Creativity: Art in the Digi- wanted. I was determined to teach my four through old school hip-hop to the current tal Age” and “Dances With Wolves: Animal classes, of 15 students each, at Hangzhou day, from Eric B. and Rakim to to Kanye Psychology and Human Body Language.” No. 2 High School, . West to , the class would The conceit of the Harvard Seminars for My class, “Africa, America; Hip-Hop, consider the political and cultural lessons Young Leaders in China (HSYLC) is that Poetry,” would be about black words from of these artists, and compare them to my the spirit of American liberal-arts educa- home and from here. “Home” is Botswana, students’ experiences growing up in China. tion can open up the minds of Chinese teens, but it would have been sinful to not teach One would assume, or rather one would long beaten stiff by a soul-sucking education Song of Lawino, the Ugandan epic poem whose hope, that the person teaching this semi- system. (Later, when I asked my kids about narrator fights to prove to her husband nar would be entirely at home in the fact Chinese high school, they told me that it is that their culture is just as meaningful as of his skin. I am not. I find the fact of it be- perversely exam-focused, not particularly that of their colonial oppressors. “Here” is musing. I have trouble reconciling the way interested in students’ personal thoughts, America, which the kids knew principally the world is definitionally absolute in what my blackness must mean, with the colorlessness of my writing. Hav- ing denied myself my native lan- guage, Setswana, by stubbornly gliding through the Western can- on as a teenager, I now cannot use the tones and textures of my forefa- thers’ speech. Having being denied, by virtue of being a foreigner, the same black experience as African Americans, I also cannot quite ac- cess the power of their own twists and turns of the English language. I marvel at the Pan-African poetry of some of my freedom-fighter-aspir- ing friends back home, thick with metaphors and sounds that I cannot find within my heart to try. My own attempts at it are clumsy approxi- mations of experiences that I am barely in touch with, despite hav- ing lived in the same continent in

22 January - February 2018 Photograph courtesy of Tawanda Mulalu

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal which Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart. police. “I personally haven’t experienced the was black, and one of the police officers was Meanwhile, in America, the soul and harsh- kind of life that a lot of the rappers we will black, so surely it had nothing to do with ness of its rappers move me with tales of their be studying have had to live through,” I ex- my skin? If I were sure that it did, then may- own black lives and their questioning of the plained to my students last summer, “so I’m be my own would be as angry, as white political structures that dehumanize trying to be careful when talking about their righteous, as honest as Kendrick’s...wouldn’t them. Kendrick Lamar, in the unofficial but struggles. I want us to respect their stories, it? Our words would be the same and we de facto theme song of the Black Lives Matter especially because we haven’t lived the same would be the same. In the same song, Kend- movement, “Alright,” shouts out “and we hate lives they have.” rick chants, “we gon’ be alright, we gon’ be alright” po-po, wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho.” While Then, one cold afternoon this fall after the and I go wild at every party that I hear it at teaching this song, I thought of my mother’s China trip, the Harvard Advocate building was because I am alive, I am all right, and he and I warnings to watch out for the American po- suddenly raided by a group of campus po- are still not the same; so it is easier for me to lice as I prepared to come here for college. lice officers—guns pointed toward our three believe that we, and all black people, will be The campus police don’t bother me because bodies, mine and two other students’—who alright. And now I cannot help but wonder. I am a Harvard student, so I’d never worried told us to put our hands up in the air and much about what she said. After all, the inter- our faces against the wall. The back door While teaching it, I considered my ests of the campus police lie primarily in the was broken. A back window opened clean class more of a creative-writing seminar safety of its students. A lot of black Ameri- and full. The building a drunken post-par- than a class about politics, and so I assigned cans, and thus a lot of black rappers, do not ty mess. They worried that maybe there’d poetry and rap-composition homework in- feel that their interests align with those of the been a robbery. Of the three of us, only I stead of essays. I was curious to see where this would take my kids. Given that they were Chinese and neither African nor Af- With Our Thanks rican American, could they avoid the ten- sion I felt, working as a colourless artist in It is our privilege to salute four outstanding contributors to Har- a medium of black art? Would they be able vard Magazine for their work on our readers’ behalf during 2017, and to bypass all this and just...write? I would and to confer on each a $1,000 honorarium. remind them before the end of class, snap-

Michael Zuckerman ’10, J.D. ’17—past president of the Harvard BROWN LESLIE ping my fingers, “One. Two. Three. Four. Law Review, now clerking for a federal judge in Ohio—combines ana- Michael One. Two. Three. Four. Never forget the lytical rigor with unusually fluid prose. We were fortunate to publish Zuckerman rhythm when you’re rapping and writing “Criminal Injustice” (September-October), his penetrating feature on public-interest down your lyrics. Always keep to the beat.” lawyer Alec Karakatsanis, J.D. ’08, and are proud to award him the McCord Writing This is good advice for any rapper. It is also Prize, honoring David T.W. McCord ’21, A.M. ’22, L.H.D. ’56, and his advice that I rarely follow. With my own rap- legendary prose and verse, composed for these pages and the Harvard ping, I feel as if I’m simply mouthing abstract College Fund. We recognized Zuckerman previously, with the Smith- whispers that occasionally match a beat. It is Weld Prize for 2014—a testament to his broad, deep strengths. difficult for me to follow the rhythm. All the Richard D. Kahlenberg ’85, J.D. ’89, a senior fellow at The Century longs and shorts confuse me and my mouth Foundation, is recognized nationwide for comprehensive analyses of gets filled with things I can’t understand,

COURTESY OF RICHARD KAHLENBERG D. affirmative action, admissions, and equity in higher education. “Har- cannot taste properly. My sense of rhythm Richard D. vard’s Class Gap” (May-June) combined that expertise with personal feels so separate from the flow of my words Kahlenberg insight in a feature strongly grounded in the University today. We that composing just four lines of rap can take honor his article with the Smith-Weld Prize (in memory of A. Calvert Smith ’14, a more than an hour. I fumble. I scratch out former secretary to the governing boards and executive assistant to failed verses in heavy black ink. I lisp. And President James Bryant Conant, and of Philip S. Weld ’36, a former I do not know how to engage the colorless- president of the magazine), which highlights thought-provoking writ- ness of my black experience with the crisp, ing about Harvard. dark textures of the great African poets and Davide Bonazzi provided exceptionally thoughtful, engaging illustra- American rappers. Yet I still tried to rap and tions to accompany “The Watchers” (January-February), a feature I still tried to teach rap. It was the closest I

on threats to privacy in the digital era—an unusually challenging as- COURTESY OF BONAZZI DAVIDE felt I was going to get to understanding the signment that required making tangible the abstract, Davide puzzle of my blackness. I loved my students, virtual concepts being reported. And the portfolio of Bonazzi their confusions and their enthusiasms. The images of refugees, featured in “In Flight” (January- lessons continued, and so did the teaching. February)—a sampling of the work of Warsaw-based documentary The final exam was an in-class perfor- photographer Maciek Nabrdalik, then resident as a Nieman Founda- mance of a piece of each student’s own cre- tion fellow—remains a haunting record of a continuing humanitarian ation. One shy girl who barely said a word tragedy. It is a special pleasure to work with such expert, consummate during class suddenly rapped aggressively WOJCIECH GRZEDZINSKI Maciek professionals, and to recognize their extraordinary craftsmanship. to a very bass-heavy trap beat. One boy who Nabrdalik vThe Editors had been the only one tapping his feet to the music I played performed a set of vers-

24 January - February 2018

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 es that might as well get a professional re- Three. Four. One of the other seminar lead- impressed by my kids’ work. But I remained lease. Some of the kids stumbled over their ers started beat-boxing while we continued as confused about black words as ever, and rhythm; some decided not to bother with walking, and I joined him with my rapping. now that I am back at Harvard, my thoughts following a rhythm at all. I was indiscrimi- My students began to record a video and about this aren’t much clearer. I have tem- nately amazed by each of them, regardless of we drew a small crowd. We kept walking porarily suspended actual lyric-writing in a the quality of their writing. A bunch of Chi- and rapping, dancing, splaying black words small effort to get my academic life together, nese students with absolutely no rap experi- all over this place far from where they were though I still skip from one part of the Yard ence, with second-language English ability, born. A few days later, I watched that video to another, muttering freestyles to myself, absolutely killed it. In return, I showed them again and again as Hangzhou grew smaller between classes. If not too many people a little bit of my own rapping. Depending on by each second through the airplane win- are around, the words become audible and the individual class group, I did either a long- dow. I was confused by my pixellated self, I jump a little and wave my hands between form freestyle—letting the words rush out sailing through Hangzhou’s streets with the beats. I still do not have the rhythm per- of the top of my head, never really knowing a cool, lyrical breeziness. It didn’t feel like fectly together. I am still out of step. I am where the syllables would take me, but go- me—no, not exactly. still confused about my skin. I still speak ing on nevertheless—or I performed some The description for my class read, “Words these black words. pre-written songs with beats produced by define who we are. The better we are able a friend, another Harvard student. Normally to use them, the better we are able to un- Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow my favorite to perform is “Poet, Prophet,” a derstand ourselves, each other, and even the Tawanda Mulalu ’20 expects to fly back to Hang- nerdy little romp through metaphysics and world around us.” By the end, I was deeply zhou this summer.. literary spiritualism: Listen to the glimmers of the solar system Simmering murmurings stretching ’cross the uni- verse, this is my vision SPORTS As a poet as a prophet with the lyrics, man I copped it Caught a wave, detected it, and to this beat I drop it During the very last class, though, I opted for “Trippin’,” the closest I’ve gotten so far to Not Our Year an explicit expression of my blackness. Typi- cally, right before the big beat drop I punch a black power first in the air and roar, “YOUNG A humbling defeat in The Game caps BLACK BROTHER FROM THE MOTHERLAND.” Harvard’s dreariest season in 17 years. I feel as if I perform another self when I rap, especially when I perform “Trippin.’” This rap persona is meant to be unabashed in the joy n the middle of the second quar- scooped up on the 19 by the Elis’ Malcolm and experience of his skin, intimate with the ter of the 134th playing of The Game, Dixon, who ran unimpeded into the end longs and shorts of the beats, and able to jump heavily favored Yale had just forged zone. When Alex Galland booted the ex- across the stage in wild freedom, entirely him- ahead of Harvard 7-3 on a nine-yard tra point, Yale led 14-3. The two touchdowns self. But I am not much of a performer. I am Itouchdown pass from always reminded—through a slither of light quarterback Kurt Rawl- or camera flash from the top of a balcony, a ings to wideout JP Shohfi. lyric that doesn’t quite fit comfortably in my Now freshman Crimson mouth, young black brother from the motherland— quarterback Jake Smith that I am playing at something that I don’t was looking to get those understand. Still, after each performance my points back. On second students clapped for me, impressed by my down and 17 from the play at black brazenness. Harvard 16, Smith ran an After the program ended, the Harvard option play to the left. Af- Seminar leaders and the Chinese teaching ter gaining a few yards, he fellows who’d helped us went on a little tried to pitch the ball to field trip through Hangzhou. We went to freshman halfback Aaron the famous market in Hefang Street and Shampklin—but threw happened upon some of our students. We it behind him. The ball walked around, bought green-tea ice creams bounded free and was and other treats. Then we heard a steady thump of large men pounding rice into mo- He’s gone! Against chi, heaving a huge wooden pestle back and Lafayette, junior Justice Shelton-Mosley scored forth between them while singing with deep on an 85-yard punt voices. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. return.

Photographs by Tim O’Meara/The Harvard Crimson Harvard Magazine 25

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746