The teacher asks: "How do you respond to people that understand the roots of rap and they say to you 'you disrespecting the culture?", followed by some arguments about feminism not being the same for white women and black women, followed by the kids in the class echoing similar racial tones.
Here's what I understood: This teacher is saying "rapping is for blacks only, and whites doing it are disrespecting and they shouldn't". Using the "some people might say" phrase to express her own opinion. To which I reply, some people may say that this teacher is caught up in her own reverse racism, taking offense to anything white people do which comes near her own "blacks only culture boundaries". The girl explicitly says she doesn't want to be in this race discussion, and the class and teacher kept pulling her into it. Now knowing this is going on national television, who the heck would want to take the chance of being painted through editing as being a white racist for the crime of being white and rapping?!
The next clip shows exactly that, she doesn't want to move forward, she wants to quit and quit now before it's too late and she becomes a national discussion, which by the end of this week, this poor girl just might be.
Finally, I didn't watch the episode, but people who have watched it and commented on annarbor.com say there's more to it and bad turns into worse. The student was brought to tears, there was an environment of bullying, when all the poor girl wanted to do was share her experience of being bullied. OH, THE IRONY!
Pioneer High School student confronts racial issues while learning to be a rapper on MTV's 'Made'
Pioneer High School student Emma Hamstra went on MTV’s show Made to learn how to become a rapper, but the reality show also documents what the teen calls an attack by students and a teacher during a discussion that turned to race.
The episode will air at 4 p.m. today.
The show follows Hamstra - a college-bound field hockey player, poet and feminist - as she becomes a rapper performing her own song on a stage in front of a crowd of about 2,000 people.
A clip from the episode posted on MTV’s website shows Hamstra, 17, speaking to teacher Vicki Shields’ African American humanities class at Pioneer about wanting to become a rapper and being confronted by the teacher and students.
She'd been invited to the class by Shields to discuss why Hamstra - a white teen - wanted to rap.
In a promotional clip for the show, Shields tells Emma Hamstra she can’t understand the issues of African Americans.
Hamstra said the discussion escalated into a conversation about the role of race in rapping and whether Hamstra had a right to express herself through it. She's also wondering how the entire experience will be portrayed on the show.
“I felt like there was a mob mentality in the classroom,” Hamstra said. “Everyone in the class wanted to rally behind Vicki and it was definitely really uncomfortable.
"The camera woman stopped filming and stopped the conversation because she was so upset.
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