Before coming to class, have students read either chapter 5 of Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” They should also listen to and become acquainted with Lupe Fiasco’s song “He Say She Say” (lyrics here).
The goal of this lesson is to have students think critically about the stereotypes of absent Black fathers and to contextualize the absence in terms of the system of mass incarceration. I like to use a set of questions derived from Friendly Bible Study (of all things). What I like about these questions is they are open-ended and allow space for each person to have an answer that is true to them:
What is the author’s main point?
What new ideas (new light) do I gain from this reading?
Is this passage true to my experience (why or why not)?
What are the implications of this passage for my daily life?
What problems or questions do I have about this reading?
After some discussion, talk about the song. It is unusual because both verses contain virtually identical lyrics: Lupe presents the first verse from the mother’s perspective, and the second from the son’s perspective. Some questions to ask students:
What is the effect of having two verses that are virtually identical?
Where is the father? Is he present (it seems like they’re addressing him directly)? If you don’t think he’s present, then where is he, and why?
Do we get the father’s perspective at any point in the song? If so, how? If not, what is the effect of omitting his “verse”? (I’ve had students suggest that Gemini’s voice is the voice of the father, but it’s interesting because it appears only in the chorus, and is sung in response to Sarah Green’s lines).
Can you write a verse similar in style (NB: requires some analysis of the first two verses) that presents the father’s perspective?
This song is the beginning of the “Cool” saga that spans several of Lupe’s songs. You could ask students to find the other songs (maybe start here) and to follow the saga as it unfolds.