ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Kuttin Kandi picks up the mic and drops the science [CONTINUED Pt. 2]

[Continued from May 10th, 2009 post]

The MisEducated
By Kuttin Kandi

i was only
19 years old

i remember
like
it was today
it was
right before
he
passed away

i sat by his
hospital bedside
and laid
my head down
on his chest
as he stroked my hair
speaking his last words…

“I want you to
take care of your mother
and sister
i want you to
finish college…ok?
Promise me…?
Promise me?”

i nodded my head
tryin to fight
the tears

at the time
it all made sense

it all goes in order

graduate
high school
go to college
get married
raise children
have a family
over the next few years
after learning
the truth
of my own
people’s history

everything
became clear to me

all my parents
ever wanted for me
was to live
a better life
than they did

growin up
home in the Philippines

but this is what happens
when your country
is civilized
and
colonized

make you dream
of coming to America

sell the white-picket fence
and my family
bought their tickets

but I wish America
would have told
my parents

that even
college degrees
back home
is not enough to
prove legitimacy
here in the states

hence


national tv shows
like
desparate housewives
mock
doctors
from the philippines

my father
a navy man
who saved every penny
to bring
his whole family
studied
so hard
with my mom
while goin to
Laguardia Community
College

tryin
to get
his
food
management
certificate

then he worked
in the VA hospital
to help
feed Vietnam Vets

and in his last few
years
working
as a waiter
for
catering banquets

relied on tips

to save up
money

for college
for my sister and me

but
I wish
my father
really knew
what it was like for me…

in high school
studying
Keats
Lord byron
and
Dickenson

that have absolutely
nothing to do
with me

teachers
didn’t even
help with my
grammar
or
my math

come to find out
just
recently

all this time
I had a
learning disability

so all this time

teachers
have done
a disservice
to me
could have
helped me
guided me
mentored me



lost my
interest
because
they
never
had interest in me

judged me
because
they thought I’d never
amount to anything
all they saw
was the gangbanga
i was goin to be

then in 1993
i heard
Tribe Called Quest

say

“you couldn’t
relate…
you couldn’t
relate….”

and finally
someone
understood me

then that’s
when it clicked for me

want to go to college
get to higher education

with no roads
that can ever really
lead us there…

elementary schools
middle school and
high schools

grade scoring systems

to lead us to other
kind of systems
and other kinds of institutions

2nd and 3rd grade
reading scores
used to determine
how many beds and cells built in the prison system

when are we going to see

that we don’t even need to go to prison…

that these very systems

our own education systems

behind these walls
exist institutionalized racism

give me an F

flunking me….

well they’ve
BEEN failing
you and me

failing our students
failing our teachers
failing our parents
failing our communities

because there’s not enough support
not enough resources
not enough classrooms
not enough teachers

not enough people of color as teachers

not enough teachers trained enough to teach
to connect
to build
to learn

and then they’re not paying our teachers enough

not giving our faculty
their deserved
tenures

because they’re
not straight enough
not white enough
not man enough

little by little
there won’t be a thing

cause they’re already wiping us out
before we even get started

every department

from ethnic studies
to black studies
to asian studies
to chicana studies
critical gender studies

fighting
and struggling
to keep
their programs alive

while in our communities
our younger students
trying to stay alive
in high school

tryin to find
just
1 teacher
who gives a damn
and when they finally do

pink slip….

in new york city
when I was growin up

they set up
vocational type of
programs
in high schools

basically
another way

of sayin
“well…
instead of really
preparing
you for college
because
you
just might
not make it…

we’ll set you up
with these kind of
job core
type classes
so by the time
you graduate
you’ll have a job…”

but..
what..
if..
i wanted
to go college too..

i know them
fancy
schools
in the other
neighborhoods

got
college prep
courses

and elite
SAT teachers

why
does
Harvard
visit their school?

so instead
on career day

you send
the military

yah
its true

the army
almost recruited me too

my father
navy military himself
knocked some sense to me
“go to college” he said

but no one

prepared me
told me
that my 1st year
was goin to be hard




didn’t understand
the process

all the paperwork
applications
financial aid
all those lines
cause back then
we weren’t really
computerized

and of course
back then

i didn’t understand
i had anxiety
and was agoraphobic
didn’t understand
why crowds
made me feel
so claustrophobic

sat in class
go through a panic

because of my
processing
deficiency
i didn’t
understand
anything
the teachers said

i reached out
but no one reached
for me

of course
it had to be
my first year in college
tryin to get a
nursing degree

a white male
teacher
in psychology
said the most
inappropriate
racist
sexual
comments
to me

then told me
i dressed
like a “boy”

and of course
at the time
i was still
questioning
my sexuality
and identity

i was
embarrassed
scared
never went to class
and then
eventually I got a D

so….
I dropped out of school
and decided to travel the world on tours as a DJ

of course today
i have no regrets

because
just out of 2
turntables
i come
with a world of experience

gained my own Ph.D
through the 4 elements

of Hip Hop


politicized
through Hip Hop

Saul Williams
Public Enemy
Queen Latifah
Blackstar
Lauryn Hill
Dead Prez
soothed me
loved me
and saved me…..

and now it’s funny….

i’ll run into
some academic
at some panel discussion

usually a male white
professor

who wants to belittle me
with their academic language

but what they don’t realize

even though
it might take me longer
I can speak
your language too

i can make it
just as
authoritative
make it
suasive
active
hybrid
and
lurid



not your average
quintessential
theoretical
hypothetical
panegyrical
rhetorical
speech

you use
to speak to me
tryin to use your
positionality
to stake claims of
hierarchy over me
just because you have a
ph.d degree

Malcolm X
once said
"I am not educated nor am I an expert in any particular field. But I am sincere and my sincerity is my credentials.." –

and yes
I am sincere
sincere
in my passion
to not just
help change the world
but to be
with the rest of the world
my sincerity
for a brighter future
that starts with me
sincerity
to help my mom
find a home
back in new york city
sincerity
that longs
for my homeland
the philippines
sincerity
in my experience
that helped me
get this far

you see

while I stand here
at the age of 33
with not even
an undergrad degree

i’ve spoken
lectured
and performed
in over 150
colleges
across this
country
sat with
white
male
professors
from Harvard
to Princeton
Yale
NYU
and Stanford
as a poet
DJ
turntablist
feminist
activist
and now
even as an MC

don’t you know
i’m written
in the books
you use
in your classrooms

Hip Hop
in Ethnic Studies

yeah
academics
have used me

and to top it off
i now
even
work
at your university

all because
of my poetry
written
from
traveling the
world
from Africa
to my hometown
new york city
and
2 turntables
spinnin
the truth of me
vinyl records
to survive
the streets
drumbeats
that
tell my
history

i was once
stabbed
a few times
on this left
arm

I also
almost took
my life
several times
because I just didn’t
think I had what it takes
to take
anymore…

and
now
i’ve lived
to tell you
what
a struggle
it’s been for me

so tell me

while you’re
right there
stuck at this
paradigm
tryin to make
your climb
look as
though it’s too
high for me
to reach

tryin
to make me
feel like
i need
to legitimize

compromise

my soul to you

to an
education system

that
never

even
wanted me
there
in the first place

because of
my race
because of
my gender
because of
my culture

because my hair
is too dark
because my skin
is too brown
because you don’t
make the seats
even big enough
to fit
a woman of color
like me
because I have
a learning disability
because I have a mental disability
because my jeans are too baggy
because I’m too gay
because I’m
“too ghetto”
because people in third world
countries are more educated
than you and me

because they’ve BEEN
saving our planet
long before any academic
did researches about it

because
yes
I am that loud

because
yes
i’ll make
noise
in your
school
libraries
reading
your
European
westernized
books
if I have to
from
Shakespeare
to Chaucer
to Browning
reciting
marx
lenin
Mao
audre lorde
bell hooks
angela davis
lorena barros

shout A’s
from the top
of my lungs
sing songs
of victory

because
one day
i will
have my degree

and not for you
not for
this
higher
education
system
that
just sees me
as a number
to prove they
have some sort of
diversity
for publicity

no
no
no
and no

not even
for my
father

because…
we all get
caught up
tryin to live
to those standards

no
no

and
certainly
not to live-up
to
those
middle-class
value standards

Martin Luther King jr.
said
“These middle class values were not the values which led to the civil rights movement; these are not the values which lead to positive social transformation."

so, i will study
because
education is a right that belongs to me
i want to know
my enemies better
because
a sister, a woman of color like me deserves better
because
i want this world better


not for some piece of paper

not to recolonize
our people

not to perpetuate
some hierarchal
patriarchal
bubble over our own people

and certainly not
to prove to you
that I am worthy
of you accepting me

because I’m already high…

despite all the scars
and the baggage’s

i’m speaking
all these languages

and I’ve BEEN
learning yours…

all this time…

so
can you..
can you…
can you..

speak my language?

Can you…

teach me
teach me

i mean
really
teach me
cause I’m willing to learn
from you

the question is…

are you willing to
learn from me?

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