“They’re not all thugs!” I countered Mrs. Hass one
day. I was gettin’ mad.
“Sure they are. They just rap about drugs, violence,
and have no respect for women.”
“Which rappers are you referring to in particular?” I
asked knowing a few she might say.
“All of them! I’ve never heard an intelligent rap,
much less an intelligent rapper. They call it rap because it’s Ridiculous
Attempts at Poetry. R-A-P.”
I thought long and hard about someone that didn’t rap
about those negative things. I couldn’t think of one rapper that didn’t mention
those things, or at least implied them in their songs. It was a sad truth; not
because they were rapping about it, but because their lives were drowned in
those things.
“They’re just rapping about their reality; that’s what
they know. Mr. Salas says that a good writer writes about what he knows.”
“Whatever Mr. Salas does in his class is his
business,” she shot back.
“It’s not his fault you’re too stupid to understand
rap music.”
Mrs. Hass turned around with her eyes opened wide. “What did you just say to me?” she
scowled.
“I didn’t stutter.” I knew I was in trouble.
“That’s what I thought you said. You can’t go around
insulting people that are smarter and older than you.”
“Just cause you’re older than me doesn’t necessarily
make you smarter, Ma’am,” I stated in my most matter-of-factly, respectful
tone.
“You need to respect your elders and teachers, Troy
Jones.”
“Respect is earned and cannot be demanded from
someone, Mrs. Linda Hass.”
With that she quickly walked to her desk, phoned the
principal, and asked that I be removed from her class because of “a severely
inappropriate classroom disruption”.
Within a minute, the hall monitor, a middle-aged,
brawny man stood at the door of the classroom and waved me over to him. He
didn’t know me but knew that by waving to the entire class he would get the
guilty student. I stood up, grabbed my bag, and started walking toward him.
As I stepped out of the classroom, I said, “Have a
nice day, Mrs. Hass,” and walked out.
(End of excerpt. Complete book available at Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads, and TeachersPayTeachers.)
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