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6 ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ “You know the real deal, but this is just saying you got their deal” Public and Hidden Transcripts One semester, while teaching about the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I handed out the first page of C. L. R. James’s The Black Jacobins, a historical classic that poses the Haitian Revolution as one of the most significant events in history. I also distributed an encyclopedia item on the event. In contrast to James’s enthusiasm , the encyclopedia briefly noted that Haiti’s Revolution was the most successful slave rebellion in history and placed greater emphasis on its subsequent economic and political failure as the poorest nation in the hemisphere. I asked students to read the two, after which we compared them together. I then asked them to write a paragraph about why they thought the representations were so different. Planning to use their theories to drive class discussion, I thought the lesson was going well. When we had compared the two texts, students were animated—some were fired up. But parlaying their verbal enthusiasm into writing was always a challenge, so when one student, Phil, began telling me his ideas aloud rather than writing them, I was not surprised. I politely cut him off and said gently, “Don’t tell me, write it. You can share it with the class in a minute.” Phil stopped talking to me when I urged him to write, but he did not start writing (as was fairly typical of him). Several students, like Phil, loved discussion, were good historical thinkers and articulate speakers but struggled to express their thoughts on paper and, consequently, didn’t do so when asked. 166 ❙ Public and Hidden Transcripts After a few minutes, I asked for volunteers to share their writing as a way to begin discussion. Carl, a student sitting by the back door, eagerly raised his hand. No one else’s hand was up so I called on him despite my suspicions he had not really written anything. “Listen up, y’all, “ Carl said, ruffling a paper and clearing his throat as if he was going to read something really important. When all eyes were on him, he began reciting a rap song loudly. I didn’t know the song, but it was about White supremacy. Phil moved next to him and began banging out the beat on the desk and interjecting parts of the chorus. I quickly linked the substance of the lyrics to the content of the lesson. Taken by surprise and angry, I sternly told them to stop it and gave them my most severe teacher glare. Carl responded by jumping on top of his desk and continuing even louder. Phil joined him and they chanted the words together. A few other students picked up drumming the beat for them. I stood at the front of the room unable to shout them down and feeling the whiteness of my skin as my face burned red hot. I heard a debate about the shade of my skin somewhere near me, “Is that what they call ‘puce?’” As the rapping continued, my sense of helplessness increased. I felt like the Wizard of Oz as Toto pulls away the curtain revealing that the great wizard was really a fraud. My class was paying no attention to the “man behind the curtain” after the façade of my authority had been pulled away. Unable to be heard, I walked up to them and hollered, “You have to stop! You can’t do this anymore!” Phil, who had gone back to drumming on the desk shouted back, “You’re silencing me!” and Carl began chanting , “Don’t shut us down!” “You’re silencing everyone else!” I responded. “NOOOOOO!” Phil yelled at me. Having failed at diplomacy, I walked back to my desk and dug through my top drawer for a pile of small blue cards, recognized quickly by those nearest to me as dean’s referrals. “Yo, she’s writin’ blue cards!” a student in the front called out, and the drumming began to die down. I kept writing as the class became so quiet I could hear my pen scratching against the rough surface of the cards. When I looked up, Phil was sullenly sitting in his original seat. Carl walked out the back door. I tried to continue with the lesson as if nothing had happened. The students obliged me and read what they had written when asked, but the lively discussion...

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