Explanation
Students should read all of the highlighted text.
1. “Alphabet Aerobics” — Blackalicious
(Now it's time for our wrap up
Let's give it everything we've got
Ready? Begin)
Artificial amateurs, aren't at all amazing
Analytically, I assault, animate things
Broken barriers bounded by the bomb beat
Buildings are broken, basically I'm bombarding
Casually create catastrophes, casualties
Cancelling cats got their canopies collapsing
Detonate a dime of dank daily doin' dough
Demonstrations, Don Dada on the down low
Eatin other editors with each and every energetic
Epileptic episode, elevated etiquette
Furious fat fabulous fantastic
Flurries of funk felt feeding the fanatics
Gift got great global goods gone glorious
Gettin' godly in his game with the goriest
Hit 'em high, hella height, historical
Hey holocaust hints hear 'em holler at your homeboy
Imitators idolize, I intimidate
In a instant, I'll rise in a irate state
Juiced on my jams like jheri curls jockin joints
Justly, it's just me, writin my journals
Kindly I'm kindling all kinds of ink on
Karate kick type brits in my kingdom
Let me live a long life, lyrically lessons is
Learned lame louses just lose to my livery
My mind makes marvelous moves, masses
Marvel and move, many mock what I've mastered
[Nephews] nap knowin' I'm nice naturally
Knack, never lack, make noise nationally
Operation, opposition, off, not optional
Out of sight, out of mind, wide beaming opticals
Perfected poem, powerful punchlines
Pummelling petty powder puffs in my prime
Quite quaint quotes keep quiet it's Quannum
Quarrelers ain't got a quarter of what we got uh
Really raw raps, risin' up rapidly
Riding the rushing radioactivity
Super scientifical sound search sought
Silencing stupefied saps that are soft
Tales ten times talented, too tough
Take that, challengers, get a tune up
Universal, unique untouched
Unadulterated, the raw uncut
Verb vice lord victorious valid
Violate vibes that are vain make 'em vanished
Wow, well well, what a wise wordsmith just
Weaving up words weeded up on my workshift
Xerox, my X-ray-diation holes extra large
X-height letters, and xylophone tones
Yellow back, yak mouth, young ones yaws
Yesterday's lawn yardsale, I yawn
Zig zag zombies, zoomin to the zenith
Zero in zen thoughts, overzealous rhyme ZEA-LOTS!...
(Good... can you say it faster?)
2. “Sports Alphabet” — Blackalicious
Now, it's time for our wrap up
Let's give it everything we've got
Ready?
Begin
Alley-alley-alley-alley-oop on amateurs
Air above all and any actors that’s average
Big barbarian basically beasting
Biters get blown up being brave, beatings
Casually, I chef cash cheddar, fools get
Casualties and caught off guard with chin music
Dirty when I drop dimes damaging the dang earth
Devastate the defense detonate danger
Entertainer entertaining everyone and every mass
Enemies is envious ain’t even peep the elbow pass
Fire en fuego flick of the wrist foes in
Fear of the fury left flattened and frozen
Gloves off for the glass jaw by the goons
G.O.A.T of all G.O.A.T.S gone giddy gettin’ through
Human joystick, heating up, heat check BLAM
Hit ‘em hard, hella hyped, hero going H.A.M
I’m isolated on islands it’s over, it’s over
Ice in your veins getting colder
Juke jock jerk to those who aren’t worthy
Jamming through my journey in a jet black jersey
King Kong of K.O.s kid kiss the ring
Knuckle up now with the knuckle buck king
Lemme live a long life leading with my laces out
Right now losers look up cause it’s lights out
My moves marvelous, money shot, massive
Main event, moon-shot, MVP, master
Nails in the coffin knots in their knees, triumph
Nutmeg through their knees nothing but nylon
Opposition oft on the ropes in the octagon
One-two, punched out, lights going off and on
Pillow picked passes of prolific poetry
Power plays, pickpocketing petty phonies
Quest for the cup, it’s quantum y’all, quote me
Quiet all quitters feeling qualms when we’re quarreling
Raw ringside riots relish and remain
Rallying, rough rated rhymes make it rain
Swishin’ on simple soft suckers spitting swag
Slice dice shimmy nothing-but-net, splash
Turnt up, taking out timid minds. Twister
Leave ‘em turnt out, they are truck stick victims
Unstoppable ups, stay uninvolved
Unanimous, universal, year of the underdog
Vicious and vital, victories calling
Volley y’all out victorious velocity
Bob and weave well, wide receiving words woven
Moonwalk when I whip, get the world open
X-celling, X-treme, X-tra X-plosive
X-hilarating X-out competition so quick
Yolo pass rhymes, y’all young bucks fall
Yoga stretch rhymes yelling yiggy yes y’alls
Zero zero zero on the clock, game’s over
Zoomin to the zenith, zero out, in my zone, ZONING!!
Ha ha ha ha
Good
Can you say it faster?
3. Maza #1
“The Question Every Reporter Should Be Asking About Transgender Bathroom Bans”
Maza 16 — Carlos Maza, Research Fellow and former LGBT Program Director at Media Matters for America—a progressive media watchdog organization, holds a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Wake Forest University where he was a Quarterfinalist at the National Debate Tournament, 2016 (“The Question Every Reporter Should Be Asking About Transgender Bathroom Bans,” Media Matters, March 24th, Available Online at https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/24/the-question-every-reporter-should-be-asking-ab/209527, Accessed 06-28-2017)
Media outlets covering the debate over transgender equality have helped amplify right-wing myths about privacy and women's safety in public restrooms. But they haven't asked Republican politicians to explain how they'll enforce laws that would require people to prove their "biological sex" at the bathroom door.
On March 23, North Carolina became the first state in the country to pass a law broadly banning transgender people from using certain bathrooms in publicly run facilities and schools. The law -- House Bill 2 -- came in response to an ordinance passed in Charlotte, which would have protected LGBT people from discrimination in housing and public accommodations.
The North Carolina law is just the beginning of a nationwide push to make it illegal for transgender people to use the public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
Proponents of these anti-transgender laws claim they're needed to protect women's privacy and to stop men from sneaking into women's restrooms by pretending to be transgender. As North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory stated after signing HB 2 into law (emphasis added):
The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte. This radical breach of trust and security under the false argument of equal access not only impacts the citizens of Charlotte but people who come to Charlotte to work, visit or play. This new government regulation defies common sense and basic community norms by allowing, for example, a man to use a woman's bathroom, shower or locker room.
The idea that men will pretend to be transgender to sneak into women's restrooms has been debunked by law enforcement experts, government officials, and women's safety advocates in cities and states across the country.
But media coverage of the debate around transgender bathroom access has been dominated by anti-LGBT talking points about "privacy" and "safety." In Charlotte, local news coverage of the LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance was largely defined by baseless fears about men entering women's restrooms.
Instead of fixating on bogus right-wing "bathroom predator" horror stories, journalists should be asking a basic but tremendously important question about Republicans' efforts to regulate public restrooms: how is the government supposed to figure out a person's biological sex?
Transgender people don't walk around with labels on their foreheads. It's impossible to prove whether someone is transgender just by looking at them. Anyone who uses public bathrooms has likely shared a bathroom with a transgender person without noticing.
But laws like North Carolina's invite politicians, business owners, and even other bathroom goers to make snap judgments about who does and doesn't belong in a restroom. North Carolina's law states that people are allowed to use only certain bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex, "which is stated on a person's birth certificate." Most human beings don't walk around carrying copies of their birth certificates, and they certainly don't bring their birth certificates with them every time they need to use a public bathroom. But under HB 2, North Carolinians will need to be ready to prove their biological sex anytime they need to use a bathroom in a public facility or school.
Other states across the country are considering "bathroom bills" that could award thousands of dollars in damages to anyone who shared a bathroom with a transgender person, creating a perverse incentive to try to seek out and accuse people who might be transgender in the bathroom.
Those kinds of laws could encourage seriously gross violations of privacy, and not just for transgender people. As Scott Skinner-Thompson, acting assistant professor of lawyering at NYU School of Law recently wrote on Slate:
If to be enforced the bills require individuals to somehow prove that their so-called "biological sex" matches the gender of the bathroom, they will be forced to disclose sensitive information about their sex and medical history. Indeed, all people—not just transgender people—could ostensibly be asked to prove their "biological sex" before using a restroom, meaning that the invasive privacy violation is not only a transgender problem.
Last March, a Louisiana woman who underwent chemotherapy and a bi-lateral mastectomy after a stage 2 cancer diagnosis was accused of being a man while standing in line to use a Walmart restroom. Last January, a lesbian in Michigan was kicked out of a restaurant bathroom because she was mistaken for a man. On March 18, a Republican politician in Fayetteville, AR, questioned a cisgender restaurant employee and asked her to prove that she was a biological woman. Under HB 2, those kinds of mix-ups could potentially become awkward and invasive legal battles.
"Bathroom bills" like North Carolina's give government officials an excuse to repeatedly police the gender of anyone who needs to use a public bathroom, even if that means forcing them to turn over sensitive personal documents or medical information at the bathroom door.
In the effort to protect women from an imaginary "bathroom predator" boogeyman, state legislatures across the country are introducing bills that will allow the government to demand proof of people's biological sex. Journalists interested in the debate over privacy in restrooms should be asking Republican politicians and their LGBT supporters how they plan to enforce laws like HB 2.
4. Maza #2
“We Can’t Be Scared of the ‘Bathroom Predator’ Myth”
Maza 15 — Carlos Maza, Research Fellow and former LGBT Program Director at Media Matters for America—a progressive media watchdog organization, holds a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Wake Forest University where he was a Quarterfinalist at the National Debate Tournament, 2015 (“We Can’t Be Scared of the ‘Bathroom Predator’ Myth,” The Huffington Post, November 4th, Available Online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carlos-maza/we-cant-be-scared-of-the_b_8472698.html?, Accessed 06-28-2017)
We need to talk about why the LGBT community keeps losing non-discrimination fights at the ballot.
Last night, voters in Houston repealed the city’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), a measure that prohibited discrimination on the basis of fifteen characteristics including race, sex, disability status, sexual orientation and gender identity. In the fight for LGBT equality, HERO’s repeal is one of the most significant, dramatic setbacks at the ballot box since California’s Proposition 8. And it highlights the utter failure of LGBT organizations and activists to effectively respond to right-wing horror stories about transgender people in public restrooms.
By all measures, proponents of HERO should have won at the ballot. They grossly outspent their opponents, had endorsements from major politicians, celebrities, and businesses, and early polling put support for the measure above the opposition. But on election night, Houston voters overwhelmingly voted to repeal the city’s broad non-discrimination ordinance.
The simple explanation for HERO’s defeat: the “bathroom predator“ myth.
For months, HERO’s opponents saturated the airwaves with fear-based ads warning that HERO would allow male sexual predators to sneak into women’s restrooms by pretending to be transgender. It became the main and only real argument used by opponents to attack the ordinance, which they openly referred to as the “bathroom bill.” That talking point was repeated endlessly in local media coverage of the HERO controversy; b-roll footage of public restrooms played constantly in the background of local news segments about HERO.
By the time the vote occurred, many Houston voters didn’t even know about HERO’s broad non-discrimination protections. As Buzzfeed’s Dominic Holden reported, the “bathroom predator” talking point had come to completely define HERO in the minds of many voters.
That talking point proved to be a silver bullet against HERO, generating widespread opposition from voters who feared that protecting LGBT people from discrimination would somehow result in widespread sexual assault against women and children. In the end, voters were scared into stripping LGBT Houstonians of basic legal protections.
The “bathroom predator” myth is not some new tactic; it’s been the right’s most powerful weapon in defeating LGBT non-discrimination protections since before marriage equality was even part of the public’s imagination. Research has found that merely mentioning the talking point typically turns a significant number voters against protections for LGBT people. Anytime voters have been asked about legal protections for LGBT people — in Arkansas, Missouri, and North Carolina in just the past twelve months — the “bathroom predator” talking point has been devastatingly effective at getting people to vote against their LGBT neighbors.
It shouldn’t be.
Expert after expert after expert in cities and states with LGBT non-discrimination protections has dismissed the “bathroom predator” myth as “beyond specious.” It’s never, ever come true. It relies on grossly dehumanizing and mean-spirited depictions of transgender people. And it’s based on a gross misunderstanding of how sexual assault actually happens. The talking point is so ridiculous and toxic that peddling it should be a liability for conservatives who want to be taken seriously by voters and media outlets.