Racism & Rap & Me…

By Bethany “BST2” Armstrong

I’m an old farmgirl from a tiny, one stoplight town. I grew up raised by, surrounded by covert -and occasionally overt- racists. It was the 1980’s and early 90’s in the Midwest, like Stranger Things with less diversity and the monsters are human. Ironically, these folks gave me a love for rap music.

I was quite young – if I had to guess… 8? – when I was sitting at the dining room table with my parents. Apropos of nothing, my father said, “If you ever marry a -expletive deleted- , I’ll go to prison for killing him.” My mother immediately popped up with, “And I’ll go to prison for killing you.”

I knew the word was bad, and I knew it meant people with dark skin but in my tiny farming community, the only people who weren’t white arrived in the summer on a battered school bus and kept to the fields. I knew murder was bad. I knew the entire situation was terrifying and strange. Whether it was defiance or curiosity, I fell in love with poetry that year and Maya Angelou led into 2pac.

I taped a penny to a Columbia House order form and picked a bunch of cassette tapes with all the care of a 14-year old that didn’t bother to read the fine print can give and dropped it in the mail. Growing up in the Golden Age of Hip-Hop, far from any store that carries Rap, unable to purchase it because of the warnings and finding a way to acquire it anyways – for “just” a penny! – was the best thing that ever happened to 14-year-old me.

When my 12 tapes finally arrived – I had to watch for them like the incoming contraband they were – I smuggled them to my room and grabbed a black sharpie to color in all the warnings about explicit lyrics. I remember thinking that this was a genius idea. Maybe I could convince Mother to let me keep them if she happened to find them in one of my hidey-holes during her sporadic “secret” inspections of my room. She always confronted me when she found my hidey-holes and she eventually gave me back my diary so there was a chance. – Side Note: she destroyed all the music she found, whether they were Rap or Rock, including a band called DCTalk… Decent Christian Talk. Mother was convinced it was evil. “They took the name from AC/DC and that’s the devil’s music. It means swing both ways too. Like AC/DC power you switch back and forth….” Then she continued to rant about bisexuality and AC/DC, a band I barely recognized the name of, for about 20 minutes and shortly thereafter I started listening to AC/DC —

I had some money from babysitting for one of Mother’s friends when Mother decided she needed to sell her stereo with dual cassette tapes, AM/FM, a record player, and some big ‘ole speakers. Her rationale was that she never used it anymore. That was really code for “I pissed away all my money on nonsense and it’s still a few days until payday. I’m out of gas, I know you have cash…. Let’s make a deal.” To give her credit, she didn’t just take it from me or “borrow” it and never return it. I got a sweet set-up and she got forty bucks and an out for having to ask Dad for money…. Again.

Mother and Dad worked long hours. Dad as a farmer and Mother as an RN. When they were both gone, and I had my sisters fed, their homework done, their clothes for tomorrow laid out and chores done but it wasn’t quite bedtime, I would spend some blissful alone time listening to those cassette tapes in my basement bedroom. The basement was half finished, and my bedroom was the only one down there. Other than the laundry room next door, I had complete privacy. My sisters didn’t want to come down because they thought it was creepy. Dad never came down and Mother only came down to do laundry.

My basement abode was a 1970’s orange atrocity. Mother originally planned to use the room for a playroom or a sewing room and wanted the cement to look like wood. Dad was unable to convince her that it wouldn’t look good, and her disappointment turned into my happy space. I had a lot of hippie décor that worked with the orange and I put up a beaded curtain in lieu of the often promised, but never delivered, bedroom door. I was able to fit my bed and a couch and my stereo system with room to spare. It was like having my own apartment.

The only problem was it was located right under my upstairs neighbor’s living room, and my dad loved watching tv in the living room. When they weren’t home, I played those cassettes loud enough to make my ceiling – their floor- vibrate. Dad came home early one day and immediately started stomping from his recliner hollering so loud I could hear it over the thumping bass, “Turn that – expletive deleted- shit down!!” I was terrified that I would be in trouble. We never spoke of it, but anytime he came home early and my music was up, he’d do the same thing.

I’m glad that I had a defiant streak in me. I’m still untangling the bigoted weeds rooted in me; I can’t even imagine how deep of a hold they would have had if I had been a more dutiful daughter.

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