Nipsey Took to Teaching on His Block

P. J. Morton lays out the logical sense of Nipsey Hussle's version of the formula to fixing public schools in his hit song, "Buy Back the Block" on his latest album.


Our children in public schools won't get a chance at succeeding in this society if we don't reform education. We should consider taking education out of the box. COVID-19 has proven that traditional programs do work but can be improved if inclusive with virtual learning. Most inmates in federal prisons have low Lexile scores and literacy rates. Grown men and women on a 3rd grade reading level. 

Nipsey understood the key to this! You can't truly reform education until you're willing to invest in it. Our lower income communities are suffering more because of the lack of resources. Our families in these communities want better educational choices other than their local traditional public school.

It's up to us to show our youth the importance of a good education. The youth showed up on the block because Nipsey showed up. Not to give away toys or games but to give knowledge. He didn't change who he was for the hood or for anyone. Teaching our children how to be authentic and intelligent works. He showed our Black boys how they could be entrepreneurs and property owners. Integrating lessons to real life situations works for Black boys. They could be more than the gold chains or simply wearing their wealth. 

Our wealth is in building our own communities. Teaching our children how to buy back the block jump starts the investment. We can't do this if we aren't valuing education. We have to start this generation better than those before, which requires us to place reading over video games, sports and social media. 

Nipsey was implementing a formula for fixing public schools by teaching our children the importance of investing, building and buying back the block. We have to train teachers to reach students from all households. Teachers have to be empowered and trained so that they are prepared to teach our students how to succeed and survive.