Jason Thomas: Spoken Word and Social Justice Q&A

Jason Thomas, the Associate director of talent management with OSU Foundation, was one of the Spoken Word performers at the 2017 Martin Luther King Jr. Peace March early last year. Thomas previously worked for OSU football and is now stationed at the OSU foundation in Philomath. His office, clean with neatly hung pictures of his Wife and three kids, is where he spends most of his time during his work day. On his freetime, he attends church and worship every Sunday, and even curates spoken word and hip-hop pieces to share with his congregation in Corvallis. Thomas has a musical background and made a hobby of making hip-hop beats, writing lyrics, and writing and performing spoken word. Growing up a black man, he is no newcomer to the racial and social injustices that society has instilled and consistently showered upon him and his family. He makes it a point to highlight and shed light on the black experience through his spoken word and hip-hop. Thomas doesn’t write spoken word for any type of recognition, rather he just likes to get his thoughts onto paper. He recalls a run-in with racism when he was just 8 years old, and recounts how he added this recollection into one of his powerful pieces that he performed at the MLK Peace March. He involves his family in his poetry as well, and hopes to be able to assist his biracial children with their black experience through his words and his wisdom from life experiences.

Q&A

How did you get involved with spoken word?


I’ve always been a good writer and so the writing part of it was kind of natural and I’ve always been involved in music, started playing the keys, guitar, bass -- all those different pieces. I’m a vocalist so I started writing my own music and doing things from that end but I also do hip-hop and so in doing all that together I think it was just a natural fit in spoken word. Spoken word is a little bit more acceptable because I do a lot of my stuff in the church setting and so it’s easier to get it in through a spoken word piece standpoint than coming in saying that I do hip-hop, so that’s kind of one of the reasons why I went in that direction.

Why do you feel that there is a stigma around hip hop?

I think that there’s just a negative connotation with secular hip-hop and so I think a lot of times the thought of bringing the secular into the church, even though the message and intention is all faith based, I think that it’s a little bit difficult. But even stylistically, my style from a hip hop perspective is kind of more closer in line with spoken word and so I think it was just a natural fit. 

What was your involvement with the 2017 MLK Peace March?

I was asked to do spoken word at the peace march. In 2017 there was the living the black experience three part series and I was asked to do spoken word and I wrote a piece for that called ‘My Hope,’ so I was asked to perform that at the MLK Peace March.

How do you feel that pieces like that impact movements such as the Peace March?

I had a white gentleman come up to me after the fact and was moved to tears and said ‘I really appreciate you sharing’ so that was cool but I think that the unfortunate thing is that it just moves people who are already allies closer and I think it would be interesting to see it moving folks that are not on board, having conversations with them and seeing if it moves them. Now it’s funny because having done spoken word pieces in church, I’ve had people come up to me saying that ‘I wasn’t really feeling the piece, didn’t think it was the place’ but then after the fact they’re like just the energy and the words they’re like ‘dude I love what you do.’ So I think that it can move people that are on the far right or that don’t believe in it, but I think that at the Peace rally, you have a bunch of allies, so I’m not sure how much it moves people but I know it did move this one individual. I think it just draws attention to the issues and when you start thinking about putting it in that more poetic and lyrical construct I think that it can move people in different ways just because of the way that it’s constructed.

Do you think that spoken word poetry as a whole generalization can invoke change or social justice among people who aren’t allied? 

Yeah, yeah I think it can cause people to think and provide space for conversation. I got asked to do the same piece at the pro-Palestinian conference and in the crowd there were two known white supremacists and that probably had more of an impact. I think it can move people but I think it just has to be in the right space. 

How do you think that spoken word has influenced society and its societal progress?

I think the verdict is still out on that, I don’t think we know enough. From a social justice perspective, that particular genre of spoken word, I don’t think we know enough  yet to see the impact that it’s going to have. Now, I think that spoken word and poetry over the course of history has definitely had an impact but within this particular space and this genre, I don’t know what that impact has been thus far because you figure we still have hate, we still have crazy stuff going on, we still have crazy rhetoric out there so I don’t know how much of an impact it’s had. Now I think that there’s definitely room to grow. It’s definitely had an influence on industries and institutions, but I don’t know how much it’s moving people that aren’t allies.

Do you think that spoken word has influenced your own progression?

Yeah because of my involvement in music. I lead worship at church, I’m involved in that, and we’ve introduced spoken word and hip-hop to a church in a predominately white city and I don’t know of any other churches within Corvallis that are doing what we do from a musical perspective, so it’s been really cool to see the church, our pastors, and our leadership embrace what I believe I’ve been gifted to do. I’ve been in other churches where the gifting is like ‘yeah that’s cool but we really don’t want you doing that on a Sunday,’ and now you can express yourself and it’s been cool so I think that I’ve definitely grown through my involvement in doing spoken word. 

Why did you start writing about social justice issues?

Well it’s funny because in ‘My Hope’ I’ve been working on that for years, and I’m talking about years and it all kind of came together. There’s a line where I say ‘I was slapped in the face by prejudice at the young age of 8,’ well that really happened at the age of 8, but I wrote about that like a minute ago. I think that being in an interracial relationship, my wife is white and I have two sons that one looks mixed and one looks like he’s white, he has blonde hair and being a parent now and seeing their black experiences has put me at a point to where I need to talk about the differences and talk about the issues that they’re both going to experience. Not only from racism coming from people that don’t look like me but racism coming from people that look like me and prejudices coming from people that look like me, and biases that come from people that look like me. Being able to express that with my kids being here and being the age that they’re at, I think it’s important.

Going forward, what’s your plan to carry on with spoken word?

I just continue to write. With life and life experiences and having a full time job and having three kids, and doing all these different things, I don’t necessarily have the time to sit down and just work on a piece so I keep notes in my phone anytime something comes to mind.