S13E2 – Reflecting on Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Choice for Integration

S13E2 - Reflecting on Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Choice for Integration

Andrew: Welcome to Integrated Schools podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is Reflecting on Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Choice for Integration. Val, I know when Nikole Hannah-Jones' most recent article came out, that your phone was blowing up.

Val: Yes.

Andrew: My phone was blowing up.

Val: Yes.

Andrew: Everybody connected to Integrated Schools was talking about it. It was a big, massive piece in The New York Times, and, uh, we're here to talk about it today.

Val: This is a piece that not only sent many people into the conversation about integrated schools, but it was an immediate, like, pause. Like, what are we gonna do with this, this new information here?

Andrew: Yeah. Nikole Hannah-Jones. I have been a huge fan of her work since 2016. She wrote a very powerful essay, also in The New York Times Magazine, called " Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City." It’s a piece that brought lots of people into Integrated Schools, that drove a lot of our thinking around the mission of Integrated Schools. And, you know, it was basically her, her and her husband choosing to send their daughter, Najya, to a predominantly Black, low-income public school in their neighborhood in Brooklyn.

You know, challenging this system where the families who have the privilege of choice avoid the types of schools that were right next door to her house. And she felt like she wanted to be part of that. It definitely sparked lots of conversations at Integrated Schools. And I think, you know, the premise that she went into that with underlies a lot of the thoughts that we have here about, you know, our role as folks with privilege in a schooling system and the choices we make.

You know, I think she went in thinking that, the degree of privilege that she and her family had would be of value to the school.

Val: Right

Andrew: And that not participating in the system of segregation was an important family value that they wanted to live into. And I, you know, don't think she went in believing that she would single-handedly solve all of the unequal education system that, you know, exists, particularly in New York City.

But that, you know, living her values and being part of the solution rather than part of the problem was, was important and important to them.

Val: And I think that's a fair belief, right? We believe that each of our actions matters, and it, and it will matter.

Andrew: That article also spoke to me for sure. Also, the, “The Problem We All Live With,” the This American Life episode that she did right around the same time. I mean, that is a huge part of why I care about this work, why I'm involved in Integrated Schools in the first place, why my kids go to the schools that they go to. I certainly draw a direct line between Nikole Hannah-Jones' writing and thinking and my own choices and drove a lot of that.

Val: Mm-hmm

Andrew: So I've been a huge fan of hers for a long time. And now, a decade later, she has written a follow-up piece, revisiting that decision. And it's, it's told largely through her daughter, Najya's, eyes. It opens with this scene of her daughter getting into the car in middle school and asking her mom point-blank, "Did you know how bad my school was when you decided to put me here?"

Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: And this sparks a number of conversations. You know, Najya and her friends had been looking at high school options in New York City. They looked up their middle school to see, you know, how likely was it for them to get into one of these highly sought-after selective high schools in New York and realized that their middle school was really poorly rated. And she was, she was mad about it. You know, she expressed a lot of her disappointment in the education that she had received up to that point.

And those conversations caused Hannah-Jones to go back and look at, you know, some of the things that had happened over the course of Najya's schooling experience and, and really reflect on, on those things. And, and the ways that maybe she had underplayed some of the challenges that Najya was facing along the way.

Val: Mmm.

Andrew: And, and Najya really expressed a lot of, uh, anger and disappointment about it.

Val: Hannah-Jones talks in, in her article about some of the experiences that Najya has had both in elementary school, middle school, and high school. And they all involve other children, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: One thing I wanted to remind myself of in reading this story is that it is important not to put the fault on just the children themselves, right?

You know, as we go into this conversation, I wanna ask our listeners to not think about it as, “Other children aren't good enough to be with my children,” but that they are children navigating the world that adults keep recreating poorly.

Andrew: Right.

Val: One of the stories that she tells is she goes into school lunch one day, and the kids are being wild, and the, and the educators in the building aren't really doing much to control the environment.

Andrew: Right.

Val: I bring that up because it reminds me that children are often asked to hold the responsibility for many of the systems that we create as adults.

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, certainly that was, you know, one, one of many instances that, that Hannah-Jones recounts of Najya not getting the education that Hannah-Jones wanted her to have, that I think any of us would want her to have, and the challenges that come in, in this massive system that has been failing kids for a long time.

And, I think Najya was really grappling with that and really feeling some kind of way about it. They also, there's a new This American Life episode where, you get to actually hear from Najya in conversation with her mother about it, um, that's also quite powerful.

So, certainly encourage listeners to read the piece, read the entire piece, um, and listen to that episode. But we felt like we needed to reflect on it and the things we felt about it, and so we brought in a couple of amazing guests to help us with that. Jenny Devenney is the New York City Integrated Schools chapter leader, and she wrote a great blog post (that's on our website, there'll be a link in the show notes) called “What Nikole Hannah-Jones' Essay Means for White Families.” Then, Val, you invited your friend Marian on to join us as well, right?

Val: That's right! Marian, a, a longtime educator, a Black mother from Atlanta. And someone that I've known to be a fierce advocate for all children, including her own, in trying to figure out how can we create the best educational experiences for them.

Andrew: Yeah. So we thought–

Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: –we’d just get the four of us on to chat about what the article meant to us, and how we felt when we read it, and what we're thinking about it afterwards. And so we're gonna share that conversation now.

Val: Hold on!

[THEME MUSIC]

Marian Dingle: Hello, I am so glad to be here on this podcast. This is one of the ones that I definitely don't miss.

Andrew: Hey

Marian Dingle: My name is Marian Dingle. I am married with two children. They are adults. They survived K-12.

Val: Yeah.

Marian Dingle: And college. I have been an elementary school teacher for 22 years. I am the daughter of an educator. My mother made very intentional choices for me, which trickled to me making choices for my own children.

Andrew: Amazing.

Jenny Devenny: Hi everyone. I'm Jenny Devenney. I am a mom to a three and a half-year-old and an almost six-year-old. So they are in 3K and first grade at P.S. 46, which is our neighborhood public school. It is global majority and a Title I school. It's not actually our zoned school. And my mother is an educator, too, so I, I think I always forget about that piece, but a lot of how I think about things is, yeah, informed by her experience in New York City public school system as well.

Andrew: Always. There's a mother.

Jenny Devenny: And I'm a New Yorker. I g- I'm a third-generation New Yorker, so,

Val: Okay, let’s go!

Jenny Devenny: I've been, yeah.

Andrew: Yeah. You both had choices to make. Marian, yours were a little longer ago than Jenny, your choices that are still ongoing. But, Marian, how did you think about that? Your mother, -- the influence of the intentional choices she made. How did you think about making choices for your kids when it came to school?

Marian Dingle: I knew that as a student myself, I could not have survived without my mother's guidance. My mother and her Black female educator friends were the ones who guided my entire trajectory, so it was always important to me. I myself went to school in both private and public settings, just depending on what was best at the time, and I tended to do the same for my own children.

We started off in public school with my oldest until we hit first grade and we decided to go private, which was our church school.

I ended up working there as well. My son attended there. It was a very Afro-centric experience, a very spiritual experience. That part of it was great, but the academic the rigor wasn't really there. As luck would have it, we ended up moving and we went to, a well-to-do, highly regarded district in Howard, in Maryland. Public school, which was great.

And it's interesting, I was reading Jenny's article. Thank you so much for writing that.

Jenny Devenny: Oh, thank you.

Marian Dingle: It was really vulnerable and beautiful. But it reminded me that when we moved to Maryland, I got a job teaching third grade, and I just automatically brought my son with me to the school where I was hired. When I would talk to other parents, however, they seemed to frown upon this particular school because it wasn't the “high-performing schools,” which tended to be more White.

They questioned my decision openly. Like, "Are you sure you want him there? Just because you're teaching there, you don't have to bring your son there." And I thought that was kind of interesting. But I think my background, my educator background with my mother. My mother always was very hands-on with my education.

So just because “Mrs. X” was my second grade teacher, I knew that my real teacher was my mother, and other educators in my life. So it was almost as if the public school education was the supplement to what I was getting at home. Which is kind of how I treated my children's education.

So, there were very busy times. There was, you know, me getting the kids to all their extracurricular activities and whatnot, but me being in the system allowed me to know what they should know. Making sure that they knew what I thought they should know at a certain time of the year regardless of where they were in class.

And that, that kind of helped.

So, after Maryland, we moved back to where we are now, which is in Georgia. We knew that we wanted to have some kind of public school experience, but we also knew that we didn't want it to be all White. That was important to my daughter. Vocalized that, absolutely.

Andrew: What age was this?

Marian Dingle: She was entering ninth grade and my son was entering sixth grade. And wherever we landed for the high school, that's where we knew that my son would eventually feed into. So I did my due diligence as much as I could.

I talked to people. I was from Georgia. I knew pretty much the lay of the land. I knew what I wanted to look for. It was test scores, yes, but it was reputation and who I knew in the system. And a, a, a mix of ethnicities that I thought would be comfortable and at least have the potential to be nurturing.

So I made a shortlist and my daughter picked from the shortlist, and that's where we went and that's where we stayed.

Andrew: How was it? Did you actually find that mix of, the academics you were looking for and also, like, her ability to hold onto her humanity and not feel like she was, you know, lost in a sea of Whiteness or something?

Marian Dingle: Great question. So no two children are alike, and their needs are not the same as well. So because we wanted our son to feed into the same high school, we focused on the choice of high school. There were two middle schools that fed into that high school, and unfortunately, the exact experience I didn't want my children to have, my son had in middle school.

It was a very high-performing school, very high standards. Sixth grade was fine, but once we landed in seventh grade, he was on that team, and I wasn't connected enough with parents to know that that's the team that you avoid if you are Black, and especially if you are a Black boy. And I didn't know until very far into the semester that he was being targeted.

Andrew: That targeting was from other students, was from the administration, from the teachers.

Marian Dingle: Teachers.

Andrew: Yeah.

Marian Dingle: Uneven discipline, uneven grading, being ostracized. That's, that's where we were.

Andrew: That's hard.

Marian Dingle: Yeah.

Andrew: How about the high school.

Marian Dingle: High school was better, um, for both. My daughter, very quickly, even though she was in class with mostly kids that did not look like her, but she very quickly found her own group of people.

Although, in the classroom, and even on her volleyball team, and my daughter was often made to be the model to the other few Black girls on the team, which didn't feel good, didn't sit well with any of us.

But she was, she was used to it. She... We talked about it. She got through it. For my son, my son was very talented, intellectually, but an underachiever. And I don't know if that was connected to his seventh grade experience. Maybe.

But as this underachiever, unless you really took an effort, you wouldn't, as a teacher, know that you could just say the right thing, do the right thing, create the right atmosphere, and you could pull things out of him. I was very happy to learn that coaches looked out for him, you know, other Black men. He soon found, the next year, a couple of Black women teachers there who tended to, like, be the moms that Black kids went to, to kinda take care of them. These were the women that would check in on them, would make sure that things were going well.

And as I reflected on it, I realized that that's exactly what I had in high school. And there comes the frustration with, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Andrew: How are they doing now?

Marian Dingle: Oh, they're great!

Andrew: Yeah.

Marian Dingle: Oh, yeah, they're great. They've graduated college. One is married, the other is partnered. They both live out of state, gainfully employed. Don't ask me for money. They're doing well.

[Laugher]

Andrew: That's the, that's the win, right? Not asking for money, that's huge. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing.

Jenny, tell us, tell us your story. You're, you're just at the very beginning of this process. You've made, like, one school choice now. But, you know, how did, how did you make that choice? It's not your zoned school. You had to actually, like, choose to go to a different school. Talk to us about that process.

Jenny Devenny: Yeah. So, I mean I made this choice years before I even had children, honestly. If I, I knew about, I was li- listening to this podcast before I had kids. I was reading Nikole Hannah-Jones' first article before I had kids. And I was just actually thinking today, it's been exactly 10 years since, when her article came out. So back in 2016, I was working at two public schools in the South Bronx that were extremely segregated, didn't have any White children in them. At the time I was going for my master's of social work, and so that was where I was placed. And in my social work classes, I was learning a lot about systemic racism and White privilege, and learning how to talk about all of these things, in a meaningful way for the first time. And I wanted to be able to talk about these things with my students that I was working with.

But I didn't have a clear framework or way of doing that. I think there's a lot of resources now about how to talk to kids about race, but at that time there really weren't. And when I was looking around, all of the schools, the K through 12 schools that I found that had those frameworks, that had these amazing anti-racist curriculums, were the most exclusive schools in the city that were, you know, $60,000 a year to attend. Majority White, majority wealthy.

So, I was noticing all this hypocrisy. The Nikole Hannah-Jones article came out, and I was, like, kind of piecing things together and reflecting on my own experience in New York City schools. And I feel like in my own experience, as I got older and went through school, my schools and classes got Whiter and Whiter. You know, I, living in New York City, that's supposed to be this diverse place, and I would say my elementary school was pretty diverse. My middle school was overall diverse, but I was in a gifted and talented class, so it was very segregated within the school. And then I went, I tested into Stuyvesant High School, which, accepted three Black students last year, which is, you know, it's horrible.

In my junior year at Stuyvesant, that was 9/11, and so basically the World Trade Center was right next to my high school. My mom took me out of the school, and she put me in a private school, and I got, I got a scholarship to, to go to a private school near my house.

I went from this huge, specialized- high school to this very small private school, with all of these extremely wealthy kids. And I'd never really experienced th- anything like that before 'cause I didn't grow up like that. And at the same time, this, the private school , all they would do is talk about diversity and inclusion.

It was like that was, you know? But, and so I feel like I've, I just... There's this kind of, something that's always stuck with me from a very young age, was way that people talk in, in certain spaces and this hypocrisy. And I always knew that I didn't want that for my kids. I wanted something that was genuine and actually equitable.

So, when I was making the decision, we moved to Fort Greene in Brooklyn. Our zone school was PS 20, and there's a school, PS 46, which is where my, where my kids go, and they're literally equidistant from my apartment. They're a block away on either side., PS 20, despite being very diverse, still really concentrates Whiteness and wealth compared to the overall school system in New York, and I didn't wanna contribute to that.

And so, I chose 46. My sons are both this year. My younger son's in 3K, and my older son is in first grade. And, yeah, we lo- we love it. We're, we're very happy there.

Andrew: I feel like when the Nikole Hannah-Jones piece came out it was like a new Beyoncé record had dropped or something. My, like, my phone was like blowing up like text messages from–

Val: Blowing up.

Andrew: There's new new NHJ dropped. Marian, when what was your experience reading the piece when you first read it?

Marian Dingle: [Marian sighs] Oh, Andrew. I had a very immediate visceral response. I immediately went to the group chat. I needed to process. I took some days. I ranted again. I took some days. I'm calmer now. The, the immediate visceral response was, I think because in my view, that was preventable. Najya's experience was preventable. This happens all the time. This has happened to Black families and other families historically.

And this is not a person that's not without resources financially. This is not a person without many connections in education, and I just, I just thought it was preventable. I always felt, maybe because my mom being an educator too, but I always felt it was my job to make sure that my kids knew what they were supposed to know.

Not necessarily that the school was holding up their end, but it was my job. Like, I grew up where, education in my mind was on my mom. Like the school was just supplemental, and if there was something that the school wasn't giving that was beyond my mother, then she would supply it.

She would make sure. She made sure I had, whatever lessons. I made sure my kids had tutoring or extra support in something. Like I, I, I really believe that that's the job of parents, but especially Black parents. Maybe that's unfair because I'm an educator and I'm inside the system.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: Marian, that's interesting because I also never assumed the school would take care of of my kids' needs, and I needed to, like, just trust that completely. But that also could be as an educator, and from a family of educators. And so, in making my choice, it was about my kids' wholeness, and I could supplement the rest. There, there are lots of paths to a successful adulthood, you know? And so, if it takes a little bit longer, it's a little bit windier. I mean, you all know people who have probably graduated from Ivy League and just still, are working on their humanity, okay?

So, the idea that one school would make a perfect person is just something that I never, never bought into. Even if the school was deemed high achieving or perfect. So yeah, so I, I totally understand.

And I, I think I also felt like, all right, y- I'm… We'll get something from the school. We'll get a lot from the school! We won't get everything from the school. And, and thus–

Marian Dingle: Never.

Val: –we can’t hold the school responsible for everything. And my choices were more like, I don't know, yeah, their wholeness is what mattered.

I wanted them to leave school not hating themselves or their identity, or seeing that with other young people, you know.

Andrew: Yeah. Jenny what was your reaction when you read the piece?

Jenny Devenny: I think my main concern was just that White parents would read it and have these assumptions about what it meant for them and their own choices, and that they were off the hook, and they didn't have to worry about their individual choices and how that was impacting segregation anymore.

So, I think, as I’m reading it, and I'm trying to, sort of, see it as that's her experience, and there's lots of ways to think about it, and think about things she could have done differently. But I feel like my role as a White parent making the same choice is to point out how it's not actually the same choice, and how the experiences her daughter went through are not experiences that my sons will.

And, the trade-off or this sacrifice of having to choose between an academically rigorous school and a school that affirms your identity is not something that I have to, think about for my sons, right? Because their identities are affirmed by this world, the White supremacy that we live amongst, you know?

And so, I think that was very much the message I wanted to get across is that this is not the same for White families, and you can read her experience, and really her experience and what she was sharing is, was so vulnerable, and I feel like such a gift. But I think White stories around integration, we need more of them.

It's not a coincidence that Black family's story around integration became this cultural phenomenon and drew so much attention, 'cause I think it's what a lot of progressive White families almost want to hear. It's the way they wanna think about whose responsibility it is to make these choices. And, you know, they are able to distance themselves from it in a way.

So I wanted there to be more stories about White parents doing this work, because I think it's harder to sit with. I think White families have to reflect a little bit more if they see someone like them doing it.

And I have already seen that. Immediately, all the neighborhood chats that I was on were buzzing, and people were talking about private schools and gifted and talented programs. It was like, whoa! that ha- that was fast, you know? Like um, and it's just like, we need to slow down. This, this doesn't impact you in the same way.

I'm not here to judge her choices, and I have no right to. And I've learned so much from her choices. And also, it's completely different for me and my family.

Val: Jenny, it, it, it always happens so quickly. You're like, "Wait a minute, I thought we were all in the same boat.”

Jenny Devenny: Yeah.

Val: Like, "Wait, you all have a raft? How long have you had this raft?!”

[Laughter]

Jenny Devenny: Yeah.

Val: No one told me to bring a raft 'cause I thought we were all in the same boat. But I do remember when we, the kids started going to their high school.

So, um, kids have always gone to, like, the neighborhood public school. And, when they started going to their high school, you know, I'm doing drop-off and stuff. It's lots of wonderful, beautiful Black kids. And I, I asked my ki- my kids, I was like, "Do y'all have any White kids in your classes? Like, any?" And they're like, "Eh, maybe one or two." And I'm like, "Okay, uh." Like, that's only a problem because we need White kids to also go to this school for people to care about this school. Because if we get into a situation where there are no White faces present, I am concerned that right away people will be like, "Oh, we can toss this one. This one does not matter. We can provide le- fewer resources.”

Andrew: What was your response, Val?

Val: Curious, but unsurprised you know? Andrew and I have had conversations about, you know, Black parents can make the choices they wanna make. You know? Like, literally what you're saying, Jenny. Like, we're like, if a Black family feels like this is not, the best situation for their child–

Andrew: 100%

Val: –who are we to say that it's the wrong decision?

The time that I felt the most, nervous about my kids' education was in moving to a city where I did not have significant influence in the district. And it should not be a parent who is in the system, feels comfortable with the system, knows people by name, that is having the experience that their child deserves. That should not be the case. But when I was teacher of the year in my school district [audio track of applause], my kids got all the great teachers. Thank you. So when you have relationships in the schools with all the principals, your kids are gonna get the best teachers.

Like, they know you, they like you. But that should not be the bar. Like, you should not have to know a principal personally. And so we moved to a situation where that was not the case, it was, it was a battle, daily.

And, I was thinking about Nikole Hannah-Jones's daughter and what happened with my son when, in one of those situations where we had moved to a new school district, and I literally saw... this is the most painful thing for, for a mommy heart. I literally saw the joy of learning, like, leaving my son's eyes, and I could not stop it. Like, you know how, like, you wanna, like, turn the light switch back on? I was trying so... I was like, I could not stop it.

And it took two years to kinda get us back into flow, and then we had the pandemic. I have always tried to make choices, like Nikole Hannah-Jones for the collective good, right? Like, again, we're all in the same boat. We're doing this. We're gonna make choices for the collective good. I do, I do think that is the way that we should operate. I don't think that they should only be individualistic decisions. And when I saw the light leaving my son's eyes, I was like, "I have to make a different choice right now for his life." For, for, like, literally, it was, like, life or death situation. Because the last thing I needed was for him to lose the love of learning and thus disengage from school as a fourth grader.

Because as a Black male, that was gonna mean a difficult road from here on out. How about you? What was your reaction?

Andrew: Yeah I mean yeah I share I shared a lot of Jenny's reactions too. You know I mean my first reaction was I I was just devastated for Najya. And particularly, like, listening to her on This American Life episode they just re-released interviewing her, like, she is a very competent self-advocate. Has a very clear sense of herself, like, feels like in this place you know a couple of years into her high school experience seems to be thriving in many ways.

But, but to go through that. Yeah, I mean I was certainly in tears reading that piece. I was also in Memphis and then went straight from reading that to the Civil Rights Memorial in, in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel um and like standing in the place where Dr King was assassinated. It was a heavy day.

I start with just like incredible gratitude for Nikole Hannah-Jones sharing her story so vulnerably, so publicly. For her to confront her own parenting choices, at all! Much less, publicly for the whole world to comment on is incredibly brave. And it has left the whole world, once again, just the same way it did 10 years ago talking about integration. Which, you know, is as, as we know here is like a hard thing to get people to actually care about, to get people to actually talk about.

I definitely shared Jenny's concern that the folks who most need to lean into the public education system, those with unearned privilege and power in the education system, were going to use it as an excuse to opt out.

And I think a lot of people didn't bother reading all the way to the end of the article, you know, where she says “The-these are all our kids.” and none of us is absolved from this system that we have created.

I think like you said Val, the choices that particularly Black families are left with are often choosing between two things that you don't wanna have to choose from. You know, like, is, “Are there great academics? Will my kids stay whole?” And, and that's not like Jenny said, that's not the choice that's confronting my kids.

Val: Or do I have to pick a public school who has the resources, and has the drive, and has the freedom to go full anti-racist curriculum? And then my kid is in a bubble of wealth and whatever else that might mean….

Andrew: Yeah I mean part of the gift of Nikole Hannah-Jones writing is that you are immediately put inside the experience of her family and of her kid in that school. And no, nobody wants the experience that her daughter had in her school for any kid. And that piece, it feels like lots of people have held onto. And what it feels like fewer people have held onto is, like, everybody's very quick to identify with Najya and be like, “What does Najya deserve?” But, like, there, there are hundreds of other kids in those schools every day, and what do those kids deserve? And how do we create a system that acknowledges the needs of all of those kids? Because Najya's gonna be okay. Najya has the resources of a mother who writes for The New York Times, and there's lots of kids in that school that don't. And those are the kids that, that we need to all be caring about and need to all be thinking about.

Val: Yes. And while you're talking, I'm, like, thinking about the kids who were being kids in the cafeteria, right? And I don't want them to be criminalized either, right?

Like, I would love for us to figure out how to have this conversation without making it feel like “Some kids are good enough to be around my kid, and some kids aren't.”

Marian Dingle: Okay, so I, I. unpopular opinion probably, but I don't believe that there are good schools and bad schools. I think that there are many ways to define a “good school.” For example, you can have a really high-performing school, but all the teachers are terrible in teaching content. , Maybe the parents are very well-resourced, and they send them to tutoring and, and all these, right? But you could also have a very low-performing school where the kids are loved, where, maybe there's teachers that are great at teaching content, and they know that content, and they love the kids, and they establish relationships, and those teachers are holding up the whole school.

I've never given a lot of thought to what's on paper. I want my kids to feel a certain way. I want them to feel that they have choices. I want them to feel confident, competent. All kids deserve to feel that way.

So when we talk about, you know, which school to send my kid to, which en- environment to put them in, this environment is created by human people who are in a system. And there's a difference between the district system and the school system and the classroom system. Like, all these different levels. You can have, you know, systemic racism but still have a really great teacher that does their best despite of it, and teaches children how to survive within that system.

So, I think for my career, that's where I landed. That's, that was the best I could do. I could create an environment that was challenging academically, where I knew all the kids, where the kids respected each other, where the kids had respect of the world and the planet.

They treated people with respect. But they also knew their own rights, and they knew that they could establish boundaries, and they knew where their line in the sand was. So if they experienced something that wasn't fair or just, they would be able to identify, “Hey, that wasn't okay.” And then they could, maybe with help with classmates, or we talk about it as a class, discuss, like, what's, what's the solution to that?

What's the response? How should I approach that? That's kind of the way I parented, and that's the way I taught, too.

Jenny Devenny: Just what you're saying is making me think of another reaction to the article and, and it's something I've been thinking a lot about, like, myself and with other Integrated Schools people. And it kinda goes back to the idea of h- uh, “hidden gem” schools, right? And if we're, if we are thinking about schools that, like, that we're labeling good and bad differently than how they've historically been judged, which is, you know, tends–

Andrew: Whiteness and wealth.

Jenny Devenny: –to be from test scores. Whiteness, and wealth.

Andrew: Right.

Jenny Devenny: We then shift to this idea that, like, we're finding these, these other things in a school that are, that are good or that we like. At what point are we still consuming in a way that then leaves out schools that we just don't think are acceptable for, for anyone but that students still attend?

And I, I think about that a lot because a lot of the parents that leave my son's school, you know, they'll have one bad experience, or they'll have a teacher that they didn't like. Yeah, they'll, they'll leave because of it. Or, and I just think there is something there and, like, how are we going to define these schools? And are we creating a different hierarchy, I guess, is what I'm saying. And then, and ultimately, there are gonna be kids in those buildings with, that we're, someone's not choosing, and, and what do you do with that?

Val: Jenny, thank you for that. And I think this goes back to, my thoughts around, one school not filling every particular need and the way in which we talked about challenges. You're going to meet people who are not gonna be the best. You're gonna have to figure out how to navigate, how to advocate for yourself, how to make sure that your voice is heard, and that would often come up in the teacher that they were with, right? And so, there is value, to your point, there's value in not just running away because there's, one bad experience, right?

My kids, they, both of them had teachers that were just, like, just not their favorite teacher, right? But you can't get a schedule change, you can't opt out, so you gotta dig deep, and figure out how you are going to be successful in this particular situation against all odds. And that is reality, right?

And so, I think we are doing a disservice as parents if we take that ability to build resilience from our children, right? Not that it's right. Like, we know this is not right. And sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta bear down and get through it. And know that this is not gonna be the last person that you meet that might make your life difficult, that you're gonna have to figure out, how do I navigate this until I can take the next step?

So yeah, I do think that that's important, and we can't just take our kids from experiencing anything that might be uncomfortable for them.

Andrew: Certainly has been like one of the biggest gifts for my kids of the schools that they have been in is like yeah there have been issues. My oldest ha- like, science in seventh grade she would come out to the car every day just miserable because of science. It was, like, killing her. She hated the class, she hated the teacher. It was terrible every day. And I was, like, yeah this is this is rough. There's only one small school, there's only one science teacher. But I was like, you know, “Why don't you go talk to your advisor and, like, see, see if there's anything that can be done.” And finally she went and talked to the advisor and they moved her to a different class period. Same teacher (there's only one teacher), same classroom, same teacher, just different class period. And she loved it.

And, like, it became like one of her favorite classes. And it was just like a reminder to me that, like, we, we try so hard to figure out what is the quote, unquote best school, and we look at all this, like, aggregated data. What are the average test scores? What are the, you know….

But, like, and and I'm teaching now, right? I've got, I've got the same class twice in a row. I'm doing the exact same thing, and it's like a wildly different classroom experience for those kids because it's a bunch of humans, right? And we all show up together. We all bring all of our junk with us. And you take the exact same group of kids before lunch and after lunch and you're gonna have a different experience. You get them at the beginning of the day or the end of the day.

And there's, like, so many variables that we can't actually control for. And there's something that feels, like, unacceptable to us about that, right? 'Cause we have to do all these things to try to make sure we give them the best thing. And, like, at the end of the day, yeah, you're you're you're not gonna make it through K-12 loving every single teacher. And my kids are so much better off for having had some crappy teachers along the way. For having had some years where I was like, “Oh this maybe isn't like the best thing for them.” But they learned resilience. They learned that challenges are not debilitating. They learned that they are able to advocate for themselves.

And sometimes that advocacy results in no change, right? Sometimes they're like, “I want this thing,” and the school's like, “We can't do that for you.” And they live with that too. And it's easy to come to the first challenge in the road, particularly when you're maybe choosing a school that your community, that your friends, that the other people who are like you say is a bad choice. The ones, like you said, Marian who are like “Hmm, really? Are you sure you're gonna send your kid there?” You get to the first problem you're like, “Oh, maybe they're right. Maybe, maybe I, I'm making the wrong decision here and, and abandon it.” But yeah certainly I have found that sticking through it has been good for my kids, has been good for me, it's been good for my family. Like, we've all benefited from that experience, I think.

Jenny Devenny: Yeah, some of the “best” schools I've gone to, I've had the worst teachers, you know, in. So I feel like, you know, you can go to a top-rated school and have a terrible teacher, and, and a lot of times parents will just completely, like, brush that off and, and not even complain about it because they're like, "Well, I'm just glad you're there. You're in, you know? So, tough it out! At least you have the status."

I've been telling parents that come to our school that have been complaining is, you know, instead of complaining about the teacher to me, talk to her! In, like, a human way. I'm, like, I, you know, I'm sure that you could probably figure something out, you know? I, and but if you have one foot out the door, you're not gonna work on relationships, or even try to kind of see that teacher's point of view. Like, maybe you're missing something. And that's kind of what I've just been asking parents, "Just give it a try."

If you have the mentality that “I'm gonna leave.” iIt's like, all right, why bother? And you've just kind of written off this teacher instead of maybe creating a better experience for everyone. Maybe that teacher would really appreciate that feedback. In a [chuckles], a certain way.

Val: Yeah.

Jenny Devenny: Yeah.

Val: Jenny, like, I was imagining that parent that you're describing, and my question that I would wanna ask them is like, "Well, what are you in this for?"

Jenny Devenny: Right.

Val: You're in this so that you can say you're a good person. “Look at me, look at what I'm doing. I am checking off all the boxes for being an anti-racist, wonderful person.” And I think, if you ask somebody that question, they would not know what to do with themselves. [Val laughs] So, try it! Call us back.

Jenny Devenny: Okay.

Val: Let us know how it goes.

[Laughter]

Jenny Devenny: Okay.

Val: But it, but it is, it is a wondering that I have. Like, why are you really in this? I think my answer is I'm here because I want my children to be whole.

You know? Like, it's not 'cause it's the cool thing to do or, you know, whatever. And I, and again, I believe in public schools and the collective good, so this is why I'm choosing it.

Andrew: You don't just want your kids to be whole, you want all kids to be whole.

Val: I do!

Andrew: I mean, this is, like, ultimately where, where the the rubber meets the road on this, is, you know, is like, who, who are our kids? Like, how wide can we draw that circle? Because if we draw that circle just around our own kids, like, that's how we end up with the education system we have. Those with the most privilege, those with the most power hoard that privilege and that power. And then we just pretend that that is somehow like the way the system has to work And, you know, how, how big can we draw the, the circle of who are our kids that we care about?

I want my kids to be whole, I want my kids to thrive, I want my kids to have a sense of their own shared humanity. I want them to recognize the ways in which they have incredible advantages by virtue of nothing that they have done but simply by being born to, you know, White college-educated parents, in a White supremacist country. I want them to have some understanding of that. And I want all the kids at their school to be whole, and to have resources and to get the education they need.

And, you know, part of that is like because I think I have some general sense of like the collective good. But also, like, purely selfishly, that's the world my kids are gonna inherit. They are going to be entering college and the job market with all of these other kids. That is the world that they are going to live in, and if we're all doing better, we're all doing better.

The sort of cutthroat “Everybody has to get ahead. What's the competitive edge that I have over these other kids so that I can get into the better high school?” Like, all that stuff shows up in, in parenting, particularly in White parenting culture all the time. But it's, like, w-we it, it doesn't have to be zero sum. You know, go back to Heather McGhee, like, we could actually have an education system that did better by everyone. There's not a limited amount of education that we can give out that we have to “divvy up the pie” in certain ways. We could just make a bigger pie. And the more we can, like, draw that circle of “who do we care about, who do we view as our kids,” in a bigger and bigger way, the, the more likely we are I think at least to create a system that doesn't leave Black parents with no good choices. That doesn't leave us with the, the opportunity to either have a kid who is whole, or good academics.

Marian Dingle: I'm, I'm having a wondering. I don't live in New York, never have, but my daughter does. She has no children yet. I'm wondering, in this future world that we all want, when we talk about all the kids belonging to all of us and being about the collective good, is there a point where the choice for putting your child in a global majority school ends?

Like, is there... Is it okay to put them in a global majority school all the way through, or, or is it just a certain time period? Is that enough? Like, I, I don't know how to, how to reconcile both, I guess. I never really thought about it. I don't, I don't, I don't know if my daughter will stay in New York.

But if she had children, and if she stayed in New York, like, what would I be suggesting to her? Like, are we doing all of these things in these early formative years so that we can get into this particular school, in high school so we can get to a good college? Is, is that what it's all for? So that's... I don't know.

Val: Yeah, I think that's, right now that's, that feels like that's what's presented. And knowing that there are lots of paths, and some of them include post-secondary, some of them include trade school, some of them include community college. I think that feels okay 'cause again, I know Harvard grads who are not people I normally would wanna hang out with for many reasons, you know? [Val chuckles]

So, so that's not enough of a selling point for me to feel like I have to, to put all of my eggs in, in that particular basket to that, to get to that particular school. And Marian, one of the things that broke my heart years ago, also a New York Times piece. It was a, one of the data stories, and it had like the moving data bubbles, and it talks about, like, by race, your starting socioeconomic class, and it was like, regardless of where you started as a Black person, like, your bubble would go down.

It was just like….

So we do know that, right? We know that that is a possibility, so you wanna give your kids as much of a head start as you possibly can, by being part of some networks that you think will matter. But if they don't feel safe, if they're still not getting the opportunities even though they went to all of the right schools, but, you know, they happen to have a name that appears to be Black on their resume.

Andrew: Right.

Val: You might as well go to a school and have a good time! If we're, if we're... [Val laughs]. Go to a college and have a good time. Okay? Don't kill yourself trying to fit in if that still will not lead to, the life that you think you want.

Andrew: Like, you know, Najya gets to this, this number one choice school, the, her top choice, highly selective school, and in the first week of school is hearing White kids throw around the N-word. An experience she's, like, never had before in her life. And, you know, there's I'm sure like lots of good academic benefits that she's getting from this school, and that's a cost. And I think this to go back to Jenny, what you were saying, like this is where this is where the stakes are just different for my kids, and for Val and Marian, for your kids.

I mean, in some ways, like, the, the stakes are lower and, like, those predominantly White schools I think are also damaging to my kids. The stakes are much lower, but m-my kids are not getting called the N-word, but my kids being around kids who are throwing around the N-word is not good for my kids. Like, my, I don't want my kids growing up in a world where they think that that is normal, where they think that is acceptable, where they think that that is the way that the people with the most you know power and privilege in society are supposed to behave. So there is, like, a you know a cost to my kids wholeness as well. It's like a, a different cost and a different stakes, obviously. But, yeah, those all-White quote-unquote great schools I think are bad for everybody

Jenny Devenny: Yeah, I, I thought that stood out to me too in people's reactions to her piece is, you know, people were really critiquing the teachers and the administration at 307 in unison. But I didn't hear anyone like, "Well, why didn't those teachers at the all-White high school step in and stop that, like, explicitly racist behavior?"

No one was wondering where those, where the administration was when it came to that school because that was just accepted as the good school and, and why... You know, I know she's there, so I'm sure there had to be a level of, like, had to be like they couldn't say what the school was, and I'm not sure if that's why, but that was another element.

You know, like, that school was protected, whereas the other schools weren't. And so, that just didn't sit right with me. I'm just like why... That seems like way more serious and egregious than anything that was happening in the other schools. And that's just, like, brushed under the rug as like, “Oh, that just comes with the good schools.” You know?

Andrew: If you want a good school, that’s what you have to put up with, right?

Jenny Devenny: Yeah. Okay. And just like, no! Yeah. So that, that made me really upset. Yeah, I would not want my White kids in a school where that was behavior that was tolerated by the administration.

Val: Being called the N-word should not be what comes with going to the good school. Like, that is not a good...By definition, that is not a good school.

Andrew: Not a good school, right?

Marian Dingle: It's a microcosm of the real world though, right? Like, on some level, she'd been shielded from the real world from, you know, birth to ninth grade. I remember a time I was teaching a class, and one of my fifth grade students, Black boy, was called the N-word in the cafeteria at breakfast before coming to class.

So he was late coming to class because he ended up in the principal's office, like, telling the principal what had happened. Principal brought him back, didn't say anything. So before he got back to me, I had gotten word of where he was and why he was there.

His mother, who worked at the school, she came to talk to me. Then we both came to talk to her child. And little by little, like, before 30 minutes had passed, all of the Black employees that worked there, came to check in on this kid. And this wasn't a high performing school. It was pretty diverse, but very segregated in tracking and whatnot.

So a- again, the whole good school, bad school thing. You know, right and wrong, has to be in the list of good schools, right? And people who identify right and wrong, and don't gaslight kids, or gaslight other adults.

Andrew: Right. You know, we t- we talk about making these kids our kids. Like, no, no question, Najya experienced some real educational challenges and did not get the things that she deserved in the school where she was. And there are lots of schools that are not giving kids what they deserve. What does it look like to, to do better? You know, for people to opt in, to care about the system, to think about the collective. Jenny, as you're thinking about making this choice for your kid, what's the world that you hope that your choice is part of going to, like, single-handedly, but is part of creating to set your kids up in the future?

Jenny Devenny: I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want for my White kid to feel like a whole child as well, and I think it's, again, completely different. But I think part of, undoing this Whiteness and the impact of White supremacy is I don't want their self-worth to be tied to this sense of being better than anyone else.

I think that's incredibly harmful, and it's, it's not real. Like, Whiteness is not real. So when we, like, raise kids in this White supremacy culture, um, they're not actually forming a true identity. They're just forming an identity based upon a system of lies that tells them that they're better because of all of these things, and that's not true.

And when you finally see that, it can be really destabilizing and unsettling for people, and we see the reactions that, that happen to that. They're very harmful. And, you know, our country, I think, is in the midst of that, of a lot of White people maybe realizing that and wanting to basically unsee it.

I wanna be a role model for them in a way. I don't think White people have enough people to look to that look like us that are doing this work. I think White people should know that White people are making these decisions. This is not the work of, for Black people to do, you know?

And I wanna have my kids to see more examples of that, and I would like to think they have that in me, and they c- they can see that I am living out my values.

I just would like to get away from this idea that, anytime we're talking about “better than” or “the best,” anytime we're scrambling to get into a school, or there's a wait list, I, like, I just would like to get away from that. You know? I, can we just have a bunch of schools that, you, where people can all have a seat.

I don't, I mean, I know that sounds very idealistic, but–

Val: No, Jenny, that’s our solution to every episode. We're like,

Jenny Devenny: Yeah.

Val: This is easy!

Andrew: This isn’t that hard.

[Laughter]

Val: This is easy, y'all.

Jenny Devenny: No, I know. I, I got to see Nikole Hannah-Jones speak a couple months ago, and, like, she said it very simply in the end. She's like, "We know how to, we know how to end this, and we just don't want to." Like, you know, it could be easy, but, you have to want this.

Andrew: And I think, like, certainly, you know, my takeaway from her piece was not that we should abandon the project. Was not that–

Jenny Devenny: No

Andrew: –that individual families fighting for integration is, like, a fruitless endeavor. It was that, like it's a really hard problem. It's a 400-year problem.

Val: Mmm.

Andrew: With all the resources that she brought to bear on that, she couldn't fix the education system.

She did, and she gets into this in the podcast episode too, like they made positive impacts for the kids in that school, you know? It did not, like, fix it all, but, but did make positive change by virtue of being there. And, the only way the system changes is if those who are part of the system try to change it.

And so, I certainly felt like a renewed call to lean into integration work and to having it as a goal while being very grateful for this very deep inside look at what the actual experience is like for a Black family and that I know is not the same as my family's experience.

Val: Marian, do you want to go?

Andrew: Yeah, what does the world look like if, if we do a better job of this?

Marian Dingle: I remember when my son had just started driving and a good friend of his, who's White, they were at the house and they were getting ready to go out. And I was nervous. And I sat both of them down and I gave them the talk. My son, had heard it many times, but not his friend. What to do when pulled over, how to act, how to interact with police. All of the things.

And I remember then feeling a kind of way that he hadn't had the talk before, and that it never occurred to his parents that he needed to have a talk. I would love a world where, first, parents, all parents, White parents too, realize that there are differences and maybe they need to have the talk with their kids or at least enlighten them about what happens to other people's kids.

And in that having to give them the talk, that we create the need that we don't have to have the talk anymore. If enough White parents are outraged that they have to give this talk, then maybe things will start to change.

Andrew: Yeah, this is why Integrated Schools is so important to me, because that conversation with my kids means so much more when they are thinking about it in the context of their actual friends who are actually Black, who are actually Brown, who are actually, who are actually at risk of that thing.

Because it's one thing to say, you know, intellectually, let's imagine what it would be like if you had a Black friend, and you were in a car, and that Black friend got pulled over. But I'm sure your son's friend had a very different experience to having that conversation with you because it was his friend who he was thinking this, about it in the context of. If we don't have those personal relationships, we don't have that actual human connection, it makes it much harder to actually feel it. We can think our way into the what's, you know, all we want, and then when the going gets tough, it's easy to think our way right back out of it. But when you're feeling it, when you're, it's, it's about deep, you know, personal relationships, it's much harder to abandon the cause.

I love that. That's a beautiful vision.

Val: I'm over here feeling sad and feeling like we have to dedicate this episode to Nolan Wells.

Andrew: Yeah.

[Someone takes a deep breath]

Marian Dingle: I have not stopped thinking about it. I have, I have not. I think about that in relation to my son all the time. All the time.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: I think I naively at one point in my career thought that my little efforts could change the whole system. And they didn't. Right? I had, I put it on my back. I was gonna, I w- I was going to change the system. It was going to take me no less than three years, because clearly this is simple.Y'all are just l-

Andrew: You’re a boss.

Val: Y'all are just lazy! [Laughter] Clearly we can get this done, you know? And when you go in thinking that you have to change the entire system when you don't, you can feel a sense of failure. And so we do have to change what success looks like. Nikole Hannah-Jones drove at least a million people into this conversation. At least a million people questioning their decisions about what they should do.

And so, I think if we give ourselves some grace in the change that happens as a result of our efforts, then it will feel like we're not just up a hill or climbing up a mountain with no end in sight, you know? We are doing good. Each choice that we're making, we're doing good. Marian, no one had the talk with that kid! Right? Like, you did that. Jenny, no one's, like, talking to these parents about like, "No, what we should actually be focused on." Like, you're doing that. And so, I think that is an important reminder to all of our listeners. Like, your one choice might not change the system. But you will change somebody. You will make a difference. So just keep on keeping on, and it matters. So thank you. Yeah. Thank y'all for being you and, and doing it.

Andrew: Yeah. Thank you both for being here. It's been brilliant.

Jenny Devenny: Thank you both so much for having us.

Marian Dingle: Yes. Thank you, all of you. Great conversation.

[THEME MUSIC]

Andrew: So Val, what did you think?

Val: There's so much there, and, you know, I'm at the end of my journey as a mother of school-age kids. And for the most part, I don't have regret, but there's so much in Hannah-Jones and Najya's experience that I can empathize with for sure. And, you know, as caregivers and parents, you have to teach a whole lot.

Andrew: Right.

Val: You have to teach a whole lot about the world. And I'm thinking specifically about conversations regarding, like, poverty and privilege.

On our, on our podcast, we primarily talk about race, but you and I have been trying to do a much better job of making sure that when we talk about school integration, we're including other populations that might be overlooked in it. Because it is, it is an area that we are also learning, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: And we recognize that the conversation around integration is incomplete unless we include all voices. And so, as an adult, you're doing your own learning, and you have to figure out how to teach this to your kids.

I imagine Najya, maybe she did, but I'm going to imagine that Najya didn't spend a lot of time asking questions about what a privileged White kid's life was like. It was not something that she thought about until she got to her high school class, right, because it just wasn't a real world.

And I, and, and, and at this point, I'm talking about myself. I grew up in a Black city where most of the students were all in the same income bracket. I go to a super large PWI. I'm like, “No way there's this many White people on Earth.” [Andrew chuckles] Where did they come from?

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Val: I am sitting next to other students who didn't have a barbed wire fence around their high school, or they were able to go off campus during lunch. And I, I was angry. I was angry at that realization, you know? Because it was like, how can our experiences be so vastly different?

But it was never a conversation that would've come up in my house because it wasn't on anybody's radar. And I'm sure my parents didn't think, "Oh, she's gonna be angry when she finds out that th-this school had 24 AP class offerings, and her cl- her school only had five."

Andrew: Right.

Val: Ugh! I, I feel…I don't, I don't, I don't know how…[Val chuckles] I don't know. Our, our parents' and caregivers' to-do lists are long. For the most part, you are trying to just make sure the kid lives, eats something other than chicken nuggets and marshmallows. I'm only speaking for myself. I'm only speaking–

Andrew: They’re supposed to eat something other than that? Oh, shoot!

[Laughter]

Val: Okay?

And I did read a little bit of the comments of the, of the articles from The New York Times piece, and one word that came up that feels important to say right now is the word grace.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: We will have parents and caregivers listening to this episode who do not have an option even to send their child to a global majority school, even if they wanted to with all their values. They still need to know that they can raise a child who is not afraid to have these conversations, to not be completely unaware of someone else's lived experience. To not disregard it or to judge it as wrong, or bad, or to associate negativity just with someone's current living conditions.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: That feels important to remind folks.

Andrew: Everybody can make a choice to raise their kids thinking about other people and thinking about the reality of the world. You know, I think the story of Marian, you know, having the talk with her son's White friend is a very powerful example of that. And I also think about Maggie Hagerman, who was, I think, the third episode of the podcast ever, who wrote "White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America" all the way back in 2018. But, you know, she talks a lot about the challenges of keeping your White kids isolated in White environments and trying to teach them these values is really hard.

Val: Yeah!

Andrew: It’s not impossible, but it's really hard. And it's so much easier to do in the context where they have actual personal relationships, where they know kids who are different from them. It's like why, why the choice of school feels so important to me, and the choice of environment that you put your kids in feels like such an important piece of that.

So, definitely work for everyone to do, and at least that part of the work is much easier in a desegregated environment where your kid is not just surrounded by other kids exactly like them.

Val: It, yeah, it's a lot! We gotta do a lot. We're making a lot of choices for these young people. And some of them are gonna, gonna just nail it, and some of them you're gonna feel like, "Did I make the right decision?" And sometimes you won't know.

Andrew: Right. I mean, yeah, that's, that's a piece. I feel like I, I, I look forward to the follow-up piece another decade from now when Najya's 26. And what is her take on this then? You know, because she is v-very clear about how she feels about it right now as a 16-year-old, and I've got a almost 16-year-old.

Val: Yeah.

Andrew: Who also has strident feelings that I'm familiar with.

I remember my own strident feelings when I was 16, and I also know that, like, with time comes even more reflection and more appreciation.

Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: And so, who knows, who knows where she will end up another decade from now. You know, I think a lot of people read this piece as the, the conclusion, and this is really just the kind of the midpoint along the way.

Val: Not even.

Andrew: We heard the very beginning, and we heard this part at 16 and at 26 and at 36 and at 46. I still look back on the choices my parents made about my schooling and feel differently about it every day as I learn new things and come to appreciate new things. I look forward to hearing what comes of it in the future.

Val: Yeah.

Andrew: And I, you know, I think, I think bringing our kids into the conversation around our school choices is also a valuable piece–

Val: Yeah

Andrew: –of it. You know, I think, Najya being shocked to learn that her middle school was a, quote-unquote, bad middle school was a little surprising to me, and I think–

Val: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: –my kids have had some sense that the schools they go to are considered “bad.”

Val: Mm.

Andrew: From a very early age, in part because of the conversations we had. But I also think, to a lot of what Jenny was talking about, there's, like, a different degree of privilege that my kids bring in than Nikole Hannah-Jones' kid bring in.

Val: Mmm.

Andrew: You know, Najya brings in a lot of privileges, and she's not a White kid. And so there's lots of ways that–

Val: Right!

Andrew: –that shows up in the story, you know? My kid is not going to get looked over and assumed that she's not reading on grade level.

Val: Right.

Andrew: And then the, the ability to know that your school is considered bad without internalizing it in a way that's harmful, I think is like another level of privilege–

Val: Hmm.

Andrew: –that my kids bring to this because they, they can understand that there is an assumption out there about their school, and they can know that it's not true, and it's-- I think they've-- it's easier for them to have a little distance from that.

[Val chuckles]

So I can imagine why Hannah-Jones wouldn't necessarily put that on her daughter at such a young age.

Val: I think that was the argument that I made for White parents who I wanted to make this choice, right?

Your child isn't gonna be forgotten in these places. So it's okay to feel like you can make this choice and it be okay, and the Black children are okay. They go on to be doctors, lawyers, writers, educators. And… it's gonna be okay.

But yeah, if as a White privileged parent you're starting to compare your kid's experience with an experience of a, of a White child who's going to a more privileged, better resourced school, you're gonna feel like your child is missing out. You're going to question whether or not you made the right choice, and that is when you have to make sure you are clear on why you're making the choice.

Andrew: Yeah. And that's where you need community. I mean, that's–

Val: Yeah.

Andrew: –where, like, you have to reach out to your local Integrated Schools chapter or hit up our, our caregiver connection–

Val: Yep!

Andrew: –on the website because yeah, you need, you need people to hold that with you because that feeling is real.

Val: It is.

Hannah-Jones in these two articles did give us a, a wonderful gift. Just really expressing all of the, the feelings, and the hard choices, and the nerves associated with sending our kids to school.

Andrew: Yeah. Any school.

Val: Any school!

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: And, you know, I can imagine the weight that Hannah-Jones felt in being that voice of “You need to do this.” Right?

This is the right thing to do for the collective good, and watching her child struggle.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: And feeling like, how do I enter into this conversation without betraying the people that I love so much? How do I not betray Black folks who deserve this?

Andrew: “Who’s shoulders I stand on.”

Val: Yes!

Andrew: Who have also sacrificed for this cause, and who have also put their bodies and their lives and their children on the line–

Val: Right!

Andrew: –for it. Yeah.

Val: So thank you, Nikole Hannah-Jones. That's, that is heavy.

Andrew: Very grateful for it and very grateful for, I mean, just her vulnerability,

Val: Absolutely.

Andrew: and honesty, and as, as only she can do, she has now put integration back in the national conversation in a way–

Val: Yes!

Andrew: –that hasn’t been probably since a decade ago when she wrote the last article.

So, for that, I am eternally grateful.

And super grateful to Marian and Jenny for coming on and sharing their thoughts and chatting with us about it. We'll put a link to Jenny's blog post in the show notes and to, obviously, both of the articles and the This American Life episodes as well, 'cause really encourage everybody to dig into Miss Hannah-Jones' actual words, because yeah, they're powerful, and they are, are nuanced.

A lot of the internet conversation about the piece has lost a lot of the nuance. But I think you can't read the entirety of her piece without coming away with some real sense of nuance. And so, maybe before we say goodbye, Val, I'll just close out with the end of her, most recent article here.

Val: Okay.

Andrew: Uh, where she says, "Instead of fortifying our determination to fight for integration, we have instead chosen to succumb to a collective apathy in the face of a system so devastatingly unequal that it puts at odds trying to be a good person with trying to be a good parent. But for all of our justifications, including mine, an undeniable verity remains. As long as we continue to rescue our own children from the failing schools where we allow other people's children to languish simply because those children have been born Black and poor in a nation of racism and riches, there is no absolution here, not for me, not for you, for any of us."

Val: That was fantastic. I got goosebumps.

Andrew: Val, it is an honor to be in these conversations with you as I try to know better and do better.

Val: Until next time.