Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Pursuing the Truth in History Education with Jasmine Holmes

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, we welcome guest Jasmine Holmes. Jasmine is an educator and an author and she sits down with Sharon to talk about the state of history education in America: what it looks like and what it should look like. Why has it become a central topic in our current culture wars and how can we prevent the exclusion of our full and complex history? Thank you to our guest, Jasmine Holmes. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Jasmine Holmes Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Researcher: Valerie Hoback Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, friends, welcome. So excited to have you here. Today I'm chatting with educator Jasmine Hulse. And we have such a fantastic conversation about history education in the United States, what it looks like for adults, what it looks like for adolescents and what it should look like. So join us in this conversation. I can't wait to hear what you think. Let's save it. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am really excited to be chatting with history educator Jasmine Holmes. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. History education is a hot topic in the United States. Perhaps you have noticed. It is. I've gotten an inkling, a whiff.

What we should be teaching our children is such a controversial subject. It's the heart of the culture wars in the United States. What is it that children are meant to be learning? And both of our backgrounds is in secondary education. And so, first of all, God bless the elementary school teachers of the world. I do not have that in me. Bless you. It's not my talent. It is not my talent. In fact, I remember sitting in department offices and being like, In fact, I remember sitting in department offices and being like, how does one actually even teach second grade? I can't imagine. It is beyond my comprehension that you have these children all day, every day.

What? Keep them in line. Take them to the bathroom. No. I'll play with them all day. I love to play with them. I love children. Yes. To get them to do something for me in a group? No. No. No. Bless'll play with them all day. I love to play with them. I love children. Yes. To get them to do something for me in a group?

No. No. No. Bless all of you elementary school teachers of the world. That is not my talent. So when we're talking about education, we're not necessarily talking about what should we teach kindergartners because they have a very different developmental needs than students who are developing the ability to think critically and taking in-depth history courses in middle and high school. What have you been seeing as some of the conversation and rhetoric surrounding history education, and how has that changed over the last few years? So I started teaching right out of college in private

Christian classical schools. And so at first when I started teaching, the conversation was very much like, we want to bring more inclusion into this conversation. We're so glad you're here. And a lot of the time I was teaching Middle Ages and Ancient Greece and just having a good old time and bringing in things from all over the world for these kids. It was great. And then towards the end of when I was teaching, I like to say in for now because I love teaching and I miss it a lot, but I'm also in Jackson, Mississippi. So this is a very fraught climate to teach in. But towards the end, the conversation became more diversity and inclusion is great in theory, but you're kind of making the kids uncomfortable when you talk about X or you're kind of taking away from our mission of patri it was when I left the classroom. And it's gone from, hey, I'm a little bit concerned that some of your teaching is kind of veering a little bit too, again, private Christian school, veering a little bit too left for us, all the way till now,

you have people calling everything that has to do with Black history or diversity or inclusion wokeness, and wokeness is bad. Mm-hmm. If it is talking about somebody who is not white, then it has to be woke. Yes. I have heard that as well, that like, if it's not white, it's woke. Or the other argument that I hear a lot, which I'd love to hear you talk about, is why does it need to be about race? Why do we keep talking about it? If we stop talking about it, people will stop focusing on it. Why do we need to have Black History Month? Why do we keep talking about it? If we stop talking about it, people will stop focusing on it. Why do we need to have Black History Month? Why do we need to keep saying, I educate about Black history? Why do we need to separate it out? where wokeness is being attacked, you still have some level of Black history education going on. Everybody's attention right now is on Florida. And even in Florida,

they have a competition, a Black history essay competition. I was looking on the website of the Department of Education. And as long as Black history is merely an inspirational story here or there, it's fine. It's when you talk about Black history as part of the broader narrative of American history and you get into the weeds, right? You get into the legislative weeds of how race was developed in this country and how Black people were barred from American citizenship. You get into those types of things and that's when people got to get a little bit uncomfortable and start talking about wokeness and start like jumping back from it. For me, I was homeschooled. And so my education was very, it was super conservative. I was taught Black history in the context of these are some

inspirational stories that show the grit and perseverance of Black people, but not so much taught Black history from these are some things that are going on in the background of these inspirational stories. This is the context of those inspirational stories. This is the broader context of the country that we live in. And so as an adult finding out about those things, it made my life make more sense. It made the things that I was noticing make more sense. And it also made the stories that I was hearing and the stories that I wanted to tell make more sense as well. that I wanted to tell make more sense as well.

I've noticed a strong need amongst some people in America to want to be very comfortable with all of the history that they hear and know, that it needs to feel good. It needs to be inspirational. We need to be defeating evil. You know, they're willing to hear about World War II and the atrocities of World War II because we are the victors. And so that feels, and unfortunately, that is presenting students and Americans as a whole with a skewed version of history. Yes, for sure. It doesn't have to feel good for us to be grateful for the country that we live in. It doesn't have to feel good for us to be grateful for the country that we live in. It doesn't have to feel good for us to be bought into the country that

we reside in. That's right. And that's, I mean, that's 1776. Like, it did not feel good to rebel against England and to set up an entirely new nation and to, I mean, you talk about the founders all the time. It's not as if it always felt good for them to push back against each other and to sharpen each other and to sharpen each other and to make the nation that we live in today. Conflict is part of what makes America, America. And conflict is also part of what moves America forward and what makes it a more equitable place for everyone to live in.

The idea that we should exclude certain things that happened from history because they don't feel good gives people a skewed sense of how we got where we are, right? Wouldn't it be better to have the full picture and to be able to truly appreciate all of the aspects of the full picture, some good and some really reprehensible, but that full tapestry of the picture I I think, is worth viewing and not just like, oh, here's the good part with no mistakes that we want you to focus on. We're also setting ourselves up because then when students grow up and they see the full picture, then you've lost trust. And you've also caused the legacy of America that you've handed down to your students,

you've caused that legacy to lose trust. And so it's more important to be like honest and upfront. So my little sister is 12 and I was talking to her last night and I was asking her if she had read, never caught the book about Ona Judge, a black woman who escaped enslavement from George Washington. And I was just telling her about how the Washingtons like really hunted Ona Judge until the day she died. And my sister goes, oh my gosh, like, so George Washington is a bad guy. And I was like, babe, here's the thing. This is not a movie where there's a good guy and a bad guy. There are complex people across the map. And so you learn about George Washington and the fact that he secured our freedom in ways that are really important and benefits that we're reaping today. And you also learn about how he curtailed the freedom of others. The story there is not to

focus on George Washington, but instead to just focus on the wide tapestry of human complexity that makes America the nation that it is and makes us the people that we are. And again, she's 12, so I don't know how much of that she actually got, but just really wanting to drive home to her, like this is not about good guys and bad guys. This is not about villains and heroes. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's just about complex people

who are sometimes doing their best and sometimes not doing their best. And we're looking at them and we're learning from them in their lives. It's so true that you're hard pressed to come up with true villains and true heroes. And our propensity to want to create heroes out of people in America's past, again, robs us of that full picture. And there are a lot of things wrong with not knowing

the truth. There's a lot of things wrong with not knowing the truth. There's a lot of things wrong with not knowing the truth. It's not a desire to villainize. It's not a desire to be like, well, all these people should be taken down a few notches. That's not the motivation. Motivation is in pursuit of the truth because the truth is worth knowing no matter what. What happens in your estimation when students are not taught the truth, when they grow up with a skewed version of history? If the truth is worth pursuing no matter what, what happens if we don't do that? Well, we make less compassionate people, for one thing. I think we make people who truly believe in the mythology of America and therefore believe

that because America is the most equitable place to live in the world and always has been, irrespective of what people look like or where they come from or their economic status, then we look at people who are not on the same economic level as us and we think, well, it's just because they didn't try hard enough or they're not as good a people as we are. It creates people who aren't compassionate. It creates people who are arrogant. It creates people who are tone deaf. And again, it creates people who now don't know how to go about sourcing material about history and trusting verifiable primary sources, because I was always taught only from a narrow, narrow perspective. So then when the perspective broadens, I mean, you create people who are just like, oh, paralyzed.

Yeah, I've experienced that. And people tell me that all the time. Like I, I'm 55. I literally have never heard of this person. I've never heard of Ida B. Wells. And I feel robbed of that experience. I literally just had that experience this weekend where a lot of people never heard her name. We were talking about her in my book club, had never even heard her name. And they're like, I feel robbed that I have spent my entire life never knowing who she was or what kind of importance she had in American history. So we like to think that our children need to have only happy experiences studying history, but there will come a time when they are confronted with the truth. And that truth is going to be even more uncomfortable

knowing that the truth was hidden from them all along than if they were just told the truth from the beginning. I mean, I even think about that with my, again, with my six-year-old. It's Black History Month, and so he comes home with papers about everybody all the time, just like, oh, there's this person, oh, there's this person. And even from a Black mother's perspective, my son brings home a paper about MLK, and he's like, MLK was just the perfect person. He did so much good stuff. He was like a superhero.

And even my six-year-old, I was like, hey, someday you might find out some stuff about MLK that you don't agree with or stuff about MLK that is not really all that great. And you really have to realize that what's important about MLK is the message that he preached. It's even more important for you to, like, prize that message than to be idolizing the person. Because the person, the message is more important than the person. MLK's gone, but that message still lived. But we're setting him up so that in middle school, in high school, when he learns more, he's like, okay, well, this is actually a complex person who did really great things and had great things about him, but also had things that I don't agree with. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that action. I don't agree with that choice. I think that's a great

perspective that it doesn't mean that you have to speak to your six-year-old about MLK's marital infidelities. Exactly. Or the audio tapes that the FBI was making of him in his hotel rooms. Like six is not the appropriate time to go into all of the contents of that. That's not developmentally appropriate. But it is developmentally appropriate to say he was a really complex human who did some really amazing things that have had a lasting impact on the United States. And he also made some really significant mistakes. And the older you get, you know, what we are able to talk more about what some of those mistakes are, but just know he was a human, just like you are. He makes, made mistakes just like you do. We have this desire to create heroes in our own minds, but the heroes, I mean, humans will always

disappoint you, right? At some point, they really will. And it's better to just know the truth from the beginning that like he was a complicated man, just like you will be a complicated man or woman someday. Yes. So you run an Instagram account that is primarily dedicated to educating people about Black history. What made you want to do that, first of all? When my eyes were open to everything that I had not learned, I'm that student that we're talking about, the person who was taught a very narrow version of American history, and then as an adult, whose eyes were open to the complexity of particularly Black history in this country. And it was this moment when I realized I wanted, this is what I want to do.

So I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. I've always loved history. I've always loved historical fiction. I've always loved historical fact. And so I came out with a book in 2020 that was letters to my son about race and injustice in the context of the white evangelical church and like conversations that I wanted to have with him because that's where I grew up. That was my background. And I have a chapter about representation in there. And I have a chapter about representation in there. And I just kind of threw out a bunch of names of Black Christian figures who I had never learned about and how representation is important for me as a Black Christian. Because growing up and seeing so many White Christian figures, you kind of get this assumption in the back of your head that only White Christians are the people that God uses.

Because that's all that you're seeing. And so as an adult, having other names to add to that list was like, oh, God really does use us irrespective of person. Okay, I see that now. I see an example of that now because I see some more names of that. And it was the most popular chapter of the book, and everybody was like, hey, where can I read more about Mariah Fearing? Where can I read more about George Lyle? Where can I read more about? And on a popular level, there just weren't that many resources out there that I knew at the time. So I was like, hey, I'm going to write about this. And so I wrote a book called Carved in Ebony about 10 Black women in American history

slash Christian history who I didn't know about before I wrote about them. And it just opened the door to this amazing experience of continuing to learn history, continuing to go further up and further in. And it's just, you can't exhaust it. There's just so many stories that haven't been told. And so many stories that have been intentionally obscured. As Ida Wells says, of course, Ida Wells, if people who are listening to this are not familiar with her, she is considered the mother

of investigative journalism in the United States. Not a black investigative journalist, the mother of investigative journalism, period. And she was writing for all kinds of newspapers. And what her primary focus was, was on documenting lynchings around the country. focus was, was on documenting lynchings around the country. And she has a quote that says something to the effect of, the people who commit the murders write the reports. And so consequently, the people who are murdered don't have their stories told. The people without access to the ability to write the reports don't get a say in what the report is going to look like. And so there have been literally tens of thousands, perhaps millions of stories that have been either just lost for a variety of reasons, literacy being one of them, or people whose

stories have been intentionally obscured for a variety of reasons. And we are now coming into this age of information in which the truth can be revealed. And I think this is one of the beauties of the information age. People like to talk about, like, we're inundated with so much information, the 24-hour channels. And I fully understand that it is so much for people to absorb and that our brains are not meant to absorb literally everything that is coming our way. And yet, this is the beauty of the information age is that what is done in darkness can be brought to light. This is the spotlight that these people from our past, this community of ancestors have been waiting for. This is the moment. And what an amazing thing to be able to live in this moment.

Absolutely. I love that. In many ways, I view it as an obligation as a history teacher, as somebody who has the means, ability, desire, and wherewithal, I view it as an obligation to tell their stories. I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about that. What does it mean to you to tell the stories of people who have never had the opportunity to tell theirs? My entire experience of researching for my Instagram, for the books that I write, has been an experience of getting in touch with my emotions. I've cried. I've cried so much of just running across things that I never knew or running across things that are not broadly available or really, I mean,

and running across is putting it in such a light way, really searching and digging and trying to find and trying to uncover and trying to understand. As a Christian, so often the legacy of chattel slavery in America has been married to Christianity and has been married to the belief that I profess. So seeing, for me in particular, the legacy of Christian resistance to slavery and how so often that resistance was really loud and outspoken and happened in Black voices, it was transformative. It was amazing because for so long I thought it was something that I just had to like look away from because it just was like, oh, that kind of makes my faith a little bit shaky. I don't know. And so having the power to look at it straight in the face and to see that I stand in a long line of people who have looked at straight in the face is so empowering and so beautiful and something that I want to pass on to others and something that I want to show to others to amplify voices that were so loud at the time, but had become a whisper because they've been forgotten or because they've been purposefully obscured. As you said, we live in an information age and so many primary sources are so readily

available to us. They're right at our fingertips. And so having the tools to uncover those and to show those and teaching other people the tools to uncover those and show those, my goodness, it's meant so much to me as a person of faith, as a Black woman, as an American. And it's also just, I think a lot of times, you know, I talk to people about we need to have a different legacy, right? Like we put our faith into this legacy of America as this perfect nation that's better than all the other nations. But if we kind of like shift our idea of legacy to this nation where people have conscientiously spoken up on behalf of the marginalized and the oppressed from the very beginning, that makes it so much more beautiful, like so much fuller, so much weightier. You know, the roots just dig in so much deeper when we see the full picture. in so much deeper when we see the full picture. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs.

Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! laughs. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts. One of the things that I am consistently struck by as I learn more and more about Black history, which I do not hold myself up as an expert in, but one of the things

that I'm consistently struck by is how there was almost no group in U.S. history who cared more, was more invested in democracy and in the future of this nation than African Americans, than people who were previously enslaved, than people who were the direct descendants of the enslaved. The idea that people would do and risk almost anything just to be able to show up and to me, the dedication, the buy-in that is required to risk literally life, limb, livelihood to cast a ballot. We are sitting from such a position of privilege to just roll up, be like, push some buttons and roll out. And that is what we're missing when we make statements like, why do you have to make it about Black history? Yeah.

Why do you have to bring it up all the time? I think you could be, you'd be really hard-pressed to find an example of people who risked more for the right to vote. Early on in the conversation in America, colonization was always a huge push for Black people in America. I was, you know, hey, slavery is the worst, but we don't want free Black people living among us. So we will send them to Liberia or to South America

or, you know, and when you hear, when you hear Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis and so many other people talk about, no, we're staying. We're Americans. This is our country. We're bought in. Actually, we're Americans. Yeah, we are bought in here.

Like, we're not going anywhere. We are. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, you have so many people who are like, oh, it's a victim mentality and oh, it's not patriotic. What's more patriotic than that? To be like, no, this is my country. And even if you finance my journey elsewhere, where I won't have to deal with the same issues that I'm dealing with here, I choose to stay here because sweat equity is real. And

I'm staying here because this is where I belong. This is where I am bought in. And for so long, right? I know that it's controversial to say, so, you know, okay. But 1619, at least since that long, being here since before the country was even a country and watching that legislative reality shape, you know, the Stono Rebellion took place in the 1740s, like years before the Revolutionary War jumped off. And the Stono Rebellion was full of Black enslaved people who were carrying banners that say liberty. It's amazing. It's amazing. And America's response was like, ooh, let's not let them read because that's dangerous, our subversive materials. It couldn't even be contained by that because the desire for freedom is inherent, which is what our declaration says.

It's what we say we believe. That's such a great point, Jasmine. What is more patriotic than being like, no, this is our country too. Yes. And we will do whatever it takes, including risk, especially in the Jim Crow South, literally risking our own livelihoods to be able to vote. What is more patriotic than that? I mean, Fannie Lou Hamer is right up there with the founders for patriotism for me. I mean, just risking life and limb, which is what the patriots did when they fought for our country. Absolutely. And it's also what black people have done in this country for generations.

Again, I'm on this Ida B. Wells kick because I was just talking about her this weekend. She was born into enslavement. Her parents were enslaved and her family was emancipated when she was a young child. And her mother was so desperate to learn to read that she began attending school with her children. And I was like, I don't know a single adult woman who'd be like, let me get up in there in second grade. What it had to take. And Ida was the oldest of eight kids, right? You know, like this, she had things to do.

Yes. She had things to do. She had a living to earn. She had children to care for. And the fact that it was so important to her to become educated, to learn how to read, that she was willing to attend school along with her children. And then they would have friends over in the evening so that the adults and the children could all sit in a room together and practice reading the newspaper out loud to each other,

because there's nothing that can contain the power of the educated, right? And they knew that education was liberation. And they were willing to do whatever it took, including embarrassing themselves in front of a room of small children, like the meanest people ever. Little kids will make fun of you for anything. Oh, absolutely. Including making fun of you and embarrassing yourself, being willing to be a beginner and learning to read, which is difficult to learn to read when you're a child. Oh, as an adult.

Oh, my goodness. I can't imagine. That amount of courage and patriotism is unmatched. Yes. It is unmatched. For wanting to participate in this country. You look at the Black senators of the, whenever somebody asks me like, what should I read from Reconstruction in my classroom?

Teachers, if you are looking for something from the Reconstruction to read in your classroom, listening to Black senators defend the civil rights bill, it's amazing. Because you have so many men who were literally born into slavery, who gained literacy, like, either illicitly during slavery or after emancipation, and who were just articulately defending their American rights and the rights in this country and encouraging other. And the reason why they were even able to be elected to office was because Black people were taking advantage of newfound literacy and new newfound liberty people like Ida B. Wells parents were doing what they could so that they could be participants in democracy yes her father became very politically active until he died of yellow fever which is a story for another day yellow fever is also a fascinating part of U.S. history. But yes, he wanted so badly to be able to influence American democracy

that he was willing to literally do the work that most of us, if we take a good hard look in the mirror, most of us today would not be willing to go to those lengths. I mean, I feel like we're not now. Sometimes it's easier for me to get on Instagram and follow a pundit and figure out than to actually go and figure out, okay, what's actually on the ballot in my state right now, right here? But those were the kind of questions that require so much education, require so much

buy-in. And throughout history, Black citizens, even before they were even allowed to be called citizens, had so much buy-in. And throughout history, Black citizens, even before they were even allowed to be called citizens, had so much buy-in. I just think it's such an overlooked aspect of U.S. history. Absolutely. That we think you can either care about Black history or you can be patriotic. Yes. And that is a false dichotomy. arms about. And you have so many historians who are involved in the 1619 Project, but my favorite one who's involved in the 1619 Project is Martha Jones. And Martha S. Jones

wrote a book called Vanguard, and she wrote a book called Birthright Citizens. And both books, Vanguard is about Black women and their participation in American politics. It's all about suffragettes' voting rights, but also voting rights for Black people. It's amazing, incredible. Birthright Citizens is about Black people's fight for citizenship. Martha Jones has a chapter in the 1619 Project that is brilliant. So many people are not going to read it because they are more concerned with the political discourse than actually learning American history. We've confused

patriotism with partisanship. We've confused patriotism with hot takes. Real patriotism is digging in and learning so that we can affect change in this country, yes, but also so that we can look back and see the change that has been affected. And we're missing out on so much looking back and seeing the change that has been affected because we're worried about partisan politics. We're not normally afraid to have conversations. Normally, we're like, that's how the country advanced forward is by having hard conversations. You look at the minutes from the Constitutional Convention, those conversations were being had. They were not nice. Yeah, he was like, I don't want to bring that up. I mean, Washington might not like me if I say it. No, no.

We're going to say it. Ben Franklin was insulting people under his breath half the time. Ben Franklin was like insulting people under his breath half the time. Oh my gosh. And John Adams, John Adams, I feel so bad for him. He got so blackballed. Then he came out swinging.

Like he was blackballed constantly. It's about the slavery issue, right? Like he kept bringing it up and they were like, dude, we don't care. Like we do care, but like in next generations, we care.

And John was like, we care about it now. And they just went, I mean, it was just such a back and forth and such an explosion of like this meeting of the minds. And I feel like we miss, we're missing out on that right now because it's like, okay, I don't want to speak unless I'm sure that I'm towing the party line. So when I speak about America, I often speak about it. Like when I speak about the founding, I often speak about

it in terms of potential, right? Because for me, my ancestors doing the founding, well, my husband and I did Ancestry.com last year, and it was kind of like funny, ha ha, not funny, ha ha, but like funny, like oof. Because we were like, oh, we have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, and we have ancestors who fought in the Civil War. They're not Black, but they were doing it. But there were, there were Black patriots as well, but there weren't Black people in those halls of conversation. So, right, they're fighting on the front lines, but they're not involved in the conversations of shaping the nation. So when I think about myself and I think about America's founding, and another Black person might feel differently, but I feel like I have no choice but to talk about it.

But in terms of potential, it is what was not for my people, but had the potential to be for my people later on. for my people, but had the potential to be for my people later on. But that potential would not have been built in were it not for these back and forth conversations of just, I mean, they were just short of throwing hands sometimes. I feel like they were just like pistols at dawn, but that's what it takes. That's what it takes to really have the kind of discourse that builds a nation that has the potential that America had. And it's not unpatriotic to talk about what America has done well and also where America has failed. Yes. It is not unpatriotic to be like, we absolutely failed to get it right when it came to the rights of people of color. We failed. And that is America's original sin. And now we need to figure out what do we do about it?

Right? That is not unpatriotic. In fact, it is patriotic to be that deeply invested in your own country out of love and respect for it, that you want it to be better. Yes. I mean, people, all the, still people have a conversation with me often of like, well, if you hate America so much, then why don't you go somewhere else? Just go somewhere else. I don't, first of all, I don't hate America because, see, see, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. People think of America as those white men who are having conversations in the highest halls of power. They don't think of me as America. And that gets revealed

when I'm talking about my history and they say, well, if you hate America so much, no, no, no, no. It's all America. All of it's America. And so when we get rid of that dichotomy in our head of like, oh, there's these guys that are on Mount Rushmore that we have to defend. And then there's these other people who are less important, who are like less a part of our legacy. It's all our legacy. And I think like when we expand our brain to actually like see that, I think it really changes our perspective. And again, like I stand in the long line of people who say, oh, no, no, no. My blood, sweat, and tears helped to build this people who say, oh, no, no, no. My blood,

sweat, and tears helped to build this country. So I'm here. I'm bought in. What can we do to continue to help America live up to the potential? That's why the Constitution was written the way that it was written, so that we could continue to shape this nation. And slavery was one of the main issues where the founders were a little bit lazy. And they were like, somebody's going to fix this. Somebody someday will fix it. This is a topic for another day bit lazy and they were like, somebody's going to fix this. Somebody someday will fix it. This is a topic for another day. Yes.

They were like, somebody's going to fix this. Yes. Somebody else, it's somebody else's job to figure it out. This is something that I think, you know, speaking as a white American, that I think many white Americans fail to understand. In the same way that the founding era of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, is all of our shared history, right? No matter what race you are,

that's all of our shared history. Black history is also all of our shared history. Absolutely. It is not just a history of some people. It is a history of America. And as much as George Washington is part of your history and my history, Frederick Douglass is as much a part of my history and your history. It is all of our history. It is not a history for some people and the rest of us have this other history. It is my heritage as much as it is your heritage. And white Americans, by and large, I'm not saying everybody, but by and large, fail to see and acknowledge that this is your heritage as much as it is anybody else's. Yes, absolutely. And we're not even just saying that as, this is your heritage, you should feel bad.

Because I think that's the unspoken thing that people hear. We're not saying that. We're not saying, oh, the slaveholders are your heritage and then the enslaved people are my heritage. No, all of it. This is all American. The whole story is our story. The entire story is our story. Now, how you reckon with your particular individual genetic heritage, that's up to you. But we're talking about the entire history of America is our heritage and all these different... I mean, the Chinese migrant workers, that's our heritage. Like, it's all American heritage. It's all part of the story that makes America. heritage. It's all part of the story that makes America. And that is part of what makes America America, right? Is this incredible heritage from all over the world, so rich and so varied. And

you said it really beautifully. The entire story is all of our heritage. And because it is all of our heritage, we should know the whole story. Absolutely. Well, I love your page. Tell everybody where they can find you and what they can expect when they visit you on Instagram. Yeah. So my Instagram is Jasmine L. Holmes.

And I talk about a lot of stuff. I would say 75% of what I talk about is conscientious Christian objection to slavery as it was happening on the ground. That is what gets me excited. But in order to talk about that, I talk a lot about just the Civil War, a lot of the buildups to the Civil War, a little bit of founding. So it's a lot of Black history. It's a lot of Black Christian history. And then the other 25% is books. Actually, 20% is books and then 5% is pictures of my children because they're delicious and everybody should see them.

Well, I'm really grateful for your time today. This was a fantastic conversation. Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you for being here. And thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for having me. Y'all can follow Jasmine Holmes at Jasmine L. Holmes on Instagram. She has so much fantastic information. I think you will really get a lot

out of her platform. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for listening to Hearer's Work. It's interesting. This show is written and researched by Heather Jackson, Sharon McMahon, Valerie Hoback, and Amy Watkin. Edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. We'll see you again soon.