Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Nikole Hannah-Jones Questions a Major Decision About Her Daughter’s Education

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Surprise, surprise, Thought Warriors!!! You thought you were done with us this week, but we said “nah!” Van and Rachel have a surprise episode for you straight from the plane in Sweden. They���ll discuss Nikole Hannah-Jones's decision to put her daughter through public, low-income school 10 years ago. How it’s going, the impact on her child, the community, and what the awareness has done.(00:00) Welcome to Higher Learning(00:51) Nikole’s experiment, 10 years later Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producer: Jade Whaley and Marco Escalante Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Jade Whaley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to by Uber Eats. You can get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Sorry, you can't get a beach deliver, but you can get a peach. A canoe, no. Shampoo, yes. A rocket? No way. Chocolate, yes way. It's everything you need, including $10 off your first grocery order with code,

anything 30, 30. Get almost, almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now. Order a minimum of $30 required, valid on grocery, convenience, retail, specialty foods, or flower delivery orders only, Terms and conditions apply. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street.

Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGT.org. All right.

Yo, you, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on. We're coming from Sweden. I'm Van Lakin Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Now, listen, the genesis of this podcast is very simple. We realized that because this was a jumbled week,

because we're traveling to the Spotify Summit here in Sweden, we some Sweden motherfuckers. We're going crazy with Sweden. How do you adapt to everybody's... Let them be Swedish. Oh, what you mean? We Sweden now. Everything we got going on is Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, Sweden.

Everybody's showing love. Somebody showed me love in the airport in Denmark. Somebody came up to me and said, I love what you do. We out here. Okay. But we forgot to talk about legitimately one of the biggest cultural flashpoint talking point issues right now that's going on, which is the New York Times essay written by Nicole Hannah-Jones. Nicole Han Jones, of course, one of our very best intellectuals.

She of the 1619 Project, also of many different pieces of literature, scholarship, and investigation into the condition of contemporary blackness and of systemic inequality and functional oppression everywhere. Nicole Hall of Jones doesn't just talk and read about her observations. She actually digs into different systems and then exposes them for what they are and it consists of these inside of them. This particular piece was about her daughter. Her daughter who she enrolled in New York Public Schools back in 2016 when she became a schooling age, but didn't do it in quite the way that a lot of people would assume that a Nicole Hannah-Jones would do this.

She is someone who is by description in this essay, upper-middle class, and rather than put her daughter in a school that is commiserate with her station in life, she thought it important to take an active, active participation, of course, in her daughter's education, but very frankly, to enroll her in schools that cater to or run by and serve lower income black and Latino students in New York City. And she did this because she believes in investing into those schools, not just with her words and with her money, but with her progeny.

This essay is about her questioning her decision to do that after a conversation that she had with her daughter and about some of the issues that her daughter had as she is, she left those types of schools and went to a more competitive school and then saw herself either not quite prepared for that school or straight up, like, upset with her mom about her mother's choice. Is that a good way for me to sum up everything that happened after a fucking 15-hour flight? We did just have a 15-hour flight. We were tired, y'all.

We were tired. But this is definitely a topic that we should cover. Yes, you sums it up. The only thing I would add, unless I missed it, because again, 15 hours. You slept. I didn't. is that this marks 10 years from her making the decision. Yeah, yeah.

I say it started in 2016, but no, that's very important context because her daughter is now 16 years old. And because when she decided to make this decision, she wrote an article about it, and her daughter was on the cover of it. So I think that kind of leads into the conversation of some of the criticism that people have because of it started out very public.

And but the response was beautiful. The response was, wow, you know, you are somebody who brings awareness. Obviously, her work speaks for itself, but a lot of what she does has to do with inequality, specifically in education. And she was explaining why she was going to have her daughter in a public school, a lower SES school, and within the neighborhood. And people commended her for that. And some people decided to follow suit as well.

fast forward to 10 years, it's a different story. So I think that like it kind of, it's like a full circle moment here. Right. And I guess the central crux of the argument here is there are certain people that are saying this was performative that Nicole Hannah-Jones did this in order to just, I don't know how people can feel this way, but virtue signal to the highest degree. Look, I am someone who is somewhat well to do. Watch me put my daughter in a place where I, in the type of schools that I've advocated for, this is me putting my money where my mouth is, like legitimately, put it in my blood where my mouth is. And people are wondering if this is a black middle class liberal mind run amok.

Other people are saying this is precisely what you should do if in fact those are issues that you actually care about. Can we get into, okay, before we get into this real quick, before we get into this, now that we've laid it out, everybody knows what the fuck we're talking about. So that entire preamble was like, whatever. Not true, but keep going. Can we talk about what our individual school experiences were, just for context? Sure.

How did you, what was your school life like? Well, let me just say, I grew up in Oak Cliff. And so my school would have been Daniels, Brown. Kimball, public schools. I'm not sure where they fall in on the system. So I'm not going to speculate. But it would have been majority black. I would have had a completely different experience

than I had a First Baptist Academy. My parents both work downtown Dallas. The school is in the heart of downtown Dallas. I started going there in preschool and I ended up going there all the way till graduation. I graduated from there. Oh, so your entire school life is at one place. It's at First Baptist Academy.

Convenient for my parents. also it's a private school. The schooling was different. But culturally, the makeup was different. And it's actually, I had the total opposite experience as Hannah's daughter because when I got to high school, I was begging to go to the neighborhood school because I wanted to be with black people, especially coming off the hills of watching my sister when I was in eighth grade go to Spelman and seeing her at an HBCU, I was.

begging to be a part of the neighborhood school. And my parents were like, it's too late for you. No way. You ain't going to do well at Campbell. Right. They're going to eat you alive. Like, just because you haven't been around any of it, like, you don't be so naive, you'll be so green.

And so, like, I was like, oh, well, can I go to another school? But obviously, area codes, all of that kind of stuff. Like, there was really only one school I could go to or a magnet school, which then didn't have sports to the level necessarily that I wanted that I was playing at at that time. But yes, I went to a private religious school my entire life from three to 18.

Yeah, I know people like that because they had some of those schools like U-high, the school that was on LSU's campus. You'd meet the kids from U-high because Ryan ended up going to U-high for high school and then you'd meet kids and they would be talking about like, hey man, like this is the same shit

he was doing in fourth grade and you've been going to school with somebody since fourth grade. I went to many different schools because we moved around a little bit. So I went to University of Terrace Elementary School in South Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That's right there on Roosevelt, like right down to the bottom. Then we moved and I went to T.L. Marcellus Elementary School in Dallas for a little while. Went to Marcellus. Marcellus. T.L. Mercalis Elementary School.

In Oak Cliff. Is that where that is? Well, Marcellus is that runs through Oak Cliff. It's street. So that is the, that's out of the first grade there. In Los Angeles, I went to York Elementary School, all black and Latino in Hawthorne. The thing is, the reason why I think this is interesting to talk about is because your experience and my experience almost meld to make the experience that she was kind of talking about. because despite the fact that I went to these schools,

she talked about the fact that in some of these parents, they get their kids tutoring so that they can perform on standardized tests and test into the gifted program. I didn't have any tutoring, but I tested into the gifted program in the fourth grade. So when I tested into standardized tests, I don't know what to tell you.

I took the test, to test it in. I didn't have any tutoring, but I did getting into the gift to gift. Go ahead. They actually, you know what the funny thing about that was? I wish my mom was for the fun. The only thing about that was that like they told us as if they were so surprised. Like they told us.

Like you test into the thing and then they go, like, we got to talk to your mom. So they come in there and they go, hey, like, Van can do all this. And the guy, I talked about this before. A guy from this place called Pupil Appraisal came. And this nigga had me putting blocks together. And I had to do this for like a week. Like I had to put together blocks and answer questions and sit down with them and all that stuff. fucking Zoom.

Yeah. Like I had to do all of this stuff for like a week. We haven't seen one of these guys before. And then after that week, this gold packet came in the mail. You opened it up. That's exactly the way it went.

This gold packet came in the mail. You open it up and you are in the gifted, talented program. And once you're in it, you're in it. That's it. You're in it. You can't make enough grades to get kicked out of it. You can't make bad enough grades to get kicked out of GT.

You're in there for life. But then I went to McKinley Middle. Then I went to McKinley High, which is an interesting, an interesting experiment in this because that was an all-black school in South Baton Rouge, and it would have been all-black with no white kids there ever, right, except for the fact that the gifted program was almost all-white. So being that that's where my family was from, and I was used to that block, and I knew that block,

and I knew that part of Louisiana. I used to be around there, but at the same time, I was in the gifted program, the gifted classes there. So I almost saw firsthand what it would be like to be in a class

that was for the gifted program and then a class that wasn't. That's not to this, any of the people that went to McKinley because there were some phenomenal minds, phenomenal minds that went to McKinley that weren't NGT. Okay, whatever.

All it is to say that, like, your educational makeup and how you experience school, both from a scholastic standpoint, and really from a social standpoint, kind of set the groundwork for the kind of person that you become and the way that you look at the world, right? And so that's a reason why I feel like so many people are being not just unkind, but a little obtuse about their response to this essay. This is a phenomenal place to find yourself in if you're Nicole, Hannah-Jones, and you legitimately care about these issues and you've talked about

these issues, you've written about them, you've invested into them. It would be, for somebody who seems to have the sincerity about them that she has, it would have been a really odd thing for her to just say, hey, let me find the best most expensive school and send my child to them. So then all of the writing and all of the scholarship and all of the investigations, you know, that she has done for years and years and years would then be rendered inert in a way by the fact that when it was time for her to do it,

she had no interest in advocating through her own family. That's not saying that she had to do that, but it's just saying the fact that she struggled with that decision, I think demonstrates the fact that she's really interested in some of the things that she's devoted her career to. Hmm. So obviously people listening know that we're not parents. So we have no idea what it is to be faced with this kind of decision.

So we don't know what it is to be faced with these type of crossroads just as for what she does and then also just as a parent. Also, I can't imagine how hard it must have been to be so vulnerable in this article and to admit your misstep. and subject yourself to public critique. That takes a lot of courage because you knew what was going to happen the moment you press publish on this article. You knew it. And I think that people already criticize her

at a higher level just because of what she does as well. I think they're ready to critique her easily, more so in a negative way. But this is tough. This was a beautifully written article. but I feel like there was a point where it could have stopped earlier than it did. And that's how I felt as a reader.

I think that it made sense to me why 10 years ago she decided to enroll her daughter in PS307 and wanted to stay true to bringing awareness and felt like she could do it in a way that some of the other parents couldn't because of the way she was situated in this society. the job she had, the way she was connected, because of the income she had, all of that, and because of the awareness that she has.

So I understand the initial motivation to have to enroll your daughter in these schools. But the moment your daughter started to come home, which was almost immediate after kindergarten, it started in first grade, the moment that your daughter started to come home and feel defeated by the system, by the teachers, by her classmates, by the schoolwork, all of it. I would think, and this is where I think some of the criticism comes from the readers, that you would say, okay, my daughter is suffering. My daughter is not getting what she needs. I can remove my daughter.

I have still, and I can still be an advocate because there is more than one way to advocate for better schooling. And you can still be, you know, and again, this is just me as a reader. This isn't judgment. This is just how I felt taking it in. You could still be true to your word. You enrolled your child. You were able to witness exactly what is happening within these school systems.

And you remove your child because of some of the failures that you're seeing. Because there's this really great line where she talks about the inequalities that they begin outside of the school. but they're magnified within them. I was like, that's only a perspective that you can get if you do enroll your children, your child, into this type of system, and you see it. You see what you're fighting for and what your child isn't getting

and you know that there's better out there. I thought that that perspective was so profound. But the moment that you kept going within it, it felt like you were using your child as a case study and that you were more focused on your values more than the well-being of your child. that is what it felt like reading it at times. It felt like it went a step too far.

And she eventually got there. And of course she, you know, she's reconciling with all of this 10 years later. But I think that was where it became the issue for me. At what point, what was it going to take for you to listen to what your daughter was saying was lacking with her? Because she had been doing it since first grade. What I think is if your daughter is there,

if you think that you can both, ensure that your daughter gets a quality education and socialization, which is important to be around black kids, right? Because as soon as she got to the white school, when she got to high school, she started getting a crash course

on what it's like to live in a profoundly racist society. I think, I'm not speaking for her, I'm talking to what she said in the article, was that she thought that she could be a part of some of the solutions to these problems. and her daughter is probably going to have a great life no matter what, right?

And have all of these things are things that are in front of their brains, right? They can look. They're proactive about them. They're all proactive about them. They can fix this stuff. They give her enough latitude to express herself so they know when things aren't going right for her. However, if you leave the school and you don't try to fix or just, any of the issues going on.

And if you don't, like, learn and immerse into them, not saying that everybody has to do this, just saying from somebody with her worldview, then what you do is you, through your inaction, you contribute to this going on. The interesting thing to me is, I hear what you're saying. saying, and you're obviously right.

Like, people that say this are right. But, like, most of the people that I know, this is not the first time I've heard this. This is not the first time I've heard this. Like, I've heard, I've talked to uncles that be like, nah, we're sending him right up there to McKinley. That's where he need to go. He needs to go there and be there with them kids

and go to school with them and under school. Then he needs to achieve. And he needs to, not only this, we're sending him right up the road that that's where you're going. you're gonna go up there. That's the real world. That's life. That's how you're getting like.

I remember one of my uncles told me that his worst fear was sending his son to Redemptress or someplace like that his whole life and then having him wake up when he was 20, second year in college, and realize he was black. He's like, it don't work like that. He's like, it don't work like that. And I think part of this article has been positioned as the fact that she did this so that her daughter would be socialized around other black kids and like understand blackness. And that's not, that's, that's a really reductive way of looking at everything that she was doing.

She had a belief that involving herself in this problem, directly involving it through herself and her family, that she could make a difference. And she learned after a while that there was a cost. And this is what we do all the time. We litigate how much you're going to be involved in what you're willing to sacrifice and then what cost you're willing to pay on the backside. Now, it seems pretty fucking drastic if that cost is like your child because you have two things that are running up and against each other. One is this like almost pro-evolutionary imperative to protect your child to make sure that your line continues and has it easier than you.

when you look at life, a lot of people that can't find any meaning in life outside of what we exist right here on earth, they go, well, that's the entire point. The entire point is to have your children do better than you and leave a legacy through them to where they don't make the same mistakes that you make, right? But then there's a different way to look at society,

particularly if you're black, that everybody's children and your children and look at things in a holistic way. And a way that almost is at cross purposes with a viciously individualistic way of looking at society that just says as long as my kids are okay, then that's cool. That to me is something that I really struggle with. And I struggle with it, not that I judge people that do it.

But I don't think that that works, particularly for the situation that black people are in in this country. If she doesn't do all of this, then we don't get this article, which is devastatingly eloquent in what it's like to be a black or brown person in the New York school system. I'm not saying that all the shit that her daughter went through was worth all of that. I'm just saying that it might not feel like this. And I'm not saying it to the person that's listening to me right now. I'm not saying you.

But somebody got to do stuff like this. Somebody got to do it. Yes. I completely understand it. But as I kept reading it, I kept thinking, are there other ways? Because that's why I say, I get it at the start. But the moment you see your daughter's attitude changing, you see her not being as excited about it, is when you start to weigh it out. And it feels like in reading it that she got lost in some of this, like lost in trying to balance out the two things.

And she talks about in this article, too, it's not just New York. that she has spent time in other places, other lower socioeconomic societies where the schooling is not as great. And she's talked to some of these students and she's brought awareness to some of it. So she's been doing this sort of advocacy. She's been bringing awareness about it. So it's not like this was her only option. I get it. This was a different perspective, which I already talked about before. But it's not like it was the only thing to do. Now, what I think is great, about her being so vulnerable and open with this is that, and this is where this is another sacrifice. Like people talk about, oh, she sacrificed her child.

Well, she's also sacrificing herself by writing this article because she's doing it to again bring up the conversation of, you know, judge me if you want. But at the end of the day, I'm showing you that there is a problem within these school systems. And I know it because my daughter's been in it. I know it because I've studied it, I've researched it, I've talked to these students here, and we easily forget and we move on to whatever is burdening us at the moment, but at the end of the day, there is a deep problem within our education system. And this article is bringing awareness to it.

Quite often we talk about the bigger picture of systemically, you know, she talks about integration and how that really has led to segregation. if you're black, brown, or you're poor. But then she also gets into, when you go into these schools, it's who's the administrator, who's the principal, who's teaching these classrooms, how big are these classrooms, what type of students are within the classrooms, who's getting the focus, the trouble,

the students who are acting up versus the students who are doing well, who's being rewarded, how much homework is giving. Oh, we're doing limited homework because we know that they can't do their homework when they go home. All these different things that she's bringing, awareness to. And I feel like she sacrificed her reputation in a sense as a parent in order to bring awareness to this topic again. And we're all talking about it in a different way. Like this, like going from the out all the way to narrowing. That's another thing that's funny to me about this,

right? Because I'll say two things. The first thing I'll say is she, I mean, she was a parent, a super involved parent. The essay goes through. great lengths to talk, great links to talk about that. As a matter of fact, a lot of the subtleties of this, she wouldn't have understood if her daughter wouldn't have been in the school, right? A lot of the subtleties of this, she would not even get it. She wouldn't get how not just the, these are the statistics, these are the test scores, this is the way it works, this is the way it goes.

This means students go here. The money is allocated here, all of this stuff. She's covered this stuff in other places, very true. But as far as when this was her daughter, she was able to see just how some of this affects not just the kids who are having trouble, but the kids who actually should be excelling. Because there's a problem here that is systemic, but that shows itself. Its symptoms seem cultural. The symptoms of it seem cultural. So people call it culture.

They say that it's culture. But really, it's a systemic problem that presents as a cultural world. one. And she has a deeper, more intimate knowledge of that because she was a parent in it, which is incredibly valuable. But you know what else hit me when I was listening at this? So we're talking about her as a parent or not us talking about her as a parent. People are talking about her as a parent or her failing as a parent because of this or her making mistakes as a parent, right? Let's say that I went on Twitter or threads or wherever the other, these like gladiator academies of emotions and ideas are.

And I said, I'm not going to spank my kids and no parents should. Something that is legitimately proven to be overwhelmingly destructive. There's like, we can fight for it if we want. We fight in the science. It's proven to be overwhelmingly destructive to, discipline your kids physically. I'm not saying I don't get why people do it.

I'm not casting aspersions or it because I'm not a parent against anybody who do do it. I'm not saying none of that. It happened to me. It happened to everybody that I know. I'm not saying, but it is, we now have all types

of evidence that that is something that instills trauma and reactivity into children. A lot of people that are getting on her for this, I guarantee you if we had that conversation, it would be a different situation. And I bring that up to say that parenting

and what is good or bad for your children is one thing, and it's a thing that we always cannot even agree on. In this situation, I wish that, that we lived in a world where it was more than just about your kids that it was about other kids too because

like when you grow up in Gardia when you grow up in South Baden Rouge you go out that line, that line, that lane, that lane, that line. Like I keep saying, you waiting for one of your homies to run that four three because if he runs that four three,

if he wins that track meet, then he gets to go to Catholic, he gets to go to Parkview, He gets to go to a place where they got raising canes at lunch and all of that stuff. And he might just get the opportunity at the base level dignity of the rest of the kids in the neighborhood who have to luck their way out of their situation. Right. And at a certain point, you're supposed to care about your kid more than anything. but the it takes a village thing,

that is the tradition that we are from. We are from the tradition of it takes a village to raise a child and we should be interested. If not for the fact that these are the people that your kids are going to be dating later, marrying later, making bonds later, building systems with later, right? Because it's fine if your child grows up,

the smartest, most adjusted, and everything like that. but when he or she cannot find a mate or he or she cannot find a system of people to build real black people to build real businesses with and stuff like that, when there are not enough people who have escaped these systemic clutches for them to build the type of power bases and community that they need to level the shit up, that's because we didn't do it together. And so I'm not necessarily saying that like, once again, not a parent. I'm not saying that what she did here was, I'm not saying it was like

that she deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. But I'll just say again, you're supposed to think about your kid. Of course. You're supposed to prioritize your kid. But man, somebody got to think about the rest of the kids too. And somebody has to care about that. And I don't feel like I don't see anything wrong

with looking at this entire thing and just going look at what a fucked up system we live in where yeah it's just I like to me I don't I don't see the need to kick her and her ass about this I don't not at all not at all I again

I can't even imagine what it is to be at that crossroads but I but from reading it I just kept thinking are there other options talk about the other options with doing both well I said them already I said once, like, I get the initial motivation.

I get what was happening. But I think that even if your child was there for a couple of years, you still would have been able to speak to the inequities that exist within these schools because your child experienced it and even more so why you had felt the need to remove her. I think that that was a possibility. I mean, yes, she eventually does that. but it was years. It was elementary, middle school, junior high,

and she still could have been an advocate. She still could have been an advocate. I'm just saying, I could have a totally different reaction if her child never came home and felt any, and felt anything. I want to break something else about Nicole Hannah-Jones and something that tells me a lot about her as well. So the kid goes to the school, right?

The kid, the child here, says, because she's talking to her mom. And part of this, I don't know this baby. I don't know this little baby. But part of this is also preteen slash teenage angst. Of now you're like, what could I have done? Like, could you have to, like, when she's in middle school. At what age?

Like, when she does the research. Yeah. When she's ranked a certain way. Part of that is, she's at a disadvantage. Middle school angs. Okay. It's also statistics. Can I say something else though?

Like what's going on? She goes to the other school. Mm-hmm. And what happened then? Within 10 weeks, within two weeks, she didn't like it there either. She also, she didn't like it there culturally and education. No, but they didn't find that out until later on. Like, they didn't, like, she, no, she got, she got there.

That was pretty quick. She'd only been at the school two weeks. And when she was at the school for two weeks, she, then started to experience some of the racism in the school, in the school. And after about two weeks, then she comes to her mom and she says, I would like to leave this school and transfer to Bannaker. Right. Now, they eventually do find out that she's not up to par like, um, uh, educationally.

But she wasn't asking to transfer to a school that was easier for because the Bannaker school was like a really incredibly hard school too, which is blacker. And in that situation too, and this is probably one. why Nicole Hannah Jones is who she is. She said, you need to stay. This is what you, she said, this is what you want it. Yeah, yeah. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty.

Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away, then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty. in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGGT.org. Where some see heroes and others see egos.

Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Trade ice skating at Nathan Phillips Square for ice cubes in your umbrella drink.

Let Porter Airlines fly you from Toronto Pearson nonstop to 10 top sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica. Enjoy award-winning Porter service Toronto has loved for 20 years and start your vacation as soon as you. you're on the plane. Book your sunny getaway today at flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get, like an AI solution that works for you,

not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud ERP for any software, business. You made this decision and you need to stay. Things are not easy. Life isn't easy. Life doesn't go

the way that we think is supposed to go. You made this decision. This is how the world is. You need to adapt to this and you need to stay. So to me, when I look at that, I see that that is the tradition that Nicole Hannah-Jones is in. There are certain realities and the only way to actually face these realities are head-on. you got to get in there a little bit and sometimes you have to put something on the line this is uncomfortable to say like when you're talking about a kid's formal education but if I look back at my formal education

like when I look at looking back at the way things went for me I have very involved caring parents but at the same time man it legitimately was Seek or Swim it was like where I'm from it was niggas in in class in ninth grade in 10th grade he's dead

so to me when I look at all of this the involvement and the care that she puts into this issue and this problem I think is insanely admirable I don't know that I don't know that I would do it

but I don't think that I can't it's difficult I know I'm gonna come off like the I don't see too many ways to criticize it like I think the biggest criticism here is actually I don't have any criticisms of it. I think people who are taking personal attacks,

I don't want to say, I just don't think, I don't agree with that and I don't think that that's the way to go. I think I gave my perspective and I had questions, but I start off saying, I'm not a parent. I also don't do the work that she does. So I have no idea how much this weighed on her. And it would be a different. The only way I would really criticize this is if there was no self-reflection.

There was no, I don't want to say regret, but just like she wasn't being introspective as far as like what her daughter was saying, weighing it out, like all of that. Like she recognizes her missteps within this. That to me says a lot. So I don't understand like you might not have done it the way that she did it or you might have. But at the end of the day, she is recognized, she is hearing what her daughter said, and she's recognizing that maybe she was wrong. This is why I did it. And maybe that wasn't the best. That is the best I could ask for from someone.

You know, she's not digging her hills in the ground. It's like, this is the way I did it. And this is why it's too bad for my daughter. And, you know, like she'll survive. She'll be fine. That's not what she did. And so I think that if you aren't looking at that, which is why I say this is a full circle moment, then you're really not grasping.

Systemic dysfunction puts you in a situation where you can't be right. The only way to be right is to do what the system denotes that you do. And what this system denotes that you do, what this system has you do is think in a completely individualistic way, right? You think about, no, period, no, no, period. No, period. If you're black. Brown.

Yeah, like what they want is for you to think only about yourself. I get what you're saying because if you're fluent. And when you only think about yourself, then you also only have yourself to blame. There's no way that you can make any type of systemic critique because you only think about yourself. Doesn't matter if you walk over a homeless person to get to your house, your house is large. So that means you're virtuous. You're winning.

We talked about this in the last podcast. Jack gets into it with a guy. What does he say? Bro, boy, you live in an apartment? What that got to do with anything. What it has to do with anything is I've attained more. I've done this. You haven't done it.

I am better than you. And it doesn't matter why I'm better than you. It doesn't matter why. It doesn't matter that you came through a fucked up system. Too bad. So sad. Beat it. When?

Life is this. And the only way to kind of get out of that is to do exactly that. So you have to be special and like exemplary. And then you have to give your kids special and exemplary advantage so that they can do it so that they can do it so that they can do it. And behind you is stacked up like bodies and bodies and bodies, just skeletons of completely useful human beings that never really had a fucking chance. And the question is how involved to me always is how involved do you want to be?

and stopping that. Because at the end of the day, I mean, you know, just finished reading the book and the guy in the book was like, he goes, you know, with all the black people

that we have, do you know that the one thing that we could easily do, one thing that we could easily do right now, easily do right now to change, it's just everybody bank with somebody black. Just everybody bank with somebody black.

Like right now, if you put $100 billion into black banks, they'd have to hire 40,000 black people. They'd have to hire that many people in order to deal, with the IT and the tellership and building more. They'd have to do that. Like, we could do that.

Now, that's a lot more difficult than it's made out to be. But, like, my thing is, if we are, we can't complain like us and then play the game like them. Like, we can't complain black and then America white. You can't do that. if it's about all of us together, the same reason why everybody cares about Nolan Wells is the same reason why everybody should care about every single kid

that's living in a school that's failing that doesn't have a chance to escape the clutches of this putrid, multi-generational white supremacist experience. Yeah, I think the, and this isn't pushback, it's that how do you go about it? Do you do it by a lived experience?

where you, and it's not even really, it's lived, but it's not. She was right there. You're placing your child in it. Your child can't make that decision. But that's, but that is kind of the decision. That is kind of what the child says at the end now. Her daughter does say, you did this. I don't want to paraphrase it,

but she basically is saying, I didn't have a choice in this. Like, you put me in this. You're saying that you had the decision to send me somewhere else. Yeah, but that could have been. That's what the kid would say to their parent. That's kind of what the daughter is saying to her.

It's also the parent's decision for the kid to go to any school. But I don't. You know. Did you ever tell. Okay, but you know why I don't want to discredit that? Did you ever tell your parents that you wanted to go to a different school in the one that they sent you to? Right. And so they, but they made the decision for you.

Of course. I said that at the top of the show. Yeah. You want to go hang out at Fuel City. My parents never gave me a choice. I had a choice at the end. Your parents said you can't go. Right. So, I mean, that ended of itself.

I eventually did. But my point is, is how you don't have to go about it this way. And so that is the way that Nicole Hannah-Jones decides to go about it. That, like, that is her decision. And she's dealing with all of that as we see in this article. But I think just the pushback, I guess, if I was going to give one of what you were saying, is there doesn't have to be one way to go about it. You're right. There doesn't.

What do you mean? You even said yourself, you don't know what you would do. You don't know. I'm telling you straight up. I'm not in any way. It makes no sense to do this because if I would say this, if I would say this, if I say this, it, if I say this, it's hollow because there's so many parents out there that are making decisions, right? And I don't want to ever put myself in a position to somebody that is a parent.

I can tell you one thing, no. my kids ain't going to school with a whole bunch of white people. I'm not doing that. Because honestly, I think that is the most corrosive thing that you can do to a black child. Like, and that's me, that's, that's me, that's me, that's me, but that's me for my, let me tell you some, that's me for my, that's me for my non-parent. Everybody take that with a gigantic grain of salt. Everybody take that with an immense grain of salt. As a matter of fact, don't even listen to that.

Pan is dumb. But what I'm saying is to me, and even the way my parents felt and other people in my family felt, to me, that is the cruellest thing that you can do to a child, especially a black child, because you spend so much time in school. You spend so much time there. There are completely other ways that you can get the full feel of your cultural experience, at home, at church, all kinds of course, all of that stuff. But to me, like, that is something that I actually would never do, even if it was a bunch of rich. And that's fine. I just don't think you should say it's corrosive because you didn't live that experience. I did. And so I would only say that it is corrosive is if you come home or your entire experience is ripped from blackness. You don't live in a black neighborhood. You don't play with black kids. You don't, if you're religious,

You don't go to a black church. If you're in club, you're not with other black kids playing sports. I went to a white school. Everything else I did was black. Every single thing else that I did was black. I lived in a black neighborhood. My parents fought for Black History Month at the school. My parents fought for black programs.

My parents were always at the school when it came to like things that they felt like black students weren't necessarily getting their white students. I lived a very black experience. despite going to school, not to a white school, predominantly white school, my entire life. So I think that if your total experience is that, is ripped from blackness, then I'll agree with you. But I think that you can, if your parents decide to make that decision for you, you can still be black. I'm not saying that you can. You're black no matter what.

But think about, it's interesting what you just said. Your parents did like reverse Nicole Hannah Jones to where they put you. I said that. I know. They put you in the school with white. white people, and then they went to the school, and they fought for black history in the school. Now, why are they going to put black history in the school when it's only a couple of niggas there? My thing is that, like, my thing is...

It's Black History Month. Right, but I get it. So they should do that, right? Everybody should know. But, like, that to me, that to me. And this is different. Once again, not just raised different. It's different.

The whole thing is different. It's all. Nobody's better than anyone else here in this situation. I'm saying to me, the most important education, for me, for a black child is the education in who they are. Like, that's the most important education. Because honestly, that education, to me, spills into every other part of the education, right?

Because I got nephews and stuff like the people at private schools and they come home and they'll be talking to them and they'll be like, hey, let me tell you what I learned. And they'll tell me what I learned. I'll be like, yo, that's a lie. Just let you know that's a lie. Like, that's a lie. Like that what you just told me, that's not true.

That's not the way that happened. Like, and you go back to your school and tell the people that your uncle said that that's not the way that happened. I'll tell you the way that that happened and go back and tell them. And now you go back and tell them. And now you're fucked up with the principal and all of that stuff because you're in a place that is trying to coach the blackness out of you for eight hours a day. And I truly, truly think that, Like, that to me, like, that to me.

Weren't you at a black school in a white program? Weren't you around white kids all day? Nope. You were gifted and talented? Didn't you say that? In my core classes. But at McKinley, though, every elective is with the kids, every single sports team that you play on.

That's a black fucking school. It's a black school. So every school I ever went to is a black school. I just, this is what's beautiful about having. two different perspectives because I'm here to combat it. Because you saying corrosive to go to a white school is, and you just said it's really about the education of who you are. It's not about just the school you go to. It's about the education of who you are. And I'm glad you switched that up. But just because you go to a white school doesn't mean that it's, like culturally, there were things

that I wish I could have had, of course. Like, I wish that I could have, you know, at school, been around more black people. But because I was in a neighborhood full of them, I spent my summers there, I ran summer track. I was around it, even if I was teased because I went to the school, I still was aware of certain things. And that is because of what my parents instilled in me

and made sure that I knew who I was when I was going to go to a white school. Yeah. So when I say corrosive, let's just make sure somebody thinks I'm coming out. Harsh word. I think it's, I do think, I think there are very few.

all white settings that you could be. Like TMZ was corrosive. It was like a corrosive place for a black person to be in that space, to be in a space where you are. If you even look at the stuff that I do, like look at the stuff that I do here at the Ringer. Look at it.

The Midnight Boys, that's black. This is black. Like, tailgate, two black guys, one white guy. It's important as much as you can to not lose yourself in this. And I've been tested by this, my entire career. I've been tested by this. Same.

And my entire life, went to Louisiana Tech, went up there, couldn't fucking do it. Had to transfer and go in the yard. Couldn't do it. It was like, so to me it's not necessarily like I'm too reactive. So I get into spaces where I end up fighting all day. And you know, it's so funny. I went to UT and I only hung out with black people. I was everything that I did, sorority.

Huh? Eyes of Texas. Sure. The sorority, African American Culture Committee, like all of that. So like I think it's just you create your experience based on what you want for yourself or how you identify. Like that was, and that my entire experience at you see, despite being 3% black people at that school, was a black experience. So I guess this all comes back down to because there's no right answer here. and there's no right way to raise black children or be black. But I will say that I think it's interesting that people are, I think it's interesting that people have such a problem with this,

that people have such an issue with even the attempt at use. your actual life and your actual life experience to address some of these things because I just feel like sometimes just people don't know what they want. Like they don't know what they want. No one would have batted an eye except for the people that would have been almost insincerely out to hold her energetically accountable. Nobody would have batted an eye if she'd have sent her kids to one of the many schools that would have loved to have taken the black child

of the 1619 project lady and she'd have gone through all of that and blah blah blah blah and then you know sophomore junior year at Brown she writes an article Black is a myth

and then you're like, what the fuck? So The assumptions are crazy. The assumptions are crazy. No, I'm just saying I can't, I can't. The story you tell, I should not be, it's a miracle I found my way to hire learning. It's a miracle.

What you mean? Is this not a black podcast? Black podcaster, as you're famously known. Black podcaster as I'm famously known. You're taking a lot of what I'm, you're personalizing what I'm saying. Well, we're talking about our personal experiences like, I feel like I have to do that because you're making generalizations. And so like when you say you would, it's fair for you to be like you, it's totally fair for you to say I would not sit my kids to predominantly white school.

I get that. To be very honest, I don't even know if I would. Totally fair. But then when you get into like, because I think it's corrosive, I'm like, well, as the one who went there, I got to say something. That's where I, that's, I'm not, I'm not like taking it that person. I'm like, I got to give a perspective as a person who lived it. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. And just so the judge don't get mad at me. When I say corrosive, I don't mean that like. No, I'm telling. I'm telling. When I say corrosive, what I mean is that, like, that is something that, like, I don't know, you're a little. There's more work that has to be done.

Seriously. There is more work that has to be done in the same way. This is why you say it's reversed. Just like Nicole Hannah Jones had to do more work and make sure she was very active and actively involved in what was happening within her daughter's schooling because they didn't have the support that these other schools did, my parents had to do. my parents had to be much more active in my identity as a black woman than maybe you wouldn't at a predominantly black school, where you wouldn't at a predominantly black school because I was

with white kids. So it, so I... Because without their intervention, that can be corrosive. That can eat away at yourself identity as a black person. That's why it's all subjective. It can be. Absolutely. So I guess, you know, I guess we'll continue to. to do this, this will be like what people go through and like what happens, you know. I do want to give space to people that go, hey, you get one baby, you get one kid, give them the best everything that they can get. All right, give them the best everything that they can get. And I get it, but I'm not going to call nobody out.

But the spanking thing came because I saw one person. I'm going to be honest with you. This bothered me. This is why I got to get off social media. because I saw one person who was talking about how as a parent, you got to give your kid the best of everything. Give your kid the best of everything. And this same person about three years ago,

I remember was going crazy in a fucking back and forth about why you should spank your kids. About why you should spank them. I didn't know you were so anti-spanking. So I don't really know that I'm like, I'm anti-spanking, but like what difference do it make because I've never you know I'm just the uncle so I'm definitely not going to be spanking anyone

but I just personally think that the only way spanking I saw one thing about spanking that advocated for spanking the only way spanking is really useful is when you want to purposefully instill fear well so like when you want don't run in the street when you want somebody to be reacting

don't run in the street or you'll get spanked don't take the fork and stick it in the electrical socket where you'll get spanked You want to tell the stories Personal stories I just you know what

You know what happened This is going to make me sound really stupid You watched that on TV didn't you I saw it in the women in Brewster place I knew it was And then he got fucked up And I was like yo Would that really happen?

And then... And what happened? Boy, I didn't even get to it. So let me tell you what happened. So I got the fucking knife and I'm sticking it into the thing and I look over. I look over and daddy like, go ahead.

Put it in there. Go ahead. Put it in there. And he was like, I can't use the word that he used to describe me right there because you're not supposed to say that word anymore. And he said, boy, you said, boy, you're blank. And then he said, Van.

He was, Van, come here. Come here. I came over there and he just went. The whole time he was taking his belt out. The whole time he was taking his belt off, he was shaking his head. He was like, and then I got caught the whipping. But then I knew don't do that. I just watched it on the women in Bruce of Place.

The kid put the thing in there and watch it fucking fuck him up. And I was trying to fucking do it in. And you said, me too. hashtag but look the only time that's the only time you should do it if you're trying to if you're going to spank somebody for getting bad grades or even spank somebody for crying too much or talking back or anything like that

you're making a monster but go ahead and do it go ahead and do it can't talk can't culture that out of people right that's that's a part of it spirit of raw spoiled child I got spanked they spanked me too a lot but you're not supposed to do it see but you're not but that's something then you're not supposed to do it.

You're not supposed to do. Are you a spanking advocate? I don't have kids. But when I would say, my sister calls them pops, you're going to get a pop. And when I would say to my nephews, I'd be like, all right, you're going to get a pop. They just laugh at me.

So I just laugh with them. We just keep it moving. We just keep it moving. I've never spanked my nephews. Yeah. I could, I can't see it. As upset as they may make me, I could never see myself doing it.

but they're also my nephews. That's another thing that's changed generationally. I know we got to go retire, but I got to say one more thing is that like, I don't know what it was. I don't know if like in Baton Rouge, the only person that wasn't like this was my dad. My dad was not like this.

But I don't know if like the women of Baton Rouge got together and had a meeting and somebody at this meeting stood up and went, listen, I'm not going to always be around to beat my children so y'all could do it. two if y'all need to. And they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, here. Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah. Here, here.

We're going to put this on the thing that we will whoop. No, no, no, no. Not with everybody throughout the community, but definitely with family members. Oh, yeah, for sure. I don't, for sure. I don't, like now I couldn't imagine hitting somebody's kids that's in the family. I cannot imagine that. Yeah, same. But my father, my father, my father heard.

one time that I untwooped me, drove over to her house, like yelled at her, her husband came out and my dad, never mind, because he's, y'all going to feel like he's like a bad person if I tell you what happened. He just did not abide by that. Like, don't, nobody can traumatize my son but me. Anyway, we have anything else to say on Nicole, Hannah-Jones? Anything else to say on it? No, no, but it was a really interesting article. It was very interesting. And I hope it, and I hope it furthers the conversation about the inequities in the education system. I hope that we can talk as much about her parenting

as we do about the fact that there's a whole generation of kids that's getting sent off into the world behind the fucking eight ball. And if we don't do something to stop it, then nobody's going to stop it. And some of them don't even know they're behind. I thought that was a really compelling part in it as well. The daughter thinking she was really good

at algebra, and it turns out she knew nothing. So, like, it's like two folds, right? You know you don't know or you have no idea. You think you're getting good grades, you're doing so well. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away, then take the next exit.

Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGT.org. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com.

and you're actually far behind. And you know what else this was? This also was just a testament to how much suction and traction an involved parent can actually get what you can actually accomplish if you are like annoyingly involved in the lives of your children.

But hold on. Or not. Right. Or not. She was, there was some who responded. and some who just ignored and lied to her about the progress of the child or punished the child

because of the parent being so involved or trying to be. Everybody read the article. New York Times. Read the article. Read the articles in the New York Times. I also love the fact that this kid could come to her parents and be like, yo, what you did to me?

Boy, boy, boy. That's very, very new school. Do you think the judge? I wouldn't have even and been able to finish the sentence. It's tough. It's tough. But that kid will be better off with being able to.

No, for sure. I remember my man, like his mom came home. I'm not going to repeat that because, like, what he said was crazy. Yeah, let's just tough. He was like, my man, my man, Gray, his mom came home. He's like, I don't tell it anyway. Okay. Names and all.

No, we got to go. Shout out to Gray, man. Well, now I'm curious. What a gray? What did she tell, Gray? So I think we talked about this before. Gray's parents had got divorced and the dad wasn't around. And I felt like Gray was actually taking out a lot of his angst on his mom.

Because whenever the dad came around, the dad was like the man, right? He was so happy by his dad. Oh, my dad's expert tennis because we was playing tennis. My dad's an expert tennis player and all of that stuff like that. The only reason why we went over to Gray's house is because Gray had a Neo Geo, right? And so he was, the dad had was a guilty part. Gray and Neo Geo. So Gray was the white boy. We'd go over to his house and play the Neo Geo and stuff, but he always had shit to get off his chest. And his mom came home one time. His mom had had a date. And I

had never witnessed this before. The mom comes home, and it's maybe like 9 o'clock. And, you know, she didn't order pizza. We live in high off the hall. We don't want her there. Okay. She didn't order pizza. We got Rubeer. We're playing the Neo-Gio. A couple of girls from the neighborhood that already come and gone. Like, we glad that whoever this nigger is

took his mom out. These people were obviously white. We're glad. Like, we don't care. When she came home, it was a goddamn bummer. But what I noticed was that before she got to the crib, Gray would be, like, looking out the window. And I thought he was looking out the window

to make sure that she wasn't there because there was people coming over there that wasn't supposed to come over there. You know, she left us $100. You could tell she was guilty as shit. So we ordered people, we're going crazy. We didn't walk up to the set. We walked up to the motherfucking circle cage twice.

We're going nuts. I bought a couple comic books, all kinds of shit. We always up. She comes home. It's like, 9 o'clock. He's like, where were you? I'm like, I'm looking at him. I'm like, what the fuck?

He's like, where were you? Where'd you go? Where'd you go? She takes her purse off. She's like, obviously, you know where I was. I went out of that day. you guys have fun, you boys have fun. And Gray said, don't talk to them.

Talk to me. I was like, I looked over at Ryan. I was like, yo, what, what? Like, what? Like, what? What? What?

What? And Gray's like, yeah. He's chewing gum. Gray's like, yeah. He's out all night and doing whatever, whatever. And then you look back. He was like, I got to talk to my mom, guys. And we was like, yeah, it's over anyway.

We got to get the hell out of here. And then when I got home, I got, my ass whooped. No. When I got home, I got my ass whooped because, like, I stayed out too late. So when I got home, I got my ass whooped, and then it was found out the next day that his mother wasn't home that whole time. Oh, yeah. Now, it was certain times, we weren't old enough. By the time we got to, I'm going to be honest with you, by the time we got into like our 15s. By the time we got, this was like the 7th, 38th grade. But by time we got to like high school, nobody parents had to be there. running the streets while nobody cared.

But my, but my parents, we was going crazy. Okay, man. My mom's going to get mad. My mom's going to get mad. But we wouldn't do anything crazy, but my mom going to get mad. But we was always around at somebody's house in the home, in the home. And there weren't, and parents weren't there. There was no adult supervision.

Okay. And we were, and we were chilling. But great, great check this mom for coming home too late. Anyway. And then, like, you would get her by herself. That's like a Cosby episode. What? And if Theo goes home and tries to do the same thing Gray did,

and then it just becomes a whole thing. I wish you would have tried it. Just for fun. He's got a spanking anyway. Yeah, I challenged dad one time, I remember. I said Beavson Butthead used to say loser. And so I laughed like Beavis and Butthead and I said, loser to him. And that might have been, that might have been the time,

because the way he reacted to that, it was different. different. The way he reacted to that, it was like, he didn't react to that as if I was a boy and he was a man. He kind of, because I was like 14 to 15 at this point, he kind of got up on me and was like, huh. And the way he looked at me is the same way I saw him look at other guys like when he was about to do them. And I was like, I'm not quite ready for this yet. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, the way he looked, he was like, huh. And his eyes, I was like, there's no father in there. So we got to keep it moving.

But then I have to worry about that. All right, we got to go. Okay, so shout out to Nicole Hannah Jones. We have more topics. And her daughter. And her daughter. And the husband who also. And the husband, yes.

The husband who figures very prominent. Who got off Scott Free in the heart. He didn't get off scoffrey. The man got off. He was part of the decision. It was a joint decision. But we ain't talking about him. Because he didn't write in the New York Times about it.

But he, made the decision. Okay, you know what? Send him an email. Send him an email. He didn't write a little times about it. She named them, but we ain't talking about him. Yeah, man. Shout out to him. They made this decision as a family. And shout out to their beautiful daughter who seems to be doing great. That is the most important thing.

Seems to be doing great. We know that she is doing great and that is amazing. So none of this seems to have thrown her off her square and her trajectory. When you're thinking about the story, and all of the ways that we go and bring up our own trauma and our own opinions and stuff like that. I want you to do something. If you can, imagine somebody from her fifth grade class.

Imagine one of those kids, one of the kids from her fifth grade class, one of those ones that was running and hitting that lunch, one of those ones that was talking too much in class, or even one of the ones that was, doing well in class but actually didn't have the fundamentals that they thought that they had. When you're thinking about how well she's doing

and what happened to Cole Hannah Jones and all of that stuff, try to, in your imagination, think about one of those kids and ask yourself where they might be now. All right. We're done. It's Sweden time.

Woo! House music. Nigel, I'm about to go to sleep. I'm about to take a little walk, though. See what I can see on these Sweden streets. I'm going to be. in bed. You're doing too much.

I'll see you tomorrow because I got to deal with you tomorrow. So it's going to be a long day. It's going to be a long day. All right. Take your things to

I'm Val and the Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye guys.