Transcript of 898: An Argument

Hey there, everybody. Ira Glass here. So our show today is something that producer Hannah Joffe-Walt has been collaborating on with reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. And Nikole's version of this story, which is in The New York Times Magazine, is something that many, many people are discussing online right now. And I just want to say that if you have seen that article, there are a lot of things in what you're about to hear that are not in the article. Particularly, you'll get to hear at length from Nicole's daughter. And there are things that commenters are raising online that get interestingly addressed in our version. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. All of this will become clear. And with that, here's Hannah Jaffe-Walt talking with Nicole Hannah-Jones. These are recordings made as Nicole was in the process of writing that article.

I'm going to make sure we're recording.

All right.

Has it been 10 years since you've been in here?

I'm trying to think when I— I'm like, damn, I know it's been a long time. How long has it been?

That's Nicole. And this is a ritual I find myself in with some frequency at my age, beginning social interactions with an accounting of time that inevitably leads to a conversation about the kids, where they were then and where they are now.

And my child was just getting ready to start school. And now my child is a sophomore getting ready to celebrate her sweet 16. That is wild. So that is wild.

Really? 16?

She will be 16 next month. Yeah. Time.

Nikole and I spent a lot of time talking about our kids 10 years ago and talking about schools. We were reporting together on education, specifically on inequality and systemic racism in American public schools, how decades of policy choices had left public schools deeply unequal, many schools completely neglected. And meanwhile, Nikole and I had little kids. And in our own lives, the conversation among parents was how to game the system to be sure that your children do not end up in one of those schools.

Literally every middle-class parent, no matter what their race was, was like, you have to put her in, you know, talented and gifted prep courses because they test at 4. And you have to decide if you're going to put her in private school, but you're definitely not going to put her in the neighborhood school. And I lived in the heavily Black, high-poverty neighborhood.

These questions, what are you going to do about school, started right out of the gate.

I mean, my response was, She's 1. And people would look at me like, oh, you're so naive. I remember people being like, you silly woman. And people actually felt that that was, like, not being a good parent, frankly.

This intense, often judgmental scramble is something parents in places all over America do. But in New York City, where Nicole and I live, it's arguably the most extreme version. Parents have spreadsheets of schools, endless advice. You're going to want to avoid this school, apply to this program, maybe move to a different neighborhood. Any contortion makes sense, not even to strive for an elite school, but to avoid a, quote, bad school. What were the bad schools? Well, New York City has one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country. the bad schools that families with options tried to avoid, were disproportionately Black, Latino, and poor. In her reporting, Nikole had seen that Black students all over the country are concentrated in schools like this, where they're less likely to have the best teachers or curricula or facilities. And one reason that happens is that wealthy and middle-class families like hers opt out of those So Nicole, who had a young Black daughter and had been a young Black girl herself, when her daughter Nadja got to be school-aged, she did not make a spreadsheet. She did not game the system. She enrolled Nadja in a regular public school, the kind of school most New York City kids end up in.

The students mostly came from the neighborhood, Black and Latino kids, poor and working class. Here's how Nicole saw it. She thought if more parents with advantage like her are inside a school, they could add their weight. They'll be personally invested. They'll be paying attention and seeing when there are problems. They can advocate for a school, for funding, for more experienced teachers, for extra programming. So all the students in the school, including their own kids, have what they need to learn. Nikole wrote about all this in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine 10 years ago. And on the COVID there was little Nadja in her school uniform, Afro puffs, serious face looking right at the camera. And the headline?

Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City.

I remember seeing it. So that's the setup. I remember seeing it and being like, oh, she did it! Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, because we— you know, you and I, we talked a lot about it.

It was an earthquake of a story. Nikole putting the matter bluntly to parents, all of us gaming the system is making the system worse. What if we just stop?

I was really, really shocked by the impact that this piece had. You know, people were both writing but also just sharing their story with me at my public speeches or other events that I was giving, like face-to-face, which was extremely powerful. powerful for me as well.

I feel like you're underselling how much influence it had on— Am I?

What am I supposed to say?

So, like, there's school districts across the country that were suddenly talking about something that they had not been talking about. Not just parents, but actual people controlling school policy.

Yes.

It— in some ways, like, this was, like, my dream as a journalist. But I became a writer because I wanted society to change. So I always write in a way where I'm trying to persuade people by making a moral argument.

That's what this story was, an argument. And it landed with so many people.

This story just, in some ways, like, never lost its legs. I was in Boston a few weeks ago, and a woman who has a 6-year-old Her child wasn't even born when the story came out, said that this story guided her education decision-making for her child.

In a lot of your events, there was some people who would come up to you to sort of absolve them of the choices they had made.

Oh, all the time. Almost every public event I would do, either during the question and answer session or after the event, they would, like, kind of corner you. And there would inevitably be a parent or parents who would Explain why they really, really, really believed in what I was saying, and they believed in the power of equality, but, you know, they just— they couldn't make that choice for whatever reason. And I'd always be like, you know, okay. I'm not your priest. I cannot absolve you, and I don't want to absolve you. I wanted you to be forced to be like, what about these kids? What do they deserve?

So for 10 years, Nicole has talked publicly all over the country about every aspect of this article, except how it played out in her own life for her and her kid. And she decided she wanted to write about what happened and talk through it. So many months ago, Nicole reached out to me to ask if I wanted to hear everything that happened after the article was published. Yes, I did. She thought all the people who read her original essay 10 years ago and thought about it and talked to her about it and passed it on to others deserved to know how it actually turned out. And she thought her daughter, Nadja, deserved a chance to share her perspective too. Nadja was eager to talk. She had a lot she wanted to say about this, and she has a very different take from her mom's. What you're gonna hear is a series of conversations that took place before Nicole published her recent New York Times article, as she was trying to figure out in real time what she would write about all this. I talked to Nicole, and later I talked to Nadja, and she talks to her mom.

These are conversations throughout which I was so alert and on edge sometimes. It is rare to hear a person who made a big, influential argument come forward and say honestly, this is how it actually played out, and then publicly face their teenager. Who subjects themselves to that? That's today's show, An Argument in 5 Acts. 2 people willing to talk about some of the country's most enduring problems and look at how they unfolded in their own lives. As mother and daughter. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. Stay with us. It's This American Life. Act 1, Nicole's Choice. Nicole had been the one to pick the school back when Nadja was little. Her husband, Faraji, had been reluctant to send Nadja there. He worried they'd be hurting her. Asked Nicole, is this us experimenting on our child based on idealism? They'd argued about it. But once they resolved to do it, Faraji was all in. He threw himself into the school. Both of them were committed to being involved, and Faraji ended up even more involved than Nicole. They reassured themselves knowing that if there were ways the school fell short, they could get Nadja help.

And they'd be there, watching. They were both constantly assessing how it was going, where the school faltered, where it succeeded, what Nadja was getting. They were tracking all of it, including benefits that don't get factored into lists of New York City's top schools.

She got to spend her first 6 years of education in a school where most of the kids looked like her. where she had incredible Black and— she had a Chinese American educator, she had incredible Black educators, she had Caribbean educators, amazing Black History Month celebrations. They used to have the students do these self-portraits, and she would always, when she was young, make herself a dark-skinned Black woman, which I was like, Yes. Like, so you are, you know, as a Black girl, seeing yourself in that lens and not in the lens of this, like, outside world that is saying that that's not beautiful or that's not something to aspire to. And so in her formative years, she didn't have that experience that I had of feeling less than other kids, of feeling like, is there something wrong with Black people feeling different? Like, she didn't have that.

Like all of us, Nikole's own experience raising a child is always running parallel to the memory of her own childhood. Parenting is an ongoing act of correction. Nikole grew up being bused from her Black neighborhood to a mostly white, wealthier school. She was part of a desegregation plan. She's talked about the social isolation of being one of the only Black kids in school on our show before. the psychological toll of that. And she didn't want that for Nadja. And Nadja was a different kid, growing up differently than Nicole did. Her parents had money and college degrees. Nicole wanted Nadja to be in the mix with other kids, to see what she had that others didn't, and to feel comfortable with everyone.

I don't want my child to feel separate from other kids. I don't want her to feel that she's better than other kids. And she started to recognize the advantages that she had. I remember she came home. There was a classmate whose older brother had been killed. And Nadia was like, he doesn't have a coat. Can we get a coat for him? She had, like, empathy and humanity. And so I felt like That's why we're here. I believe in, like, a common good. I believe that, like, we have to be in it together.

Nikole was prepared for some things in the school to be hard. And she and her husband, Faraji, were in the school often. Faraji volunteered regularly, organizing parents, talking to teachers, addressing issues. He became co-president of the school's PTA. And still, there was stuff they didn't know, till they heard it from Nadja, starting around first grade.

She would come home a lot and say things like, it's hard to concentrate, it's hard to focus, that there was a lot of disruption in the classroom, like things that we know often happen in high-poverty schools.

And they were having an experience parents in high-poverty schools sometimes have. They were having trouble getting the school to respond, even though they were so involved. In 4th grade, at a parent-teacher conference, Nicole and Faraji learned Najah was not on grade level, which was not something they'd heard before. So they immediately emailed her teachers and principal saying, we want to see her schoolwork. Please send home all her graded tests and assignments so we can look through them and see what's going on.

They wouldn't send the schoolwork home. I asked them and they wouldn't do it. I have to go to the principal. The principal instructs them to send the homework home, and they say, that's extra work for us. So I'm having to, like, take off from work. I'm coming up to the school all the time. I'm like, I need to see her work every week. This is crazy. And finally, The principal is able to get the parent— the teachers to send— they send all this work home that Nadja had been doing. And I start going through the math, and all the problems are wrong.

Oh, no.

Like, literally, almost all the problems are wrong. Wait, the problem?

The answers are wrong?

The answers. Like, he's just putting a checkmark. He's not checking. Her math. He's not correcting her, he's not teaching her. Every single one is wrong. Yeah, devastating parent moment. I'm like, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing to my child? Like, I, I felt like I was failing. My child. Like, my decision was failing my child. God, I was so worried that I had done wrong by my child in a way that was irreparable. I remember sitting at the table that night, and I was— I mean, I'm not naive, but I was in shock. There was the one part of just, like, what she wasn't learning, But there was the other part of, like, this little girl who has all this confidence. She thinks she is amazing at math. She is smart, but she thinks she's, like, academically doing well, and she's not.

Nicole sat at the table waiting for Faraji to get home.

And Faraji and I— I remember, like, as soon as he got home, I think he was at a— maybe at a school board meeting or something like that. And I'm like, look at this. And it's like, well, what do we do? Do we leave? Do we, like, take her out of this? And so we struggled with, like, what to do. I mean, we felt stuck because those other kids did not deserve Not to be taught either, and the understanding that the consequences for them were gonna be so much greater than for my child. These were already kids living in public housing, living in poverty, no power in our society. Faraji and I, we would have these discussions, and we would be like, who are we if, like, the moment it gets really rough, We give up. Then what did we do it for in the first place? And in the end, we just felt— we felt we couldn't abandon the rest of those kids.

They made a new plan. They would stay in the school. They would get Nadja support, and they were going to get the school support. Nicole asked a friend, a former math teacher, to tutor Nadja at home. And Nicole and Fragi threw themselves into getting help for the rest of her class. They demanded the principal provide remediation for the entire math class. They had numerous meetings with the district superintendent. He agreed to send an extra teacher into the classroom. Their teacher friend recruited other educators to come by the school and offer after-school tutoring. This was a sprawling, all-consuming project. that took so much more time than simply addressing the problem for their own kid. But they'd say to each other, this is why we're here in the school, not just for their own child's success. Success for them was both and. Nadja doing well and all the kids doing well.

It's like we recommitted. Like, we have to be here. Like, we have to now make sure all these kids in this classroom's work is getting graded, that these teachers are actually teaching all these kids, not just our child. And that's what we did. But it tested— it tested us for sure.

You said a— it actually might have been from your article that it can feel unnatural, it can feel almost unnatural to put your child in a school that you think isn't the best, most perfect school. Did it feel unnatural to you?

Unnatural? Yes.

Yeah.

Say more about that.

I mean, every other decision that I'm making about my child is to try to give my child the best life possible, trying to put her in the best situation, to give her the best examples, to protect her, you know, make life easy for her. So no, it didn't feel natural. But a lot of things that are the right thing to do don't feel natural.

So that was the balance of things at the end of elementary school. A shaky seesaw. They'd fought for better, like they knew they'd have to. They got help for Nadja, like they thought they might have to. And they stayed committed. For middle school, Nikole and Faraji chose a school in the neighborhood. It was mostly Black and low-income. Test scores were not great. A public school plenty of parents would dismiss, but Nicole visited and liked it. Her district superintendent had recommended it as a school with a deeply committed principal who was on the ball, responsive to parents and students. And important to Nicole, this school had never screened students like some of the more sought-after middle schools. It didn't select kids based on their grades or attendance records or anything like that. It was open to everyone. Nadja made friends, joined the Food and Justice Club, did a lot of art. Outside school, she ran track. And then one day in 7th grade, Nicole and Nadja were in the car. Nadja was 12 years old. Nicole picked her up from school, and Nadja said she and her friends had been researching schools online and looked up their own school.

She was like, did you know my school had test scores like this when you decided to send me here? I pause, you know, like, hand on the wheel, driving. I'm, like, looking straight ahead. And I'm sitting there like, okay, what am I gonna say out of my mouth that's gonna make sense to her? And, you know, it's like, I knew this day would come. I wouldn't say I, like, talked a script over in my head of what I would say, but I knew it would come. And yet it's like the words that I'm, like, formulating in my head to explain why I chose this really sounded really hollow. Why?

Like, what were you—

Well, you know, I'm like, yes, I knew that the score— these test scores, but test scores are not the most important thing about a school. And it was really important to me, you know, my own values. I felt it was really important that you be in a school with, like, most of the people in our neighborhood. And she's sitting there, and, like, I see out of the corner of my eye this look like, that sounds crazy. Like, what? You mean, like, you had— you had all these resources. Like, you could have sent me anywhere. You could have sent me to the best schools. And you're saying, like, you just chose not to?

So your child is asking you a question that you have— you've spoken about this on hundreds of stages. You've written hundreds of pages about it. Like, you know what to say. Why do you not know what to say?

I do know what to say. And I say it. But what I'm saying is, as I'm saying it, I know it sounds hollow coming out of my mouth. But I really believe that. I mean, I come from a people where I know my life, literally, in a literal way, is only possible because people were willing to sacrifice for a larger good. I mean, sacrifice like put your child through a white mob sacrifice. Sacrifice like get assassinated on your front lawn sacrifice. Sacrifice like get thrown off of the land that you worked. If everyone says, well, I would love to do that. I believe in the concept of equality, but, you know, I can't make a personal sacrifice, we don't get— we don't get there. I don't live my life. So I know what I'm saying to her is right. But I also know that she is a 12-year-old child who looks at you— Not to, like, give her moral clarity, but to give her a life of opportunity. So I'm just— now I'm just kind of repeating what I've said and hoping that she'll move on. But she is not. She's angry. It hasn't been— she's like, it's not a good school, and I could have been at a good school.

And so it's like just round and around. And now I'm like, oh my God, like, she's really— Not going to let this go.

Did you think— she's going to ask me about this sometime. I'm going to explain to her. Did you think about just giving her your article?

No.

My child's not reading 10,000 words that I write. She's not. She's not.

She's on the COVID though.

It's her picture. She's on the COVID No. Uh-uh. No.

Really? Has she never read it? Do you think she's never read it?

I don't think so.

Nah, I don't believe that. Really?

I promise, when you ask her, the answer's gonna be no.

I am gonna ask her. That's coming up, the answer to that question and so many others. I talk to Nadja, and then she and her mom talk. No one is a prophet in her own home. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. It's This American Life. I'm Hanna Joffe-Walt, sitting in for Ira Glass. Today's show, An Argument, Act 2, Nadja. Because of who Nicole is and what we've talked about over years, I've thought about Nadja more than I've thought about most other children who are not my own. From when she was little, I'd heard what Nicole wanted for her young daughter. I'd read her old article where she'd written about what she hoped for. And I've wondered, what's this all going to be like for Nadja? Somehow back then, I never really imagined there would be a day when I might get to just ask her. Okay, your mom told me she didn't know if you had read the article about choosing your elementary school. Have you read that article?

No.

You've never read that article?

Well, no, I have not. I have never read it. I've never found myself to read it. Maybe I should because of my mom.

Well, also because it's about you.

Well, yeah, but I never read it.

Nadja has been listening to her mom give talks her whole life. She says she knows what the article was about: her school. She went to her school. She lived it. She didn't have to read about it. What was the school her mom chose— wrote 10,000 words about choosing— actually like for Nadja?

It was just regular. Like, it was fine.

It was just school.

Yeah, I don't really remember a lot from elementary. I was really into art. I liked to draw a lot. I was— yeah, I was loud. I still am. I was, like, chatty.

Did you ever wonder why you were in that elementary school?

No. It was just a school that she picked for me. I didn't really care about it. I wasn't ever thinking about stuff like that.

She was lonely sometimes when girls were mean. Regular kid stuff. Nanjua remembers 4th grade, they didn't do much in class. and that her mom had issues with her teachers. She thought it was weird that her 3rd grade teacher was absent a lot. But 5th grade was fun. It was all fine. What Nadia wanted to talk about more was middle school. 6th grade. That's when things got hard for her. She says in middle school, other kids made it hard to learn. There were fights.

Problems all the time. Like, we wouldn't even be able to play in gym because the kids wouldn't stop acting out. It would be like all the time. They would be throwing like fart bombs and stuff. There was like No punishment. It wasn't like stopped. So because that's just not fun, you get— you can't do anything and they're ruining your chances to do things just because they can't act right. It was like really bad. I think I'll come home complaining to my mom all the time like, bro, these kids are always like fighting and they're always disrupting like class. I'm not trying to be in this type of environment. And I wasn't enjoying it. I remember we got her like report cards back. I think there was like 7 kids in that class who were like on honor roll and the rest were like they didn't. The school was so easy. I'm like, how did you not get— I don't know.

Wait, you're like, how did people not get honor roll?

Yeah, right, because it was like, it was just a really easy school.

Did you have homework?

No.

No homework?

No. None. Zero. Like—

How did you feel about that?

I thought it was bad. I think I complained about it to my friends. Like, we don't get anything. We're not getting any work. Like, we're not getting any—

You wanted homework?

We did. I— we did. We honestly did want to get more things because we knew that we weren't learning enough. We didn't know anything.

Nadja was building her own assessment of her school, drawing on what she was seeing and what she wanted for herself. For her, a good school had homework. A good school was an organized school. Nadja used that word a lot when we talked. Her school was not organized. And then in 7th grade, Nadja's teachers and friends started talking about the next step: high school. New York City has hundreds of high schools. The top schools, there are things you have to do. You have to apply, get good grades. You have to take a test or audition. It's a whole process. You need to do research, go on tours, You have to engage. If you're an ambitious 7th grader, or even just a kid who cares about status, as nearly every 7th grader does, this is when you start to become aware, if you're not already, that there are, quote, good schools and bad schools, and you fit somewhere in that system. And if you didn't know about it till now, you are probably already behind. Nadja and her friends started researching the top high schools. It was in doing that research that they looked up their own school.

And we were just shocked. Test scores were really low. Everything about the school was really low.

What'd you think when you saw that?

I was like, wow. Like, that's why we're not getting anything. Like, we have nothing. You see all the reviews, you see the parent reviews, you see student reviews, you see everything.

And test scores. Mm-hmm.

I think we looked at the those scores all the time.

You did?

Yeah, I think we looked at them all the time.

Like, you kept returning?

Mm-hmm.

We kept looking at other sites, like, how the school was. And it was not great.

She remembers bringing this information to her mom, and she remembers her mom trying to explain her thinking, but Najah doesn't remember exactly what her mom said because she says it made no sense.

I didn't ever agree with, like, her response. All I know is that I wasn't having it. I was just like, why? Why am I here?

Nadja was mad, and she wanted an answer. Act 3: Nadja's Choice. Nicole tried to answer Nadja's questions over and over. But Nicole understood things about Nadja's school and the school system in general that Nadja, as an 11- and 12-year-old, did not. Nicole knew that because her middle school didn't screen students, because it didn't select some students and turn others away, what that meant is the school had a high concentration of kids who showed up on day one to middle school already behind. Most kids had gone to elementary schools that were struggling. Many had diagnosed learning disabilities, and almost all of them experience poverty outside of school. From Nikole's perspective, Najah's middle school was doing a pretty good job of trying to serve all its students. Nikole had been inside lots of schools as a reporter, and to her, Najah's school wasn't one that was neglecting students or lacking organization. It seemed organized and deeply caring, and unlike Najah's elementary school, responsive. When Nikole brought Najah's complaints to teachers and administrators, They got back to her right away. They tried in earnest to address things. But none of that was changing how Nadja felt. She kept returning to their argument about why she was at this school.

Why?

At sometimes random moments.

She would, like, we'd be in the kitchen preparing food and she'd be like, I still don't understand why you did that. And I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, I— You know, like, she's not gonna let— she's not letting it go. And, you know, what she said was like, you weren't in the classroom.

Right. It's not your experience.

It's not— right. It's not your education. It's not your experience. And I deeply heard that. And she's not, you know, an 8-year-old child. She is a young woman who's done her research. And I'm like, I just don't want— I don't want this to haunt me for the rest of our relationship. That's why what I ultimately decided— this is like, I don't know, 5th, 6th conversation slash argument— where I said, you know, you are absolutely justified in feeling how you feel. You certainly, if I had made different choices, would have had very different educational experience.

Mm-hmm.

And because of that, I'm going to now let you make the choice for your educational experience going forward. For high school, I would let her choose. So she would decide what school she wanted to visit, and she would decide what school she wanted to apply for.

This is a 12— she's a 12 at the time? This is a 12-year-old?

Yeah.

And what was her reaction?

If anybody has ever parented a 12-year-old girl, then you know her reaction was like, yeah, but you still shouldn't have did that. I still want to talk about what you did. You're trying to move on, but I'm not over that. So that was her response. But then, She was like, really? Like, you're really gonna let me? And I was like, absolutely. Okay, great.

I'm going to a school that I want for myself. I'm going to a school that's gonna be, like, hard to get into, like, that's really good, that has high scores. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted better education, just, like, learning more or, like, homework, like, having more curriculars or, like, Just more subjects. I didn't want to be in a majority Black school. I thought I wanted more of a diverse community.

Why?

Um, I felt like if I was in a diverse community, a more diverse or less Black— or not less Black, but more diverse community, I would get better education because that's what it seemed like.

Where did you get that idea from? Like, why did it seem that way to you?

Because you stayed in your school, you see all these schools prestigious, like they're mainly Asian or mainly white. And it's like, if I've been in these schools where it's majority Black, it's like I'm not getting anything from it at all. If you look at like the top schools, they're majority white. And it's like, if you want to go into a good school, you're gonna have to go to a majority white school.

She comes back with her list of schools, and I internally cringed.

Why?

Well, what my daughter did was looked up the top achieving schools in the city. She found out, like, the best in terms of test score schools in the city, and that was her list.

The exact opposite of your approach.

Yeah.

What'd you do with your face?

No, I don't think I actually— it's impossible for me to have a neutral face, but I try. I work very hard. I'm like, I cannot believe this. Like, my child came up with, like, the exact opposite of my life's work in every school on there. is a school that screens and has hardly no Black kids.

Nadja organized everything for high school. She researched the schools, found out when they had tours, how you get into them. The only time Nicole intervened was to insist that Nadja at least tour a selective, high-achieving, majority Black high school. Otherwise, Nicole kept her word and let Nadja take the reins. Nadja began imagining more and more what she wanted from school. where she was heading in high school and beyond high school. Nikole teaches at Howard University, an HBCU, the mecca of Black education and excellence.

Yeah, I mean, look, I've been ingraining Howard into her since she was like 3 years old. And then one day she comes back from middle school and she says she wants to go to Harvard. And I was like, we have never mentioned the word Harvard. in our household. What the hell is happening? I'm like, what? But like she did for high schools, she looked up the top-ranked school and decided that's where she wanted to go.

You're literally like, where did this girl learn the word Howard?

Harvard?

Harvard, yes. I'm telling you, like, we don't even discuss PWIs as an option in our household. Like, so—

Predominantly white institutions.

Yes, predominantly white institutions. And especially, like, not Harvard. Like, Harvard? What child? Because I'm like, did I mishear you? Did you accidentally say Howard?

No.

I love that your child's rebellion is to tell her mother that she wants to go to Harvard University.

Exactly. And I'm disappointed. I'm like, what is wrong with you? You have to admire that the child is like, whatever is the best, that's what I want.

Yeah.

I both admired it and was appalled at the same time. Like, where are you getting these ideas? Who is putting these crazy ideas in your head?

Nadja submitted her high school application, ranking a dozen high-achieving schools, and she got into her top choice, a majority white and Asian school in a wealthy neighborhood Almost an hour commute by subway from her home. She started freshman year.

Within 2 weeks, she was ready to transfer. She wanted to transfer out of the school.

Wow.

And I told her no. I was like, look, we went through a whole process. You're gonna stay here and we're gonna figure it out. Like, this is life. This is real life.

The girls were different. I noticed that there were kids that were comfortable saying the N-word. I also experienced that. There were white kids that were saying the N-word?

Yeah.

That's everywhere, but it was like I never really experienced that in person. It was like kids that also came from very good homes, like kids that also came from like very rich households.

And did that affect you, or—

I thought they were like too bougie and had high egos, but like unaware, like don't know about anything, like social-wise, like Nothing about Black people or nothing about this. Kind of just unaware about a lot of things and a lot of things in history. Just really privileged and spoiled.

And kind of ignorant.

Very, very ignorant. Mm-hmm.

Got it.

Okay. Yeah.

How were the academics? That was the thing you had really wanted.

Um, when I got into that school and they were talking about all these things, I'm like, what are we talking about? I never learned this. So it was kind of bumpy. Like, it was— it was hard. It was really stressful.

Yeah, that sounds stressful.

I've never got a C before. I never really got those grades in middle school. And when I saw that now, it was just like, ugh. It sucked a lot.

She didn't feel like she fit in. She didn't feel like she had anything in common with most of the kids.

Were you surprised that that was her experience the first few weeks?

No.

No, not at all. That experience I have had.

That was the experience you were trying to protect her from.

Exactly.

One of them.

One of them, yeah. Probably the most devastating thing is you spend, like, their whole lifetime trying to build up this sense of themselves. Just as a parent parenting a child, but also me trying to build my child's confidence as a Black girl, and the inherent intellect and worth and then it can be destroyed, like, in 2 weeks in this school. Freshman year, it was the first time a teacher ever called about, like, behavior for Nadja. That had never happened. She had never had behavior problems.

She was angry.

She was really angry that— for much of that year.

Nikole and Faraji focused on getting Nadja tutoring and support. And Nadja settled in. She made new friends. She caught up academically. She stopped asking to transfer. She's doing well. This was the new status quo. And this is where they were when I started talking to Nicole and Nadja, toward the end of Nadja's sophomore year, the second year at the high school that she'd chosen for herself. Nicole and Nadja had come into the studio to talk, not knowing exactly what the other thought about this whole experience now. Some time had passed and they'd stopped fighting about it. Nicole had not written her new article about all of this yet, and she had questions. She thought, now that Nadia was doing so well, she'd been able to get into her top school and succeed there. Nicole wanted to know, if I asked Nadia what she thought of her mom's choice, would she still say it was terrible? Act 4, Nicole and Nadja. When they showed up together, I could tell just by watching the way they interact that Nicole and Nadja enjoy spending time together. They're comfortable. Nadja's 16 years old now. She tells me her top pick for college is Howard, not Harvard.

Howard. She likes it, she says, because it's in D.C., it's got a nice campus. Plus, she says, I'd get to be with my mom. They both act like this is a completely regular thing for a 16-year-old to say and want, and that is how I know they're close and that a lot has changed. I had talked to Nicole about all this twice on her own before she came in with Nadja, and I talked to Nadja alone for almost an hour and a half while her mom waited outside. I got Nadja's thoughts on the experiences she'd had in the different schools. And it wasn't until the very end when I said, is there anything else you wanna say, that Nadja mentioned the argument with her mom. They hadn't had it for a long time, but Nadja said she had brought it up again when she was feeling behind at the beginning of high school.

Like, Mom, if you didn't put me in these schools, I would've been okay.

What'd she say?

She was— she said the same thing she said. I don't know what she said.

I don't even know what she said.

All I know is I complained to her.

So you know that she said the same thing that she said the last time you had the conversation, but you don't actually know what that thing was?

Yeah, I don't know what it was.

Do you want to know?

Yes.

I think we could probably get the answer from her because she's sitting right outside here. Nicole, you up for coming in? Hello, Nicole.

Hello.

Nicole sits next to Nadja, and they talk. I'm gonna bleep the name of Nadja's high school when it comes up in this conversation. They're sitting side by side, and Nikole begins laying out her case. She's clear, vulnerable, tells Nadja this was a hard choice, the hardest choice.

It's like, I mean, because—

Nadja's still, seems to be listening carefully as Nikole says public education is just so deeply unequal and always has been. Black kids in particular segregated and denied a fair and equal education.

What do we then do? Do we just say, well, there's nothing I can do? Or do you try in some way to make some intervention? It's like, why should my child be the one that's rescued? Like, you should escape what we consign so many other kids just like you to? I just will never feel right about that. Why?

Why? That makes no sense. You're talking about, oh, I'm just gonna give you the worst just because it's not fair that you— I didn't ask to be born. All you're supposed to do is just like put me in a good school. Like, oh well, I didn't want to put you in a great school and have you have advantages over other kids. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what you want me to have? Is that not a normal thing you want me to have? You don't want me to have this?

You do though.

Okay, yeah.

But you do. You have advantages. You have so many advantages.

Right, okay, so not— but I'm not saying— I'm saying in school-wise. I'm in school every day. I'm gonna— in that I was in that building every single day. That doesn't make sense. I'm there more than home. Obviously, I get more in general, but school is the most important thing. That's the main thing.

Why do you imagine, like, you're able to do well in—

Um, because it's a better school.

But you, do you think it's possible your foundation wasn't as terrible as you think it is?

No.

So you think you came in like a blank slate and now have learned everything there?

No, but—

You have been able to have the same academic success as your classmates?

To get through it, yeah. To get through it because— well, not even though.

Like, I—

everyone last year when I had my grade come out, I remember crying because everyone else's, like, score was so good. And I was just like, how is it so easy for everyone else but me? So no, I don't think that I got through it. I think I just tried, tried my hardest.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say you did not receive the top quality middle school education.

Either elementary with even basic fractions. I mean, like, I was never taught that. I had to relearn everything from my tutor.

That's fair.

Everyone's not your— not your kid.

That's true.

You can't save everyone who doesn't want to be saved.

That's what you think, though? You think, like, other kids don't want better?

I'm not saying that. I wanted better than all the kids in my school want— that wanted better wanted better. There's no benefit that came out of you putting me in those schools. There's no benefit at all. Could you tell me a benefit?

You want me to answer that?

Yeah.

Benefit for the school?

What benefit did you provide the school?

I think that's a great question. I do think it was a benefit of us being in those schools. We brought resources. If you remember when—

Nikole runs through a bunch of examples. Your dad organizing parents at the school, intervening when there were issues with teachers, making sure kids who couldn't afford field trips would still get those opportunities. The principal creating a recognition breakfast for kids who made the honor roll wouldn't have happened if you weren't in the school. Nicole goes big and specific. The benefits of kids having friends from different backgrounds, our moral obligations to one another. Nadja is not waiting for her to be done. She's jumping in. Opportunities for all kids? Like what? You made friends with different kinds of people? Who? Dad being involved had a big impact?

How?

We don't have to actually agree. It's okay for us to see this in a different way. But ultimately, you got into your first choice of high school.

But you could have had me way higher in education.

Do you feel like your life is being held back?

I don't think that, but I don't want to be— I don't want to— I didn't want to feel like I didn't know anything because I was set back in other schools. I didn't want to feel like I was dumb. In 9th grade, it did feel like I was dumb. It did feel like I didn't know anything. It was like, oh my gosh, like, you're the— like, a dumb Black girl in a white school. That's what it made me feel. Why should I have to suffer with that? Why couldn't you just benefit kids in another way? Like, there was other options.

I don't think you can change— I think we have decades of people saying they were gonna change a school from the outside, and I don't think— I just don't think you do. I think New York City is full of people who write checks and people who say, you know, I believe in equality. I mean, what we were trying to do was not just about giving some additional funds to a school. We were trying to change the power dynamics.

But that doesn't connect to why— why did I have to be in the school? Like—

Nicole says, okay, remember what happened in 4th grade when kids weren't being taught? Do you remember that? That wasn't just happening to you.

The only way, though, that we know that's happening is because we're in the class and we're in the school. And had we not been in the school, we wouldn't have ever known that that was happening.

There are ways that you could know that kind of stuff.

But there aren't. And we've talked about, like, over and over, like, our lives are the products of people who Didn't just say, we think segregation is wrong, we think injustice is wrong. Like, they were willing to put themselves, their families, their children on the line for that.

So you put me on the line to help with school, but it didn't work.

I put— yeah, I put you on the line in hopes of making a change. But even when you knew— it's not like I never had any doubts about my choice. I did. And the only reason I'm okay with my choice now is I'm like, you're fine. I felt this was important. I tried to do the right thing.

And I think I'm fine because I'm in the school I am now. I feel like if I picked a different choice that you wanted me to, I don't think I would be fine.

Okay.

And I think this choice was good for me. And I do appreciate you for saying that.

I think your choice was— is good for you as well.

Yes.

They'd done it. Nicole had committed to letting Nadja have her say. She felt she owed it to her. And Nicole was committed to putting all of this out into the world. And as a final step in this whole process, she fact-checked herself. And she was in for a shock. Let's give this an act, a mini act. A postscript. Act 5: The Evidence. She was checking her memory on things as she wrote her story for The New York Times Magazine. And Nikole looked through old emails back and forth with Najaah's schools, messages to principals and teachers raising concerns.

And there's, like, pages of emails. I don't even remember sending that many emails. And I'm a writer, and I'm a journalist, so my emails are very detailed. Like, every time I'm emailing the principal, I'm quoting my daughter, I'm listing all these details, the issues we were having, not feeling like we were getting the proper response, my worries, my concerns, my— like, Nadja came home and said that her teacher was gone again, and this is like the 4th time the teacher was gone. And there was no sub, and Nadja said she had to go in the kindergarten class, but she's in 2nd grade, right? And not just, like, a record of my making complaints, but a record of, like, non-caring. Like, the principal not responding, the teachers not responding, over and over and over and over again. And I'm in Texas that day, and I'm getting ready to go give a talk, and I'm sitting in the hotel room, and I'm just reading. All of these emails. And it was crushing to read them. And I was like, damn, like, you really— to make this work for yourself mentally, I just forgot. I had just pushed a lot of that out of my memory, I think, To be able to live with the choices we were trying to make.

And I— I understand my child feeling very betrayed. by our choices. This is why my baby is so angry.

Did you tell her any of that?

Well, she calls me. She calls me right as I'm sitting there. I'm sitting at my desk, just going through all these emails, and I'm like— I'm not crying, but I'm— Teary-eyed. I'm just sitting there. So, she calls me, and I pick up, and I'm trying to make my voice sound normal, but she hears that I'm upset in my voice. And she's like, what's wrong, Mommy? And I'm like, nothing. Everything's good. And she's like, what's wrong? Um, and she asked me that maybe one more time, and then I just told her. I was like, I've been reading the emails.

Um...

from everything that was happening with your schools, and I'm sorry. And I just told her, like, I— I don't feel like you got the education you deserved, and I don't feel that I listened to you enough. I just said, I'm sorry.

What did she say?

Um... She—

she was quiet for a second, and then she told me, I'm kind of glad you're seeing this now, 'cause I don't feel like you listened to me. I don't feel like you tried to understand that. And I just apologized again, and I said, you're right. The stakes were so high for me personally. I feel like the stakes are so high when it comes to the issue of integration and equality. that I couldn't admit to her that, yes, you did bear a cost. And I don't know that we made the right choice. I don't know what the right choice would be.

I was stunned by this turn. I have never heard Nicole talk like this. I've never heard most people, my closest friends, be this truthful with themselves about their choices, especially when it comes to our kids and schools. And talking about those choices in public? Never. Why? So all of us can judge or feel smug or angry or vindicated or however you have felt listening to this? It's not like Nicole is the only one out here making a choice. We all live in the same world she lives in. We all live with schools that are segregated and unequal. We all make choices. Imperfect, complicated choices. Nicole's just the one who's reckoning with hers deeply and in public. And I think the less you talk about a choice, the less you scrutinize it, the easier it is to live with. Nicole is in a strange, new, and disorienting place these days. She's a person who's used to making an argument. And now she's not sure what to argue for. Not just because of her experience with Nadja, also because of what Nikole's seen in her reporting over the last decade. For years, Nikole's writing pushed for systemic change.

In particular, she's argued that we need to integrate public schools racially and economically. And in her reporting, she's talked to so many people. Who put their lives into that fight, who sacrificed, made real life-changing sacrifices that they hoped would lead to a bigger transformation. And so little has changed. Public schools are unequal and segregated as they were 10 years ago, 30 years ago, 60 years ago. If you sacrifice to make a change, but change doesn't come, All you're left with is the sacrifice.

And so, what am I arguing for? I don't know anymore.

Whoa, Nikole.

I know.

A lot's happened.

A lot has happened. The base of the argument is that what we are doing to Black children is immoral. And that, I have not wavered on. I will not waver on. I want us to understand that we choose this. I don't want us to be absolved by it, not even me. Um, I want us to come at the end of this story sharing my sense of devastation. I feel like the culmination of all my work is I'm gonna force you to bear witness to what you choose and what I choose.

Them that's got shall get. Them that's not shall lose. So the Bible says. And that still is news. 'Cause Mama may have— And Papa may have lost. But God is sure gonna bless the child who's got his own. Yeah, yeah, who's got his own.

Our program was produced and edited today by Nancy Updike, with help from Ira Glass. The people who put together today's show are Cassie Howley, Adrienne Lilly, Seth Lind, Katherine Raimondo, Stowe Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Ruby Schwartz, Alyssa Shipp, Christopher Swatalla, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman, our senior editor David Kestenbaum, our executive editor Emmanuel Barry. Nicole's article is called In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? And you can find it on The New York Times website It was edited by Alaina Silverman. Special thanks today to Rachael Lissy. Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream an archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. And there's videos and lists of favorite shows and tons of other stuff there too. Again, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. I'm Khanna Jaffe-Walt. Ira Glass will be back next week with more stories of This American Life.

But God, he's sure gonna bless the child who's got his own. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's got his own.

Next week on the podcast of This American Life...

Good.

I'm dropping it too.

You want to hear about all the work that I did for you, or what? Should we move on? Connor, I was making—

There's this podcast out there where it feels like they invented something completely new. This guy, Sarah Qavado, recorded his personal conversations for years, and the result is unlike anything I've ever heard. We play some of it on this show. It's called Reaching Out. Next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.

I'm over it.

If it's small talk, that's a small talk.