898: An Argument

16:49yeah devastating parent moment i'm like what am i doing

16:55Nikole Hannah-Jones:What am I doing? What am I doing to my child? Like, 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 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.

17:51Chana Joffe-Walt:Nicole sat at the table, waiting for Faradji to get home. And Faradji and I, I remember, like, as soon as he got home,

18:00Nikole Hannah-Jones: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, do we, do we leave? Do we, like, take her out of this? and so we struggled with like what to do i mean i i we felt stuck because those other kids did not deserve not to be taught either and the understanding that the consequences for them were going to 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?

18:54Nikole Hannah-Jones:Then what do 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.

19:04Chana Joffe-Walt:They made a new plan. They would stay in the school, they would get Naja support, and they were going to get the school support. Nicole asked a friend, a former math teacher, to tutor Naja at home. And Nicole and Farajit 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.

19:49Chana Joffe-Walt: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. Naja doing well and all the kids doing well.

20:01Nikole Hannah-Jones:It's like we recommitted. Like, we have to be here. Like, we have to now make sure all these kids in this classroom 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 us, for sure.

20:24Chana Joffe-Walt:You said it actually might have been from your article that it can feel unnatural, 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?

20:39Nikole Hannah-Jones: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.

21:13Chana Joffe-Walt: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 a middle school, Nicole 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.

21:48Chana Joffe-Walt: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 seventh 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.

22:25Nikole Hannah-Jones:She was like, did you know my school had test scores like this when you decided to send me here? I paused, you know, like hand on the wheel, driving. I'm like looking straight ahead. And I'm sitting there like, OK, what's what's what am I going to say out of my mouth that's going to make sense to her? And, you know, it's like I knew this. 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 what were you?

23:11Nikole Hannah-Jones: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?

23:51Chana Joffe-Walt: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

24:07Nikole Hannah-Jones: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 I can't make a personal sacrifice. We don't get there.

24:54Nikole Hannah-Jones: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 give her moral clarity, but to give her a life of opportunity. So now I'm just kind of repeating what I've said and hoping that she'll move on. But she is not. She's 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, she's really not going to let this go.

25:39Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

25:48Nikole Hannah-Jones:My child's not reading 10 ,000 words that I write. She's not. She's not. She's on the cover, though.

25:56Chana Joffe-Walt:It's her picture. She's on the cover. No.

25:57Nikole Hannah-Jones:Uh-uh. No.

25:58Chana Joffe-Walt:Really? Has she never read it? Do you think she's never read it? I don't think so.

26:01Nikole Hannah-Jones:Nuh-uh. I don't believe that. Really? I promise. When you ask her, the answer's going to be no.

26:06Chana Joffe-Walt:I am going to ask her. That's coming up. The answer to that question and so many others. I talk to Naja, 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.

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27:24Najya:It's time to be great. This message comes from WFMT. Discover connections in classical music with WFMT's Exploring Music and new host Peter Vandergraaf. Listen Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. on 98.7 FM, WFMT.com, and the app.

27:44Chana Joffe-Walt:It's This American Life. I'm Khanna Jaffe-Walt sitting in for Ira Glass. Today's show, An Argument, Act Two, Najah. Because of who Nicole is and what we've talked about over years, I've thought about Najah 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.

28:27Chana Joffe-Walt:Have you read that article? No. You've never read that article?

28:32Najya: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.

28:42Chana Joffe-Walt:Oh, 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 is 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?

29:03Najya:It was just regular. Like, it was fine.

29:05Chana Joffe-Walt:It was just school.

29:06Najya:Yeah, I don't really remember a lot from elementary. I was really into art. I like to draw a lot. I was, yeah, I was loud. I still am, 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.

29:29Chana Joffe-Walt:She was lonely sometimes when girls were mean. Regular kid stuff. Nadja remembers fourth grade, they didn't do much in class, and that her mom had issues with her teachers. She thought it was weird that her third grade teacher was absent a lot. But fifth grade was fun. It was all fine. What Nadja wanted to talk about more was middle school, sixth 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.

29:57Najya: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 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'd 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.

30:30Najya:I remember we got our, like, report cards back. I think there was, like, seven kids in that class who were, like, on honor roll, and the rest were, like, they didn't. The school was so easy, and, like, how did you not get, I don't know. Wait, you're, like, how did people not get honor roll? Is that what you mean? Right. Because it was just a really easy school.

30:54Chana Joffe-Walt:Did you have homework? No. No homework?

30:57Najya:No. None. Zero. How did you feel about that? I thought it was bad. I think I complained about my friends. We don't get anything. We're not getting any work. You wanted homework? We did. We did. We honestly did want to get more things because we knew that we weren't learning enough. We didn't know anything.

31:15Chana Joffe-Walt:Nanja 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 seventh 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.

31:54Chana Joffe-Walt:If you're an ambitious seventh grader, or even just a kid who cares about status, as nearly every seventh grader does, this is when you start to become aware, if you are 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.

32:23Najya:And we were just shocked. Test scores were really low. Everything about the school was really low. What did 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 apparent reviews. You see student reviews. You see everything. And test scores. Hmm? I think we looked at 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.

32:55Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

33:11Najya:All I know is that I wasn't having it. I was just like, why? Why am I here? Naja was mad, and she wanted an answer.

33:28Act 3, Naja's Choice.

33:31Chana Joffe-Walt:Nicole tried to answer Naja's questions over and over. But Nicole understood things about Naja'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 experienced poverty outside of school.

34:09Chana Joffe-Walt:From Nicole's perspective, Naja's middle school was doing a pretty good job of trying to serve all its students. Nicole had been inside lots of schools as a reporter, and to her, Naja's school wasn't one that was neglecting students or lacking organization. It seemed organized and deeply caring, and unlike Naja's elementary school, responsive. When Nicole brought Naja'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.

34:47Chana Joffe-Walt:Why? At sometimes random moments.

34:51Nikole Hannah-Jones: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, you know, like, she's not letting it go. And you know what? She said, like, you weren't in the classroom. Right. It's not your experience. Right. It's not your education. It's not your experience. And I deeply heard that. And she's not, you know, an eight-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, fifth, sixth conversation slash argument, where I said, you know, you are absolutely justified in feeling how you feel.

35:46Nikole Hannah-Jones:You certainly, if I had made different choices, would have had very different educational experience. 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.

36:12Chana Joffe-Walt:This is a 12? She's a 12 at the time? This is a 12-year-old? And what was her reaction?

36:21Nikole Hannah-Jones: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

36:37Nikole Hannah-Jones: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 going to let me? And I was like, absolutely. Okay. Great.

36:54Najya:I'm going to a school that I want for myself. I'm going to a school that's going to 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?

37:27Najya:I felt like if I was in a diverse community, 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?

37:43Chana Joffe-Walt:Why did it seem that way to you?

37:44Najya:because you see it 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 going to have to go to a majority white school.

38:09Nikole Hannah-Jones: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 did 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. And every school on there is a school that screens and has hardly known Black kids.

39:06Chana Joffe-Walt:Naja 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 Naja at least tour a selective, high-achieving, majority Black high school. Otherwise, Nicole kept her word and let Naja take the reins. Naja began imagining more and more what she wanted from school, where she was heading in high school and beyond high school. Nicole teaches at Howard University and HBCU, the mecca of black education and excellence.

39:41Nikole Hannah-Jones:Yeah, I mean, look, I've been ingraining Howard into her since she was like three 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, yes. I'm telling you, like, we don't even discuss PWIs as an option in our household. Predominantly white institutions.

40:20Nikole Hannah-Jones: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?

40:28Chana Joffe-Walt:I love that your child's rebellion is to tell her mother that she wants to go to Harvard University.

40:34Nikole Hannah-Jones:Exactly. And I'm disappointed. I'm like, what is wrong with you?

40:43Nikole Hannah-Jones:You have to admire that the child is like, whatever is the best, that's what I want.

40:49Chana Joffe-Walt:Yeah.

40:49Nikole Hannah-Jones: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?

41:04Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

41:20Nikole Hannah-Jones:Within two weeks, she was ready to transfer. She wanted to transfer out of the school.

41:25Chana Joffe-Walt:Wow.

41:26Nikole Hannah-Jones:And I told her no. I was like, look, we went through a whole process. You're going to stay here and we're going to figure it out. Like, this is life. This is real life. The girls were different.

41:39Najya: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? 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.

42:20Najya:And kind of ignorant. Very, very ignorant. Got it.

42:25Chana Joffe-Walt:Okay.

42:25Najya:How were the academics?

42:27Chana Joffe-Walt:That was the thing you had really wanted.

42:30Najya: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 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, well, it sucked a lot.

42:57Nikole Hannah-Jones: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, 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. Yeah, probably the most devastating thing is you spend like their whole lifetime trying to build up the 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 two weeks in this school.

43:38Nikole Hannah-Jones:Freshman year, it was the first time a teacher ever called about behavior for Nadja, that it never happened. She had never had behavior problems. She was angry. She was really angry for much of that year.

43:53Chana Joffe-Walt:Nicole 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.

44:35Chana Joffe-Walt:She thought, now that Nadja was doing so well, she'd been able to get into her top school and succeed there, Nicole wanted to know, if I asked Nadja what she thought of her mom's choice, would she still say it was terrible?

44:58Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

45:40Chana Joffe-Walt: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 want to 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.

46:03Najya:Like, Mom, if you didn't put me in these schools, I would have been okay. What'd she say? She said the same thing. She said, I don't know what she said. I don't know what she said. All I know is I complained to her.

46:17Chana Joffe-Walt: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 going to bleep the name of Nadja's high school when it comes up in this conversation. They're sitting side by side and Nicole begins laying out her case. She's clear, vulnerable, tells Nadja this was a hard choice, the hardest choice.

46:55Chana Joffe-Walt:Nadja's still seems to be listening carefully. As Nicole says, public education is just so deeply unequal and always has been. Black kids in particular segregated and denied a fair and equal education.

47:10Nikole Hannah-Jones:What do we then do? Do we just say, well, it'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 would never

47:30Najya:feel right about that um why why it 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 actually be bored 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?

47:54Nikole Hannah-Jones:You don't want me to have this?

47:56Najya:Okay, yeah. But you do.

47:57Nikole Hannah-Jones:You have advantages. You have so many advantages.

48:01Najya:Right, okay. But I'm not saying, I'm saying in school-wise. I'm in school every day. 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.

48:16Nikole Hannah-Jones:Why do you imagine, like, you're able to do well in ****? Because it's a better school. But you, you think it's possible your foundation wasn't as terrible as you think it is?

48:32Najya:No.

48:34Nikole Hannah-Jones:So you think you came in, like, a blank slate of **** and now have learned everything there? No, but... You have been able to have the same academic success as your classmates. I got through it because, well, not even though.

48:50Najya:Like, everyone last year, I had my grade come out. I remember crying because everyone else's 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 my hardest.

49:08Nikole Hannah-Jones:Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say you did not receive the top quality middle school education.

49:15Najya:Elementary with even basic fractions. I mean, like, I was never taught that. I had to relearn everything for my tutor.

49:24Nikole Hannah-Jones:That's fair.

49:25Najya:Everyone's not your kid. 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. All the kids in my school 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? Benefit for the school? What benefit did you provide the school?

49:55Nikole Hannah-Jones:I think that's a great question. I do think it was a benefit of us being in those schools. We brought resources. Nicole runs through a bunch of examples.

50:09Chana Joffe-Walt: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?

50:47Chana Joffe-Walt:How?

50:48Nikole Hannah-Jones: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.

50:57Najya: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 ninth 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, 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?

51:32Nikole Hannah-Jones:Like, there is other options. I don't think you can change. I think we have decades of people saying they were going to 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 did I have to be in the school?

52:05Chana Joffe-Walt:Nicole says, OK, remember what happened in fourth grade when kids weren't being taught? Do you remember that? That wasn't just happening to you.

52:13Nikole Hannah-Jones: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.

52:25Najya:There are ways that you could know that kind of stuff.

52:28Nikole Hannah-Jones: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. Yeah, I put you on the line in hopes of making a change. 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.

53:12Najya: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. And I think this choice was good for me. And I do appreciate you for seeing that.

53:25Nikole Hannah-Jones:I think your choice is good for you as well. Yes.

53:34Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

54:04Chana Joffe-Walt:She was checking her memory on things as she wrote her story for the New York Times magazine and Nicole looked through old emails back and forth with Najah's schools, messages to principals and teachers raising concerns.

54:18Nikole Hannah-Jones: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 fourth time the teacher was gone and there was no sub. And I just said she had to go in the kindergarten class, but she's in second 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.

55:07And I'm in Texas that day and I'm getting ready to go give a talk.

55:12Nikole Hannah-Jones:and I'm sitting in the hotel room and I'm just reading all of these emails.

55:20And it was crushing to read them.

55:25Nikole Hannah-Jones: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.

56:13Nikole Hannah-Jones:This is why my baby is so angry.

56:17Chana Joffe-Walt:Did you tell her any of that?

56:19Nikole Hannah-Jones:Well, she calls me. She calls me right as I'm sitting there. I'm like 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 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? And she asked me that maybe one more time. And then I just told her, I was like, I've been reading the emails from everything that was happening with your schools, and I'm sorry.

57:06And I just told her, like, I don't feel like you got the education you deserved,

57:13Nikole Hannah-Jones:and I don't feel that I listened to you enough. I just said I'm sorry.

57:22Chana Joffe-Walt:What did she say?

57:25Nikole Hannah-Jones:She was quiet for a second, and then she told me, I'm kind of glad you're seeing this now because 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 cause. And I don't know that we made the right choice. I don't know what the right choice would be.

58:15Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

59:03Deeply and in public.

59:05Chana Joffe-Walt: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 Nicole's seen in her reporting over the last decade. For years, Nicole'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.

59:53Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

1:00:12Nikole Hannah-Jones:And so what am I arguing for? I don't know. anymore.

1:00:15Chana Joffe-Walt:Whoa, Nicole. I know. A lot's happened.

1:00:18Nikole Hannah-Jones:A lot has happened. The base of the argument is that what we are doing to black children is immoral. And that I'm 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. 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 going to force you to bear witness to what you choose and what I choose.

1:01:37Najya:guitar solo

1:01:42Najya:Cause mama may have

1:01:49Najya:And papa may have, Lord But God Is sure gonna bless the child Who's got his own Yeah, yeah Who's got his own?

1:02:10Chana Joffe-Walt: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, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Ruby Schwartz, Alyssa Shipp, Christopher Swatala, Julie Whittaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor, David Kestenbaum. our executive editor, Emmanuel Berry. 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 Elena Silverman. Special thanks today to Rachel Lissy.

1:02:52Chana Joffe-Walt: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.

1:03:35Najya:Who's got his own? Who's got his own? Next week on the podcast of This American Life. Good, I'm dropping it too. Do you want to hear about all the work that I did for you or what? Should we move on? There's this podcast out there where it feels like they invented something completely new. This guy, Sarah Covedo, recorded his personal conversations for years. And the result is unlike anything I've ever heard. We play some of this show. It's called Reaching Out. Next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.

1:04:32Najya:FM, WFMT.com, and the app. This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with Hachan Shake Your Booty. The New York Post calls Hachan Shake Your Booty a delirious gym, and Collider says it's overflowing with energy and joy. Rinko Kikuchi stars as Haru, whose passion for Tokyo's ballroom dance scene is interrupted by tragedy. When friends coax her back to the studio, an unexpected infatuation with her new instructor gives Haru another chance at life and love. Now playing only in theaters.