Michael Harriot: I mean, if you've been on the internet, you know which article I'm talking about. Whenever I do events with Nicole Hatter-Jones, people always bring copies of the 1619 project. But there's always one person who brings an old tabloid-style newspaper who wants it signed. that is, is that in 2016, Nicole Hatter-Jones wrote a piece, a long essay, 10,000 words, about choosing A school for her daughter in a segregated city. Well, this year, on the tenth anniversary of that piece, she wrote a follow-up to it called, In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? the piece sparked a furious debate online. Like people were real mad. Most of them, a lot of them, you could tell, hadn't read it. which is why we asked Nicole Hatta Jones to Join us. y'all know how we do it here. Every week we ask a scholar, expert, or a person who just knows things to tackle one issue or question from a black perspective. And today, journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones blacksplains the article. Welcome to Black Explain, where every week instead of sharing uninformed opinions, we ask a scholar, an expert, or someone who just knows what they're talking about to answer one question. And today we're here with Nicole Hannah-Jones. Now, usually I ask people to give their bio themselves, but like everybody knows you, So what I wanted to talk about today. was the article that literally everybody in the world seems like is talking about. I first I thought like, you know, I'm in journalism circles, so like maybe all my journalism friends are talking about it. But it seems like the whole world is talking about it. And I wanna kinda put this conversation the in segments in three segments, right? The journalism segment, the parent segment, and then the systems and the education part of it. But I wanna start out With something that intersects with all three of those buckets. And that is, why did you decide to write the article?
Nikole: That is an essential question and it's really pretty easy. I thought I owed it to my child and I thought I owed it to the public. I you know, no one, despite all of the outrage on social media, no one has been more tortured by the choices we made than myself and my husband. I think anybody who's ever been a parent especially a parent of a teenager. It's not that unusual for a teenager to tell you that you ruined their lives. but I had to take seriously, you know, what what my daughter told me, what her experience was. and so I really felt, you know, as the 10 year anniversary of the piece was coming that I I I owed it to her to be truthful about what she actually experienced. And the second piece is, you know, out outside of the 1619 project, I've I've never received more response to anything I've I've done, other than the piece that I did about choosing a school for my daughter in a segregated city. And to this day, I just did I mean, you were there. did an event in Brooklyn. Someone in the audience asked about my child. a few months before that I did a MLK talk in Boston. Someone who hadn't even had their child when I wrote the story came up to me and said, you know, you inspired me to try to make a similar choice for my child. So I really just felt that I owed it to the public to be reflective and honest about how did it actually go? so that's why. I just, you know. I'm a journalist. I I try to operate in the world with integrity. I haven't spoken really publicly about what for us has been a very personal journey that also was trying to That was trying to be in community with our community. so I just I to me, with the ten year anniversary, being a a a a person of integrity, I thought I had to tell the truth about how it went. And and I guess the last thing is, The country has changed so much since that piece came out. we we weren't really wanting to grapple with these issues when that came out the first time. And now we have a federal government that is completely weaponized around any any type of program that might try to help deal with the segregation that our students are experiencing or or the after effects of it. So I also was hoping that by talking about what we experienced. that we could bring back into the discourse the the the really immoral inequality of most of so many of the schools that serve black children. So that's that's why. That's why I have unleashed this hell upon myself.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. It it always struck struck me because you know we've done events together and it always struck me that there's always one person who still actually has that, like the physical copy of that piece
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: that they want you to sign. And I it struck me that that's how much it impacted people. Now, when we're talking about this issue of education and how it intersects with parenting and journalism, you know. As someone who's covered education and the systems behind education and the systems of inequality within the education system for as long as you have, do you think, like like I you we see pieces of journalism where you can list all the statistics that you want, but they don't hit home. And then you could, you know, follow a couple or a story or a family for a few weeks, and you're Still subject to what they're willing to share with you, how personal they're willing to be. Do you think you could have told this personal of a s of a story and told the story that you wanted to tell about the education system with through someone else, whether it was interviewing a family or just using the numbers or talking about it without your personal story being injected into it? Do you think you could have done that and had as much impact?
Nikole: I mean, in in some ways I can scientifically answer that because I've been writing about school segregation, mostly about other people's children, for most of my career. and I would just ask, you know, folks to list those articles and they probably can't. now some folks would list the the This American Life piece I did on Michael Brown school district, The Problem We All Live With. Some folks might remember the piece I did when I was at ProPublica called Segregation Now about a young lady named Alicia Dent. but most people don't. and so, you know, I what made me choose to write initially 10 years ago about my own family's experience was I had been writing about this. And when we made at that time it was a private choice to enroll our daughter in one of these segregated schools. I didn't I didn't ever expect to write about it. I didn't intend to write about it, but then that school became embroiled in an integration battle. And literally folks were emailing me because they know that's what I write about. And they were saying, Hey, are you watching what's happening at this school in Brooklyn? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm I'm watching it 'cause my my daughter's in that school. and so initially ten years ago I was I was deeply conflicted about even telling our family story, exposing my daughter. but I also felt, how could I not? Like, because for exactly the reason that you're saying, Michael, is when you are reporting someone else's story, you're always limited by their recreations of what happened, about what they decide to share with you. but no one knows your story like yourself. And there's just a power in the the storytelling, in the detail, and the intimacy and the emotion. I don't have to perceive what the emotion is. I I know what the emotion is, right? So I think there's something very powerful about that. and clearly this piece is getting even far more response than that original piece got for many reasons that maybe we'll talk about but I do think that there is always going to be something uniquely powerful about the first person when we tell any story.
Michael Harriot: Given the reception of the 16 project, 1619 project, both positive and negative, do you think this is a question I think you have to grapple with? Do you think there's anything that you can write that has the impact that won't also receive as much of a negative response, right? Like if it works, you know, sometimes I I often joke with you like. You know, if white people you know, hate it, then I know I'm on the right path if I get white backlash. Is there anything that you could write that is impactful that wouldn't also come with this negative response? And will do you think you'll ever get used to that?
Nikole: So I I don't I I've written other things, but I think yeah, if if if something is going to I even hate using the word go viral, but if something is going to go viral that I'm writing it, I I do expect it to be picked apart, debated, not just critiqued, but that for there to be personal attacks in that. I do I have come to expect that. But what I'll say is I was fully prepared for a lot of white folks to attack the piece. And frankly, I I've been dealing with that for so long. I was like, I don't even care. Like I whatever. I was not prepared for the number of black people who not just critiqued the piece. I knew I knew there was I mean, look, I'm critiquing myself in the piece, right? Like I'm literally questioning whether we made the right choices. I'm questioning my parenting. I'm questioning the ability to live my values and how that impacted my child. But I I I was not prepared for the gleeful way, at least it is felt in some ways, that some black people have piled on. So no, I I I would never be used to that. And I wasn't I wasn't maybe naively expecting it, that.
Michael Harriot: So considering those critiques from us, because you know the white critiques are like going to be made, and I think we could although I don't know what they are because I don't I I think I don't think I'm on white people's internet.
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: what are the critiques, like the legitimate black critiques that you've seen? Because I've seen like some piling on, I've seen some people who you can tell haven't read the piece, right? And then The critique of whether you made the right decision, I you know, you don't you are wrestling with that in the piece. But what are the legitimate critiques that you've seen of the piece? Yes.
Nikole: The legitimate critiques? I mean, the legitimate critiques are just what you said, right? did I quote unquote sacrifice my child for my values? and I you know, again, you don't write a piece like this and think that that is not gonna be the one of the things that are debated. And Again, that I'm I'm still not resolved in on my s resolved in for myself. So I think that that's completely legitimate. so that's that's easy. I mean, I I wish there had been and there was a lot of this. And I I I do think it's important to say, it is the same reason that you see like kind of this negative piling on, is the same reason that I'm focusing on the negative piling on, right? It's like That emotion of like rage and anger and being upset. that's that emotion we we focus on. And so the fact that I've received I I I literally can't even go through all my emails, of all of these like nuanced, thoughtful, complex responses. so many black folks who were like, you know, every black parent, I mean, that's literally a line in my piece, right? There there will be a struggle. It's which one? And so many black Folks were like, I chose a different path. I chose to put my child in an all-white school and I've questioned that decision. So I understand like your choice, even though I don't know if that was the right choice. Like all of that, I mean this this is what we hope as a journalist is to be able to write something that leads to like this introspection and this discourse and hopefully hopefully leads us to to really expose and challenge these systems that put us as black people in a position where there seem like there are very little good choices and we're all trying to make the choice that we think is the least bad choice. so all of that has been most of what I've received. But It's hard to be human and not focus on really i the personal nature of some of the the things that have been said since the piece came out.
Michael Harriot: So one of the ideas that, you know, underlies the piece is this idea of collectivism. if not us, if not specific when we say us, right, it we think of it as a theoretical us, but sometimes it has to be like me personally, you personally. And I think about the there's a at the end of the piece, right, you talk about the Tate and integrating, I think it was McDonough 19.
Nikole: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Michael Harriot: And when you leave that example, right, I all it made me think about something I'd never thought about. How there that's there's an entire generation. It's not just like that single school, but like every literal, literally every school district in America, somebody sacrificed their children for the collective good, right? Like it's a thing that we knew had to be done, not like just in Little Rock. But everywhere. And I wonder if do you think that people who are critiquing the piece negatively understand that like there's a generation of us that sacrifice, like to have the ability to critique you, a you, a version of you 50 years ago, had to sacrifice to make the same sacrifice. Do you think that? That's generally understood.
Nikole: So let me let me preface this answer because I know how the internet is, that I am not in any way saying that my daughter is Ruby Bridges or Leona Tate or putting myself in that time and and and the martyrdom of those parents. I'm not doing that. but what I am saying is, you know. You I know you know this because very similarly, you have spent literal decades of your life studying this history, talking to the people who lived the history, like studying the history in a granular way. I have since my first job, I I didn't intend, I'm I'm gonna get to your answer. You know, I'm sometimes a roundabout storyteller.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nikole: I I didn't intend to become a schools reporter. Schools beat was the first beat I got, right? I got hired. And they put me on the school's beat. I didn't have any particular interest in education, but that was the job I got. And I got placed to in Durham to cover the Durham Public Schools, which at that time was about a 60-40 school district, heavily segregated, very unequal. It had just got released from under its federal desegregation order a decade before that. I remember being like, There's still districts that are under school desegregation orders, right? I didn't know that. This is my first job as a reporter way back in 2000 and three. and it's also like the No Child Left Behind era. So I'm learning to cover schools in this period in the South, in a district that had recently merged the city school with the county schools as part of its desegregation order. that was heavily segregated, heavily unequal, and was also buckling under a system of no child left behind that was saying we're not gonna try to give these schools more resources, we're not gonna try to integrate these schools, we're just gonna punish the the hell out of them. And if we keep holding them to these standards, and then if they don't meet them, we'll remove the principal, we'll let all the kids leave. Right. So I'm I'm learning to cover schools in this moment. And that shaped everything that I would think about education. I didn't even realize I had been part of a school desegregation program until I started covering Durham Public Schools. I just got on the bus. Like I live my parents never
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: sat me down and told me what was happening. I I didn't know. It was just called open enrollment. So so like my like foundation as a journalist began Covering school segregation, seeing the false promises of we can just rigger our way to equality in these black, under-resourced, segregated, high poverty schools. but at the same time, like studying the history of Brown v. Board, studying what led to Brown v. Board, studying why all these years after Brown. So many black kids have never known a day of integration or a day of a quality education. and then like not just reading transcripts. Like I've read, I've read the entire transcript of Brown v. Board. I've read entire transcript of of Milliken v. Bradley in Detroit. Like, you know this because you do this level of research yourself. And also talk to all of these parents, like in Detroit, the original Milliken case. I've talked to the the The parent, I talked to the child, the children actually who were on that lawsuit. and so of course, like in my head, I'm always thinking about that sacrifice. Like, and I I try to touch on this at the end of the piece, that we are all the product of of a parent literally being willing to put their child through a mob.
Michael Harriot: Yes.
Nikole: Like that picture of Leona Tate, the three girls, there's a little picture of her. She's barely big enough to see out the back seat of the car. All you see is a little eyes and a white bow on her head. And they have a US Marshall escort through a white mob. All the parents leave the school, and the parents are still putting their kids in that school because they understand Somebody has to make the sacrifice in order to break down these systems for the rest of our kids. And I haven't done this, but I'm positive that there were people who castigated those parents for that choice. I am absolutely positive. There were other black folks who said, How could you put your kids in danger? I would never do that. And when I went down and talked to Leona Tate, and and please feel free to edit this down however you need to, but you know when you've been when you've been going through it you spent have a lot of time you thinking about things so when I went down to talk to Leona Tate she talked about like she had to get private tutoring because the teachers the white teachers weren't some sometimes she would have a good teacher who actually cared. A lot of times they did it right so the teachers wouldn't teach them they wouldn't call on them they were they were sometimes alone in a classroom so she had to get Private tutoring. she wasn't able to participate in so many of the things that, you know, bands and proms and all of those things that make a high school experience, she was robbed of those things so that you and I could have arguments about where to send our children to school.
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: Right? The fact that there's even can be an argument about whether or not I should have sent my child to a white school is the product of real sacrifice of the educations of real children whom we valorize now, right? We valorize what their parents did. But at the time they did it. So again, I'm not I'm not saying Don't need I don't need valor. I live I live an amazing life because of that struggle. But I feel I owe something because of that struggle too, right? So I don't I don't think that most people, and this is because we're taught this history so poorly. you know this, like we go from slavery to Jim Crow to Brown v. Board, and then Brown v. Board solves it, right? The
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: nation repents, even though we
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: know. All these schools still exist that aren't educating our kids. We we weren't taught that this was the product not just of of Linda Brown's family, but like in every single community, someone had to enforce the law with their children's bodies. They and yes, go ahead.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And I I also think there's a disconnect and I'm gonna let you finish, but there's a disconnect where we don't understand that those children got a worse education, also, right? Like I think we think they were sending them to better schools. You know, I talked to Harry Briggs and Harry Briggs Junior, and he's saying, like, I would they ran us out of town and I couldn't, I didn't get an education. Like You know, when you talk look at the what the Tates talk about, not just that school, right? Like we talk about the first time, but not the second time she had an integrated school. And the third time she had a right, how
Nikole: Right. The third time, the fourth time, yeah.
Michael Harriot: could they have gotten a good education? And it's not just the sacrifice of like, you know, it's gonna be some mean white people standing outside,
Nikole: Just right.
Michael Harriot: but you're sacrificing the literal thing you're trying to save for the collective good.
Nikole: That's right. And and and the fortitude of the parents. Like her so her parents, I I asked, I was like, you know, how did you come to be involved in this? Like one of the kids who were we don't even talk about how they had to be means tested first, right? They
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: had to show they they had to take intelligence tests. They had to show like they could pass a background, like they that they were, you know, worthy enough to even be one child in a school full of white kids. But I I asked like were your parents activists, like how her parents were not. they had never been been like they weren't members of the NAACP. They weren't, they were just working folks. And her uncle was the one who like I guess the NAACP as they used to do back then would place an advertisement in like a black newspaper and say they're looking for folks, plaintiffs and others who can like challenge to actually enforce Brown after Brown was decided and her uncle was like convinced the parents they should do this. But then once the parents were in, they were in, right? So, you know, to think about that your child goes through this one time, these are regular people, these weren't people who decided they were gonna live their life as activists. They were regular folks who came to understand that they had to make this sacrifice. and again, always that when we do this, we're hoping we can mitigate the harms as much as possible. That's why our child was getting tutoring and all of these things or their but I think the most astounding thing I've had to grapple with, which in hindsight shouldn't be that that astounding, is how many of us think that that sacrifice and those movements. so that we would have the freedom not to have obligation to each other. Right? Like that that's
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: what they fought for was they fought for me to be able to take this and go as high as I can. That's true. But not to do it alone, right? Not
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: not to do it at the expense or of forgetting about the rest rest of our folks. And I think that part has been disheartening.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, I think it is surprising to me too how many and I don't know like the thing about the internet and social media specifically is that it feeds on outrage. So the
Nikole: Yes.
Michael Harriot: people who read your piece and are grappling with it themselves, like are on the internet saying it's
Nikole: They are not.
Michael Harriot: right. And then the people who are Grappling well, a lot of them haven't read the piece, but grappling with what they heard about what they heard about your piece,
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: right? Is a and are outrage, and that's what we see. But I wonder if like I I hate to kind of romanticize the past and demonize the present. Do you think there are enough of us who are willing to do that? Because that that Kind of is the only way it happens, right? Like if we are willing to leave each other's children literally behind for our children, you know, I can't even demonize that either because I understand. But do you think there are enough of us willing to practice this form of collectivism? Or is it like I cause I also think that this is a product of capitalism too, the bag. It's it's it's a byproduct of that, right? Do you think that
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: like we part of the demonization of your choice is that they ain't enough of us who will make that choice.
Nikole: think I have bunch of thoughts about this. So one, just to put a put a fine point on the first thing you said is I I've also had to remind myself that there is an economy to outrage on the internet. We know that, right? That the nuanced take, the empathetic take just does not get the virality, it doesn't get the clicks, it doesn't get the shares, as the rage take. And it it o it is always good. I saw a number of people on social before I deleted threads because I I was torturing myself too much, who were like, this is a conversation that needs to be had like offline in real life, not in like, you know, internet hot takes. And I know that folks are in their group chats, in conversations, with their with their friends and their colleagues are having real nuance and I would assume anguished conversations about the false choices that so many of us as as as black folks have. So I'll say that first. and I really have had to remind myself of that. that there is an economy to that, to to what we're seeing online. what was your question? I don't know. What was the other part of the question? Sorry.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. So so so I I I can't even remember either, but what I wanna talk g yeah,
Nikole: I got I remember it.
Michael Harriot: yeah.
Nikole: Is there are there enough of us? I so I'm gonna I'm gonna say two kind of contradictory things. Basically two things can be true at the same time as we know. It was never most of us, right? There was never a lot of us.
Michael Harriot: Right. Yeah.
Nikole: it was always a small number of people who were willing to join movements, who were willing to be activists, who were willing to put themselves or their families on the line for the collective. That doesn't mean that those people didn't have widespread support in our community, but it's always going to be a handful of folks who are willing, really willing to live that. and that's okay because small numbers of people, we know that, can have massive impact. Something like the Montgomery bus boycott was rare, right? To have that level of participation is extremely rare. And most of the other stories. that we see from the movement. It's never most people. So I'm actually f I I know that small numbers of people can move. They can move society. So that part is true. But I also do think that once we got the passage of the civil rights laws and at least legally being black was not as restrictive, that there were significant numbers of us who have been able to move into white neighborhoods, white schools, white colleges, white institutions, that we have felt released. From any obligation to the rest of our people, right? Because before, we had to be part of the struggle, right? We were all like, you could be a black doctor or you could be a black janitor, you still can't go to that hotel and you still can't go to that college. It's not like that now. many of us who have the most resources or whatever it is, we we can now escape the rest of our people. and so I'll I while I Well, I also know most of us never participated in movements. I also know that there's much less of an incentive and a feeling of obligation. That that truly like has been the most hurtful thing is the number of people who actually feel that Trying to live your politics was what was wrong with me, right?
Michael Harriot: Yeah, it's like like it's it's it's the idea of it as performative is like performative
Nikole: Right.
Michael Harriot: for you think white folks care, right? Like I I don't like
Nikole: Well what does that even you know, I what does what does that even mean? should we not perform our politics? Should we not
Michael Harriot: Yeah, I
Nikole: perform our ideas, right? So even when they when when that has been the critique of me in an attempt to malign not just my decision, but my my character, right? Like like like my like
Michael Harriot: Mm. Yeah. Like you did this so you could write about it. Like step twelve years so you could you did it ten years so you can write about it was a a ten year project with two pieces.
Nikole: Yes. Twelve years ago, I said, you know, if I do this now and sacrifice my child, ten years ago from now, eleven years ago, this is gonna be an amazing story. It might even win me some awards that I haven't won yet, which is none, right? So when you I mean, but this is really what people have said, right?
Michael Harriot: Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Nikole: Is that this was all a performance, For 10 years I've I've not written about it, I've not said anything. Hours and hours of of struggling, of of tears, of us doubting our choices, of meetings, of all of that was all so that I could, at some point 10 years from now, write a story about my martyrdom, which is wild to me. But I but more important than that is What I and a lot of my friends who have been emailing and calling me over the last this how I knew it was bad when my entire roller deck started reaching out, I was like, damn, I okay. is there a lot the reason Performance and performative is a particular word that's being used.
Michael Harriot: Mm.
Nikole: And I'm understanding that because this is coming often from people who do perform politics, right? Like their politics are performed. They perform politics in their discourse, right? They're the most radical people online. They're the most radical people when they're creating a video. But the lives are actually status quo, right? Like the choices are status quo. And okay, fine. Like it's hard being black, fine. but then to say, like, I'm actually trying to perform in reality my discourse and my
Michael Harriot: Right. Right.
Nikole: ideology and my politics, and that that is what I'm being like taken down for is so perplexing to me. Except what it says about all of our insecurities as black folks. One thing I'll say I I I have definitely been humbled by my experience with my child. I did, you know, I was judgmental about the choices other black folks made that I didn't think were communal enough. I have to own that, right? So now I'm getting what I what I gave to a degree. even though I was right. No, I'm playing. Right. But I so I have to own that. And and And now where I am is just saying I I do wish most of us understood our obligation to each other. I I will never I have regrets about how I handled certain things with my child. I wish I would have taken her concerns more to heart. I I I've definitely been humbled by my ability to mitigate what was happening in the school, which I thought I could. I I actually didn't think I was putting my child in a bad situation. I thought that I could raise the level of everything that was happening there, not be crushed by it. and I will never ever regret though that I didn't just think about my child. That I live in this community and I feel an obligation to this community. And the most disheartening thing to me has been the number of people who have not critiqued the system, who are worried about my privileged child. I have My child has been to 12 countries. My child has sat across the table from Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Emmy Award winners. my child has private tutoring. she is okay. She
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And
Nikole: will be okay. The concern for her, I wish they had for all the other kids in the school that you're saying. I was neglectful to my child for having the audacity to put her in the school with. I just wish that was the outrage. but it's easier. I mean, this is why we as storytellers do the anecdotal lead, right? This is why we tell the systemic story through the person, because it's easier always to focus on the individual and it's harder to focus on the system. and I think it becomes even more so when we're insecure about our own choices, when we feel some type of way about our own choices, to then be able to say, see, this is why I did what I did, because look what happened. I get that. I get I get where that's coming from because we're all traumatized living in this country, right? We're all trying to deal with what what we've been given. But I just I I cannot believe that most black people are now would embrace this level of hyper individualism. It's just not it's not who we are, should not be.
Michael Harriot: The critique of whether it's your choices, whether they think it is the sacrifice instead of the system, is kind of surprising to me too, right? Like
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: because I I really truly haven't seen the people saying, you know what's crazy is that we're still making these choices, right? And I wanna know because you are one of the people who is have grappled with this. individually and collectively and on a large scale. If not for you like cause not your kid is gonna be all right ultimately, like if anybody Could have handled this, your child was uniquely a kind of. If not this way, how else do you think we change it?
Nikole: So If people read the first piece, which was also very long, so I understand if if people haven't, like actually it was longer than this one, it was 10,000 words. I never argued nor believed nor am naive enough to think that a single parent or family can go into a school and topple a system. what I did know is that some of us have to do it to show other people that they can or should do it. and what I also believed is that The understanding that it's systemic means we all just play our part. Right? Like I can't change it, so I may as well take advantage of it. And so someone has to create a breach. Some ones. And I'm not the only one. That's the other thing. I wrote about it. There's plenty of other black parents. There's a significant number of white Asian parents who is who have also made similar choices, as I have. so I I think like I've heard or read so many folks who are like, Well, you could have supported those schools in another way. You could have fought inequality in another way. First of I'm trying to fight it on all the levels I can, right? I'm writing about it.
Michael Harriot: Right. Well I I I
Nikole: I started a literacy program, like I I and I also try to put my own personal stake, which is my child and my family, in that in that. but whenever someone says that and I say, Well, great. So tell me what have you done? then to work on the inequality in those schools, to support those schools. And the answer is, and we know this, if you don't have a personal stake, you usually don't do anything. You feel bad. We all feel bad. I feel bad about what's happening in Gaza. Have I personally done anything? Have I, you know, it's like I feel bad about homelessness. Am I am I personally doing something to fight homelessness? Like I I think you have to have some personal stake in something. even if it's systemic, to really fight it. and most of us, you know, me being in that school means I just I saw what was happening and I could try to do something about it. Otherwise, I mean, if we were gonna fix it, it would be fixed, right? If like caring about a issue would fix an issue, it would be fixed.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And and the other thing is I think there's a straw man there though, in that they thought like you enrolling your child in the school was going to save like that was a that individual act was going to save the school. And that's not even the premise of your pieces. Like we just can't like some of us just can't leave a whole community behind. Whole communities behind. And the other thing I think is interesting about the piece is like it forces me to confront questions I never had to grapple with because most of us don't get the choices that you had, the options that you had. We just gotta send that our kids to that school,
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: right? Like the idea of like this long, like these people online don't got that choice, right? They gotta
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: send their kids to the school that you that they're telling you you shouldn't send your kids to. 90% of us are in that situation, whether it is
Nikole: Yes.
Michael Harriot: because we l I grew up in a one school district, right? Like there was no place, right? And then some of it is financial, but To to me, like first of all, how many people do you think actually have to grapple with? How many of us actually get to Solve like get the options that you had.
Nikole: I mean I I think we have It's it's a complicated question. So what I n what I
Michael Harriot: Yeah, 'cause one is the system is designed for that we can't all make the choice, right? It couldn't work if we all had the
Nikole: Yeah. I mean, look,
Michael Harriot: choice.
Nikole: the choice that again I'm being maligned for is not a choice for most of the kids' parents in that school, right? And so saying like I neglected my child because I could have not put myself in that school, is also then kind of by proxy blaming those parents as well. Right? Because if they had worked hard and been successful like me, they also could have choices. I mean that if you extend the argument out, that's that's the argument. I what I know from the data is that most black kids attend a segregated high poverty school, regardless of income. So what the data shows is even the typical middle class black child is in a high poverty school. Now, one what that well, public school, let me say, one what that tells you is that there's just been a large abandonment of the public school, of course, by white folks, we know that. But also by a significant number of black folks as well. So actually, the school that Nigel was in, now the poverty rate at Nigel's school was was probably higher than the like average poverty rate of a school that a black child is in. But most black American children, middle class, and lower income are in a school with a high that is racially isolated and high poverty. That is the typical experience. So Again, I appreciate the concern for my child. I can promise you nobody has more concern for my child than my husband and myself. But I appreciate the concern for my child. What I'm asking for is that we have that same concern. Because the argument is because I have the ability to, then I should have. And I just can't agree with that. Right? Like I that is where I struggle with because the moment we started seeing trouble in the school, and I write about this. My husband and are like, what do we do? Should we should we now exercise our choice and and say F them kids, right? I mean, that's that's what I'm that's what I'm being asked to do, is to, when it got tough, remove my own child from that situation and don't look back. The rest of those kids, they just have to deal with what they get. I struggle with that. Now, you could argue I struggled with it for too long, that I should have removed her. Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth, you can argue that and that's fine. but I I just I couldn't I could I couldn't. That's all I can say. I just could not believe that my life being shaped by that struggle was so that I could then get take advantage of that and not care about other kids. that the movement was fought for. The movement was not movements were not fought to for a handful of us to live very well and use that money. to escape the rest of our folks. it just wasn't. I I just don't believe that. So that that is still what I'm grappling with, even now.
Michael Harriot: You know, one of my one of my wishes, my critiques is that like I wish all of this out. Like imagine if we pointed all this outrage at the systems that the system
Nikole: Exactly.
Michael Harriot: that we're talking about. Like we skipped over the whole system part. Like it's just like there's a whole population of black kids being condemned
Nikole: That's what the whole the whole story, right? I'm telling it yes.
Michael Harriot: and y'all saying, hey, this one, let's focus on this one that could have escaped.
Nikole: And that did escape and is doing fine, right? I mean, and that to me has been like the hardest part about all of this. I wrote this story to shine a light on the system, to say I know some some of what Millions of black children in this country are experiencing every day because I was also in that school with my child. But the peace is a critique of all of us, including myself now, right,
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: who allow our children to languish in these schools, who cannot sustain our outrage, who cannot turn our outrage into policy, who are not every day out there calling on our officials to do something about this, because we are able to remove our children from that harm. and so we we lose a sense of the stakes. And I and again now Mike, I guess I was naive. I thought that by telling this story of how even someone with my power, my resources, all of my knowledge about schools and how they work, like think about it, Michael. I I investigate school segregation for a living for what is perhaps the most powerful news organization in the world. I'm in your school. I've written about your school. And even that doesn't bother you enough to do better. And we don't think like that story needed to be told because it speaks to how little power the least advantage in our community actually have to change the systems. And yet we haven't like the the New York Post is not parked outside of the Chancellor's home or the mayor's home. They're parked outside of my home, right? The they're not outside the principal's home, they're parked outside of my home because I dared. To try to put my child in a community school with the people in our community in order to expose the injustice of what we do to our kids. And we're not using our ink to decry a system, to call for change, to call for these kids to get what they need. We're focusing on my child, one child. one privileged child and you you focus on her because I chose to told tell the story about her. and the rest of the children remain nameless. They were named nameless, faceless, and unfortunately not enough of our concern.
Michael Harriot: It in in the system that you're describing. It what if we all remove let's say we the people who have the ability to remove their children, remove their children, w and the people who can't stay like what hope do we have of changing the system? as it is currently constructed. Like what are we? if we don't give a fuck.
Nikole: We don't care. We we we say we care because it's the right thing to do. We as a society do not care about these kids. We warehouse them away. We see them as problems. we we and this collective we not like not just middle class black folks, obviously white folks, Asian, whoever. we feel like we need to separate our children from these other children. And so in a abstract way we say all children matter. But in a real way, we don't believe that. And I've always said, If there was a political will to integrate our schools or just to provide equality in our schools, let's say we integration is done. As you know, all of the original integration suits really began as an effort for black parents to ensure equal resources for their children, and then having to succumb to the reality that white supremacy will never equally resource our children when they're when they're sequestered by themselves. If there was a political will, To do so, it would be done. Right? Cause these are all policy decisions. We could integrate schools in New York, you could integrate schools anywhere. it's policy choices. And we both refuse, cause this is my thing. You think my my personal choice was wrong? fine. So where's your policy advocacy? Because I support both end. I wanted to put my child in the school, and my husband is also on the school board advocating for broader. equality policy and neither one is being widely embraced, right? so what is wrong with us? I mean that's how the peace ends. Nobody too much cares about poor black people in this country. Not even enough of us. Right? Like we're told one of the most toxic messages that we get when you're in a community, a black community, and people see some potential in you is get your education and get out of here.
Michael Harriot: Got it.
Nikole: Right? That in order to be successful in this country. in order to live your aspirations, being in black communities, or the the the low income communities that raise you is dangerous. And that success in thriving means to leave all that behind. And so I know that people see me and my choices. we've always lived in black community. We've never not wanted to and I'm not talking even like we live in like regular black community.
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: That's a choice. Where we sent our child to school was a choice. This is who we I just have never had a desire not to do that. And it doesn't mean other people who have are are are wrong. I mean, I went to Notre Dame because I understood I needed to get that credential. I know what that's like. and I know again the bad choices that we have. but most of us are trying to overcome that toxic message that there's something wrong with our with our communities. And that achievement means we have to leave them behind, even as we know we're not welcome in those white spaces, that there's a different suffering that occurs in the trade off, in the balance, we think that suffering will pay off and and that it's more worth it. and maybe financially it is, but our lives are more than capitalist units, right? so I I I think so much of the response in many ways has been we're all conflicted about the choices we've had to make. I mean, I I'm sure you've seen the discourse of so many parents who are like, I put my child in the white school and yes, they got a academic education that allowed them to thrive financially, but my child was psychologically wounded. And I question my choice, right? So you have folks who made the opposite choice of me. Who are questioning that choice. And you have me who's questioning my choice. And really the critique should be of a system that is forcing us as black people to make these bad choices of which harm will we expose our child to. And I wish that had been the critique, not whether, you know, I hated my child.
Michael Harriot: I well, I'll end with this. I'll let you go on this. I think that you know more than anybody else how many people have read this. And I think that you have to understand that you did your job. Like, there are people thinking deeply about this question today, 10 times more people than there were a week ago. And that worked. And there are 10 times more people who are thinking stupidly about this issue, for lack of a better word. And we gotta deal with that too, right? But
Nikole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Harriot: neither one of those people can fix it because we didn't create this problem. And I
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: think that's the point of the entire piece, right? Is like thinking deeply as deeply as you have about it. personally inside it and universally from a a 10,000 foot view and you still couldn't solve it.
Nikole: Yeah, well yeah. We do we
Michael Harriot: Well
Nikole: do what we can.
Michael Harriot: well, thank you for coming on. Thank you for visiting Black Splend. And I would say, like, tell the people where they're reading.
Nikole: Yes. This is my only interview. Cause I said I was not doing any interviews on this, so thank you.
Michael Harriot: Well thank you for I think I hope like is there anything else you wanna add?
Nikole: no good. Pri I probably said too much as it is.
Michael Harriot: Well I think you said it the exact right thing. So thank you for joining us.
Nikole: That is an essential question and it's really pretty easy. I thought I owed it to my child and I thought I owed it to the public. I you know, no one, despite all of the outrage on social media, no one has been more tortured by the choices we made than myself and my husband. I think anybody who's ever been a parent especially a parent of a teenager. It's not that unusual for a teenager to tell you that you ruined their lives. but I had to take seriously, you know, what what my daughter told me, what her experience was. and so I really felt, you know, as the 10 year anniversary of the piece was coming that I I I owed it to her to be truthful about what she actually experienced. And the second piece is, you know, out outside of the 1619 project, I've I've never received more response to anything I've I've done, other than the piece that I did about choosing a school for my daughter in a segregated city. And to this day, I just did I mean, you were there. did an event in Brooklyn. Someone in the audience asked about my child. a few months before that I did a MLK talk in Boston. Someone who hadn't even had their child when I wrote the story came up to me and said, you know, you inspired me to try to make a similar choice for my child. So I really just felt that I owed it to the public to be reflective and honest about how did it actually go? so that's why. I just, you know. I'm a journalist. I I try to operate in the world with integrity. I haven't spoken really publicly about what for us has been a very personal journey that also was trying to That was trying to be in community with our community. so I just I to me, with the ten year anniversary, being a a a a person of integrity, I thought I had to tell the truth about how it went. And and I guess the last thing is, The country has changed so much since that piece came out. we we weren't really wanting to grapple with these issues when that came out the first time. And now we have a federal government that is completely weaponized around any any type of program that might try to help deal with the segregation that our students are experiencing or or the after effects of it. So I also was hoping that by talking about what we experienced. that we could bring back into the discourse the the the really immoral inequality of most of so many of the schools that serve black children. So that's that's why. That's why I have unleashed this hell upon myself.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. It it always struck struck me because you know we've done events together and it always struck me that there's always one person who still actually has that, like the physical copy of that piece
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: that they want you to sign. And I it struck me that that's how much it impacted people. Now, when we're talking about this issue of education and how it intersects with parenting and journalism, you know. As someone who's covered education and the systems behind education and the systems of inequality within the education system for as long as you have, do you think, like like I you we see pieces of journalism where you can list all the statistics that you want, but they don't hit home. And then you could, you know, follow a couple or a story or a family for a few weeks, and you're Still subject to what they're willing to share with you, how personal they're willing to be. Do you think you could have told this personal of a s of a story and told the story that you wanted to tell about the education system with through someone else, whether it was interviewing a family or just using the numbers or talking about it without your personal story being injected into it? Do you think you could have done that and had as much impact?
Nikole: I mean, in in some ways I can scientifically answer that because I've been writing about school segregation, mostly about other people's children, for most of my career. and I would just ask, you know, folks to list those articles and they probably can't. now some folks would list the the This American Life piece I did on Michael Brown school district, The Problem We All Live With. Some folks might remember the piece I did when I was at ProPublica called Segregation Now about a young lady named Alicia Dent. but most people don't. and so, you know, I what made me choose to write initially 10 years ago about my own family's experience was I had been writing about this. And when we made at that time it was a private choice to enroll our daughter in one of these segregated schools. I didn't I didn't ever expect to write about it. I didn't intend to write about it, but then that school became embroiled in an integration battle. And literally folks were emailing me because they know that's what I write about. And they were saying, Hey, are you watching what's happening at this school in Brooklyn? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm I'm watching it 'cause my my daughter's in that school. and so initially ten years ago I was I was deeply conflicted about even telling our family story, exposing my daughter. but I also felt, how could I not? Like, because for exactly the reason that you're saying, Michael, is when you are reporting someone else's story, you're always limited by their recreations of what happened, about what they decide to share with you. but no one knows your story like yourself. And there's just a power in the the storytelling, in the detail, and the intimacy and the emotion. I don't have to perceive what the emotion is. I I know what the emotion is, right? So I think there's something very powerful about that. and clearly this piece is getting even far more response than that original piece got for many reasons that maybe we'll talk about but I do think that there is always going to be something uniquely powerful about the first person when we tell any story.
Michael Harriot: Given the reception of the 16 project, 1619 project, both positive and negative, do you think this is a question I think you have to grapple with? Do you think there's anything that you can write that has the impact that won't also receive as much of a negative response, right? Like if it works, you know, sometimes I I often joke with you like. You know, if white people you know, hate it, then I know I'm on the right path if I get white backlash. Is there anything that you could write that is impactful that wouldn't also come with this negative response? And will do you think you'll ever get used to that?
Nikole: So I I don't I I've written other things, but I think yeah, if if if something is going to I even hate using the word go viral, but if something is going to go viral that I'm writing it, I I do expect it to be picked apart, debated, not just critiqued, but that for there to be personal attacks in that. I do I have come to expect that. But what I'll say is I was fully prepared for a lot of white folks to attack the piece. And frankly, I I've been dealing with that for so long. I was like, I don't even care. Like I whatever. I was not prepared for the number of black people who not just critiqued the piece. I knew I knew there was I mean, look, I'm critiquing myself in the piece, right? Like I'm literally questioning whether we made the right choices. I'm questioning my parenting. I'm questioning the ability to live my values and how that impacted my child. But I I I was not prepared for the gleeful way, at least it is felt in some ways, that some black people have piled on. So no, I I I would never be used to that. And I wasn't I wasn't maybe naively expecting it, that.
Michael Harriot: So considering those critiques from us, because you know the white critiques are like going to be made, and I think we could although I don't know what they are because I don't I I think I don't think I'm on white people's internet.
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: what are the critiques, like the legitimate black critiques that you've seen? Because I've seen like some piling on, I've seen some people who you can tell haven't read the piece, right? And then The critique of whether you made the right decision, I you know, you don't you are wrestling with that in the piece. But what are the legitimate critiques that you've seen of the piece? Yes.
Nikole: The legitimate critiques? I mean, the legitimate critiques are just what you said, right? did I quote unquote sacrifice my child for my values? and I you know, again, you don't write a piece like this and think that that is not gonna be the one of the things that are debated. And Again, that I'm I'm still not resolved in on my s resolved in for myself. So I think that that's completely legitimate. so that's that's easy. I mean, I I wish there had been and there was a lot of this. And I I I do think it's important to say, it is the same reason that you see like kind of this negative piling on, is the same reason that I'm focusing on the negative piling on, right? It's like That emotion of like rage and anger and being upset. that's that emotion we we focus on. And so the fact that I've received I I I literally can't even go through all my emails, of all of these like nuanced, thoughtful, complex responses. so many black folks who were like, you know, every black parent, I mean, that's literally a line in my piece, right? There there will be a struggle. It's which one? And so many black Folks were like, I chose a different path. I chose to put my child in an all-white school and I've questioned that decision. So I understand like your choice, even though I don't know if that was the right choice. Like all of that, I mean this this is what we hope as a journalist is to be able to write something that leads to like this introspection and this discourse and hopefully hopefully leads us to to really expose and challenge these systems that put us as black people in a position where there seem like there are very little good choices and we're all trying to make the choice that we think is the least bad choice. so all of that has been most of what I've received. But It's hard to be human and not focus on really i the personal nature of some of the the things that have been said since the piece came out.
Michael Harriot: So one of the ideas that, you know, underlies the piece is this idea of collectivism. if not us, if not specific when we say us, right, it we think of it as a theoretical us, but sometimes it has to be like me personally, you personally. And I think about the there's a at the end of the piece, right, you talk about the Tate and integrating, I think it was McDonough 19.
Nikole: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Michael Harriot: And when you leave that example, right, I all it made me think about something I'd never thought about. How there that's there's an entire generation. It's not just like that single school, but like every literal, literally every school district in America, somebody sacrificed their children for the collective good, right? Like it's a thing that we knew had to be done, not like just in Little Rock. But everywhere. And I wonder if do you think that people who are critiquing the piece negatively understand that like there's a generation of us that sacrifice, like to have the ability to critique you, a you, a version of you 50 years ago, had to sacrifice to make the same sacrifice. Do you think that? That's generally understood.
Nikole: So let me let me preface this answer because I know how the internet is, that I am not in any way saying that my daughter is Ruby Bridges or Leona Tate or putting myself in that time and and and the martyrdom of those parents. I'm not doing that. but what I am saying is, you know. You I know you know this because very similarly, you have spent literal decades of your life studying this history, talking to the people who lived the history, like studying the history in a granular way. I have since my first job, I I didn't intend, I'm I'm gonna get to your answer. You know, I'm sometimes a roundabout storyteller.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nikole: I I didn't intend to become a schools reporter. Schools beat was the first beat I got, right? I got hired. And they put me on the school's beat. I didn't have any particular interest in education, but that was the job I got. And I got placed to in Durham to cover the Durham Public Schools, which at that time was about a 60-40 school district, heavily segregated, very unequal. It had just got released from under its federal desegregation order a decade before that. I remember being like, There's still districts that are under school desegregation orders, right? I didn't know that. This is my first job as a reporter way back in 2000 and three. and it's also like the No Child Left Behind era. So I'm learning to cover schools in this period in the South, in a district that had recently merged the city school with the county schools as part of its desegregation order. that was heavily segregated, heavily unequal, and was also buckling under a system of no child left behind that was saying we're not gonna try to give these schools more resources, we're not gonna try to integrate these schools, we're just gonna punish the the hell out of them. And if we keep holding them to these standards, and then if they don't meet them, we'll remove the principal, we'll let all the kids leave. Right. So I'm I'm learning to cover schools in this moment. And that shaped everything that I would think about education. I didn't even realize I had been part of a school desegregation program until I started covering Durham Public Schools. I just got on the bus. Like I live my parents never
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: sat me down and told me what was happening. I I didn't know. It was just called open enrollment. So so like my like foundation as a journalist began Covering school segregation, seeing the false promises of we can just rigger our way to equality in these black, under-resourced, segregated, high poverty schools. but at the same time, like studying the history of Brown v. Board, studying what led to Brown v. Board, studying why all these years after Brown. So many black kids have never known a day of integration or a day of a quality education. and then like not just reading transcripts. Like I've read, I've read the entire transcript of Brown v. Board. I've read entire transcript of of Milliken v. Bradley in Detroit. Like, you know this because you do this level of research yourself. And also talk to all of these parents, like in Detroit, the original Milliken case. I've talked to the the The parent, I talked to the child, the children actually who were on that lawsuit. and so of course, like in my head, I'm always thinking about that sacrifice. Like, and I I try to touch on this at the end of the piece, that we are all the product of of a parent literally being willing to put their child through a mob.
Michael Harriot: Yes.
Nikole: Like that picture of Leona Tate, the three girls, there's a little picture of her. She's barely big enough to see out the back seat of the car. All you see is a little eyes and a white bow on her head. And they have a US Marshall escort through a white mob. All the parents leave the school, and the parents are still putting their kids in that school because they understand Somebody has to make the sacrifice in order to break down these systems for the rest of our kids. And I haven't done this, but I'm positive that there were people who castigated those parents for that choice. I am absolutely positive. There were other black folks who said, How could you put your kids in danger? I would never do that. And when I went down and talked to Leona Tate, and and please feel free to edit this down however you need to, but you know when you've been when you've been going through it you spent have a lot of time you thinking about things so when I went down to talk to Leona Tate she talked about like she had to get private tutoring because the teachers the white teachers weren't some sometimes she would have a good teacher who actually cared. A lot of times they did it right so the teachers wouldn't teach them they wouldn't call on them they were they were sometimes alone in a classroom so she had to get Private tutoring. she wasn't able to participate in so many of the things that, you know, bands and proms and all of those things that make a high school experience, she was robbed of those things so that you and I could have arguments about where to send our children to school.
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: Right? The fact that there's even can be an argument about whether or not I should have sent my child to a white school is the product of real sacrifice of the educations of real children whom we valorize now, right? We valorize what their parents did. But at the time they did it. So again, I'm not I'm not saying Don't need I don't need valor. I live I live an amazing life because of that struggle. But I feel I owe something because of that struggle too, right? So I don't I don't think that most people, and this is because we're taught this history so poorly. you know this, like we go from slavery to Jim Crow to Brown v. Board, and then Brown v. Board solves it, right? The
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: nation repents, even though we
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: know. All these schools still exist that aren't educating our kids. We we weren't taught that this was the product not just of of Linda Brown's family, but like in every single community, someone had to enforce the law with their children's bodies. They and yes, go ahead.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And I I also think there's a disconnect and I'm gonna let you finish, but there's a disconnect where we don't understand that those children got a worse education, also, right? Like I think we think they were sending them to better schools. You know, I talked to Harry Briggs and Harry Briggs Junior, and he's saying, like, I would they ran us out of town and I couldn't, I didn't get an education. Like You know, when you talk look at the what the Tates talk about, not just that school, right? Like we talk about the first time, but not the second time she had an integrated school. And the third time she had a right, how
Nikole: Right. The third time, the fourth time, yeah.
Michael Harriot: could they have gotten a good education? And it's not just the sacrifice of like, you know, it's gonna be some mean white people standing outside,
Nikole: Just right.
Michael Harriot: but you're sacrificing the literal thing you're trying to save for the collective good.
Nikole: That's right. And and and the fortitude of the parents. Like her so her parents, I I asked, I was like, you know, how did you come to be involved in this? Like one of the kids who were we don't even talk about how they had to be means tested first, right? They
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: had to show they they had to take intelligence tests. They had to show like they could pass a background, like they that they were, you know, worthy enough to even be one child in a school full of white kids. But I I asked like were your parents activists, like how her parents were not. they had never been been like they weren't members of the NAACP. They weren't, they were just working folks. And her uncle was the one who like I guess the NAACP as they used to do back then would place an advertisement in like a black newspaper and say they're looking for folks, plaintiffs and others who can like challenge to actually enforce Brown after Brown was decided and her uncle was like convinced the parents they should do this. But then once the parents were in, they were in, right? So, you know, to think about that your child goes through this one time, these are regular people, these weren't people who decided they were gonna live their life as activists. They were regular folks who came to understand that they had to make this sacrifice. and again, always that when we do this, we're hoping we can mitigate the harms as much as possible. That's why our child was getting tutoring and all of these things or their but I think the most astounding thing I've had to grapple with, which in hindsight shouldn't be that that astounding, is how many of us think that that sacrifice and those movements. so that we would have the freedom not to have obligation to each other. Right? Like that that's
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: what they fought for was they fought for me to be able to take this and go as high as I can. That's true. But not to do it alone, right? Not
Michael Harriot: Right.
Nikole: not to do it at the expense or of forgetting about the rest rest of our folks. And I think that part has been disheartening.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, I think it is surprising to me too how many and I don't know like the thing about the internet and social media specifically is that it feeds on outrage. So the
Nikole: Yes.
Michael Harriot: people who read your piece and are grappling with it themselves, like are on the internet saying it's
Nikole: They are not.
Michael Harriot: right. And then the people who are Grappling well, a lot of them haven't read the piece, but grappling with what they heard about what they heard about your piece,
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: right? Is a and are outrage, and that's what we see. But I wonder if like I I hate to kind of romanticize the past and demonize the present. Do you think there are enough of us who are willing to do that? Because that that Kind of is the only way it happens, right? Like if we are willing to leave each other's children literally behind for our children, you know, I can't even demonize that either because I understand. But do you think there are enough of us willing to practice this form of collectivism? Or is it like I cause I also think that this is a product of capitalism too, the bag. It's it's it's a byproduct of that, right? Do you think that
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: like we part of the demonization of your choice is that they ain't enough of us who will make that choice.
Nikole: think I have bunch of thoughts about this. So one, just to put a put a fine point on the first thing you said is I I've also had to remind myself that there is an economy to outrage on the internet. We know that, right? That the nuanced take, the empathetic take just does not get the virality, it doesn't get the clicks, it doesn't get the shares, as the rage take. And it it o it is always good. I saw a number of people on social before I deleted threads because I I was torturing myself too much, who were like, this is a conversation that needs to be had like offline in real life, not in like, you know, internet hot takes. And I know that folks are in their group chats, in conversations, with their with their friends and their colleagues are having real nuance and I would assume anguished conversations about the false choices that so many of us as as as black folks have. So I'll say that first. and I really have had to remind myself of that. that there is an economy to that, to to what we're seeing online. what was your question? I don't know. What was the other part of the question? Sorry.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. So so so I I I can't even remember either, but what I wanna talk g yeah,
Nikole: I got I remember it.
Michael Harriot: yeah.
Nikole: Is there are there enough of us? I so I'm gonna I'm gonna say two kind of contradictory things. Basically two things can be true at the same time as we know. It was never most of us, right? There was never a lot of us.
Michael Harriot: Right. Yeah.
Nikole: it was always a small number of people who were willing to join movements, who were willing to be activists, who were willing to put themselves or their families on the line for the collective. That doesn't mean that those people didn't have widespread support in our community, but it's always going to be a handful of folks who are willing, really willing to live that. and that's okay because small numbers of people, we know that, can have massive impact. Something like the Montgomery bus boycott was rare, right? To have that level of participation is extremely rare. And most of the other stories. that we see from the movement. It's never most people. So I'm actually f I I know that small numbers of people can move. They can move society. So that part is true. But I also do think that once we got the passage of the civil rights laws and at least legally being black was not as restrictive, that there were significant numbers of us who have been able to move into white neighborhoods, white schools, white colleges, white institutions, that we have felt released. From any obligation to the rest of our people, right? Because before, we had to be part of the struggle, right? We were all like, you could be a black doctor or you could be a black janitor, you still can't go to that hotel and you still can't go to that college. It's not like that now. many of us who have the most resources or whatever it is, we we can now escape the rest of our people. and so I'll I while I Well, I also know most of us never participated in movements. I also know that there's much less of an incentive and a feeling of obligation. That that truly like has been the most hurtful thing is the number of people who actually feel that Trying to live your politics was what was wrong with me, right?
Michael Harriot: Yeah, it's like like it's it's it's the idea of it as performative is like performative
Nikole: Right.
Michael Harriot: for you think white folks care, right? Like I I don't like
Nikole: Well what does that even you know, I what does what does that even mean? should we not perform our politics? Should we not
Michael Harriot: Yeah, I
Nikole: perform our ideas, right? So even when they when when that has been the critique of me in an attempt to malign not just my decision, but my my character, right? Like like like my like
Michael Harriot: Mm. Yeah. Like you did this so you could write about it. Like step twelve years so you could you did it ten years so you can write about it was a a ten year project with two pieces.
Nikole: Yes. Twelve years ago, I said, you know, if I do this now and sacrifice my child, ten years ago from now, eleven years ago, this is gonna be an amazing story. It might even win me some awards that I haven't won yet, which is none, right? So when you I mean, but this is really what people have said, right?
Michael Harriot: Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Nikole: Is that this was all a performance, For 10 years I've I've not written about it, I've not said anything. Hours and hours of of struggling, of of tears, of us doubting our choices, of meetings, of all of that was all so that I could, at some point 10 years from now, write a story about my martyrdom, which is wild to me. But I but more important than that is What I and a lot of my friends who have been emailing and calling me over the last this how I knew it was bad when my entire roller deck started reaching out, I was like, damn, I okay. is there a lot the reason Performance and performative is a particular word that's being used.
Michael Harriot: Mm.
Nikole: And I'm understanding that because this is coming often from people who do perform politics, right? Like their politics are performed. They perform politics in their discourse, right? They're the most radical people online. They're the most radical people when they're creating a video. But the lives are actually status quo, right? Like the choices are status quo. And okay, fine. Like it's hard being black, fine. but then to say, like, I'm actually trying to perform in reality my discourse and my
Michael Harriot: Right. Right.
Nikole: ideology and my politics, and that that is what I'm being like taken down for is so perplexing to me. Except what it says about all of our insecurities as black folks. One thing I'll say I I I have definitely been humbled by my experience with my child. I did, you know, I was judgmental about the choices other black folks made that I didn't think were communal enough. I have to own that, right? So now I'm getting what I what I gave to a degree. even though I was right. No, I'm playing. Right. But I so I have to own that. And and And now where I am is just saying I I do wish most of us understood our obligation to each other. I I will never I have regrets about how I handled certain things with my child. I wish I would have taken her concerns more to heart. I I I've definitely been humbled by my ability to mitigate what was happening in the school, which I thought I could. I I actually didn't think I was putting my child in a bad situation. I thought that I could raise the level of everything that was happening there, not be crushed by it. and I will never ever regret though that I didn't just think about my child. That I live in this community and I feel an obligation to this community. And the most disheartening thing to me has been the number of people who have not critiqued the system, who are worried about my privileged child. I have My child has been to 12 countries. My child has sat across the table from Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Emmy Award winners. my child has private tutoring. she is okay. She
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And
Nikole: will be okay. The concern for her, I wish they had for all the other kids in the school that you're saying. I was neglectful to my child for having the audacity to put her in the school with. I just wish that was the outrage. but it's easier. I mean, this is why we as storytellers do the anecdotal lead, right? This is why we tell the systemic story through the person, because it's easier always to focus on the individual and it's harder to focus on the system. and I think it becomes even more so when we're insecure about our own choices, when we feel some type of way about our own choices, to then be able to say, see, this is why I did what I did, because look what happened. I get that. I get I get where that's coming from because we're all traumatized living in this country, right? We're all trying to deal with what what we've been given. But I just I I cannot believe that most black people are now would embrace this level of hyper individualism. It's just not it's not who we are, should not be.
Michael Harriot: The critique of whether it's your choices, whether they think it is the sacrifice instead of the system, is kind of surprising to me too, right? Like
Nikole: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: because I I really truly haven't seen the people saying, you know what's crazy is that we're still making these choices, right? And I wanna know because you are one of the people who is have grappled with this. individually and collectively and on a large scale. If not for you like cause not your kid is gonna be all right ultimately, like if anybody Could have handled this, your child was uniquely a kind of. If not this way, how else do you think we change it?
Nikole: So If people read the first piece, which was also very long, so I understand if if people haven't, like actually it was longer than this one, it was 10,000 words. I never argued nor believed nor am naive enough to think that a single parent or family can go into a school and topple a system. what I did know is that some of us have to do it to show other people that they can or should do it. and what I also believed is that The understanding that it's systemic means we all just play our part. Right? Like I can't change it, so I may as well take advantage of it. And so someone has to create a breach. Some ones. And I'm not the only one. That's the other thing. I wrote about it. There's plenty of other black parents. There's a significant number of white Asian parents who is who have also made similar choices, as I have. so I I think like I've heard or read so many folks who are like, Well, you could have supported those schools in another way. You could have fought inequality in another way. First of I'm trying to fight it on all the levels I can, right? I'm writing about it.
Michael Harriot: Right. Well I I I
Nikole: I started a literacy program, like I I and I also try to put my own personal stake, which is my child and my family, in that in that. but whenever someone says that and I say, Well, great. So tell me what have you done? then to work on the inequality in those schools, to support those schools. And the answer is, and we know this, if you don't have a personal stake, you usually don't do anything. You feel bad. We all feel bad. I feel bad about what's happening in Gaza. Have I personally done anything? Have I, you know, it's like I feel bad about homelessness. Am I am I personally doing something to fight homelessness? Like I I think you have to have some personal stake in something. even if it's systemic, to really fight it. and most of us, you know, me being in that school means I just I saw what was happening and I could try to do something about it. Otherwise, I mean, if we were gonna fix it, it would be fixed, right? If like caring about a issue would fix an issue, it would be fixed.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. And and the other thing is I think there's a straw man there though, in that they thought like you enrolling your child in the school was going to save like that was a that individual act was going to save the school. And that's not even the premise of your pieces. Like we just can't like some of us just can't leave a whole community behind. Whole communities behind. And the other thing I think is interesting about the piece is like it forces me to confront questions I never had to grapple with because most of us don't get the choices that you had, the options that you had. We just gotta send that our kids to that school,
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: right? Like the idea of like this long, like these people online don't got that choice, right? They gotta
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: send their kids to the school that you that they're telling you you shouldn't send your kids to. 90% of us are in that situation, whether it is
Nikole: Yes.
Michael Harriot: because we l I grew up in a one school district, right? Like there was no place, right? And then some of it is financial, but To to me, like first of all, how many people do you think actually have to grapple with? How many of us actually get to Solve like get the options that you had.
Nikole: I mean I I think we have It's it's a complicated question. So what I n what I
Michael Harriot: Yeah, 'cause one is the system is designed for that we can't all make the choice, right? It couldn't work if we all had the
Nikole: Yeah. I mean, look,
Michael Harriot: choice.
Nikole: the choice that again I'm being maligned for is not a choice for most of the kids' parents in that school, right? And so saying like I neglected my child because I could have not put myself in that school, is also then kind of by proxy blaming those parents as well. Right? Because if they had worked hard and been successful like me, they also could have choices. I mean that if you extend the argument out, that's that's the argument. I what I know from the data is that most black kids attend a segregated high poverty school, regardless of income. So what the data shows is even the typical middle class black child is in a high poverty school. Now, one what that well, public school, let me say, one what that tells you is that there's just been a large abandonment of the public school, of course, by white folks, we know that. But also by a significant number of black folks as well. So actually, the school that Nigel was in, now the poverty rate at Nigel's school was was probably higher than the like average poverty rate of a school that a black child is in. But most black American children, middle class, and lower income are in a school with a high that is racially isolated and high poverty. That is the typical experience. So Again, I appreciate the concern for my child. I can promise you nobody has more concern for my child than my husband and myself. But I appreciate the concern for my child. What I'm asking for is that we have that same concern. Because the argument is because I have the ability to, then I should have. And I just can't agree with that. Right? Like I that is where I struggle with because the moment we started seeing trouble in the school, and I write about this. My husband and are like, what do we do? Should we should we now exercise our choice and and say F them kids, right? I mean, that's that's what I'm that's what I'm being asked to do, is to, when it got tough, remove my own child from that situation and don't look back. The rest of those kids, they just have to deal with what they get. I struggle with that. Now, you could argue I struggled with it for too long, that I should have removed her. Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth, you can argue that and that's fine. but I I just I couldn't I could I couldn't. That's all I can say. I just could not believe that my life being shaped by that struggle was so that I could then get take advantage of that and not care about other kids. that the movement was fought for. The movement was not movements were not fought to for a handful of us to live very well and use that money. to escape the rest of our folks. it just wasn't. I I just don't believe that. So that that is still what I'm grappling with, even now.
Michael Harriot: You know, one of my one of my wishes, my critiques is that like I wish all of this out. Like imagine if we pointed all this outrage at the systems that the system
Nikole: Exactly.
Michael Harriot: that we're talking about. Like we skipped over the whole system part. Like it's just like there's a whole population of black kids being condemned
Nikole: That's what the whole the whole story, right? I'm telling it yes.
Michael Harriot: and y'all saying, hey, this one, let's focus on this one that could have escaped.
Nikole: And that did escape and is doing fine, right? I mean, and that to me has been like the hardest part about all of this. I wrote this story to shine a light on the system, to say I know some some of what Millions of black children in this country are experiencing every day because I was also in that school with my child. But the peace is a critique of all of us, including myself now, right,
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: who allow our children to languish in these schools, who cannot sustain our outrage, who cannot turn our outrage into policy, who are not every day out there calling on our officials to do something about this, because we are able to remove our children from that harm. and so we we lose a sense of the stakes. And I and again now Mike, I guess I was naive. I thought that by telling this story of how even someone with my power, my resources, all of my knowledge about schools and how they work, like think about it, Michael. I I investigate school segregation for a living for what is perhaps the most powerful news organization in the world. I'm in your school. I've written about your school. And even that doesn't bother you enough to do better. And we don't think like that story needed to be told because it speaks to how little power the least advantage in our community actually have to change the systems. And yet we haven't like the the New York Post is not parked outside of the Chancellor's home or the mayor's home. They're parked outside of my home, right? The they're not outside the principal's home, they're parked outside of my home because I dared. To try to put my child in a community school with the people in our community in order to expose the injustice of what we do to our kids. And we're not using our ink to decry a system, to call for change, to call for these kids to get what they need. We're focusing on my child, one child. one privileged child and you you focus on her because I chose to told tell the story about her. and the rest of the children remain nameless. They were named nameless, faceless, and unfortunately not enough of our concern.
Michael Harriot: It in in the system that you're describing. It what if we all remove let's say we the people who have the ability to remove their children, remove their children, w and the people who can't stay like what hope do we have of changing the system? as it is currently constructed. Like what are we? if we don't give a fuck.
Nikole: We don't care. We we we say we care because it's the right thing to do. We as a society do not care about these kids. We warehouse them away. We see them as problems. we we and this collective we not like not just middle class black folks, obviously white folks, Asian, whoever. we feel like we need to separate our children from these other children. And so in a abstract way we say all children matter. But in a real way, we don't believe that. And I've always said, If there was a political will to integrate our schools or just to provide equality in our schools, let's say we integration is done. As you know, all of the original integration suits really began as an effort for black parents to ensure equal resources for their children, and then having to succumb to the reality that white supremacy will never equally resource our children when they're when they're sequestered by themselves. If there was a political will, To do so, it would be done. Right? Cause these are all policy decisions. We could integrate schools in New York, you could integrate schools anywhere. it's policy choices. And we both refuse, cause this is my thing. You think my my personal choice was wrong? fine. So where's your policy advocacy? Because I support both end. I wanted to put my child in the school, and my husband is also on the school board advocating for broader. equality policy and neither one is being widely embraced, right? so what is wrong with us? I mean that's how the peace ends. Nobody too much cares about poor black people in this country. Not even enough of us. Right? Like we're told one of the most toxic messages that we get when you're in a community, a black community, and people see some potential in you is get your education and get out of here.
Michael Harriot: Got it.
Nikole: Right? That in order to be successful in this country. in order to live your aspirations, being in black communities, or the the the low income communities that raise you is dangerous. And that success in thriving means to leave all that behind. And so I know that people see me and my choices. we've always lived in black community. We've never not wanted to and I'm not talking even like we live in like regular black community.
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Nikole: That's a choice. Where we sent our child to school was a choice. This is who we I just have never had a desire not to do that. And it doesn't mean other people who have are are are wrong. I mean, I went to Notre Dame because I understood I needed to get that credential. I know what that's like. and I know again the bad choices that we have. but most of us are trying to overcome that toxic message that there's something wrong with our with our communities. And that achievement means we have to leave them behind, even as we know we're not welcome in those white spaces, that there's a different suffering that occurs in the trade off, in the balance, we think that suffering will pay off and and that it's more worth it. and maybe financially it is, but our lives are more than capitalist units, right? so I I I think so much of the response in many ways has been we're all conflicted about the choices we've had to make. I mean, I I'm sure you've seen the discourse of so many parents who are like, I put my child in the white school and yes, they got a academic education that allowed them to thrive financially, but my child was psychologically wounded. And I question my choice, right? So you have folks who made the opposite choice of me. Who are questioning that choice. And you have me who's questioning my choice. And really the critique should be of a system that is forcing us as black people to make these bad choices of which harm will we expose our child to. And I wish that had been the critique, not whether, you know, I hated my child.
Michael Harriot: I well, I'll end with this. I'll let you go on this. I think that you know more than anybody else how many people have read this. And I think that you have to understand that you did your job. Like, there are people thinking deeply about this question today, 10 times more people than there were a week ago. And that worked. And there are 10 times more people who are thinking stupidly about this issue, for lack of a better word. And we gotta deal with that too, right? But
Nikole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Harriot: neither one of those people can fix it because we didn't create this problem. And I
Nikole: That's right.
Michael Harriot: think that's the point of the entire piece, right? Is like thinking deeply as deeply as you have about it. personally inside it and universally from a a 10,000 foot view and you still couldn't solve it.
Nikole: Yeah, well yeah. We do we
Michael Harriot: Well
Nikole: do what we can.
Michael Harriot: well, thank you for coming on. Thank you for visiting Black Splend. And I would say, like, tell the people where they're reading.
Nikole: Yes. This is my only interview. Cause I said I was not doing any interviews on this, so thank you.
Michael Harriot: Well thank you for I think I hope like is there anything else you wanna add?
Nikole: no good. Pri I probably said too much as it is.
Michael Harriot: Well I think you said it the exact right thing. So thank you for joining us.
