Got to Know the Old Thing

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay Dot in a production of I Heart Radio. What's Up, Everybody, I'm just Scott. That's agent Graden Danceler, and that's like it's Sat Claire and we're here. Eaves is out here, you know, our our producertain show. She is. She's out here trying to make us clap on time, and for some reason, we just can't seem to get it together. Say clap on three, I'll say we clap on three? Is it or somebody else clap after three? Right after three? I don't know what the deal is, but like this, I know we ain't got the clap. We ain't got the clap. Just like this topic that we're talking about. We gotta get it together. You like that, You like I did that? You like I did that. You gotta get it together. Listen, my now twelve year old when we first got to Frankly, Tennessee, we went to school, I know, right, we went to school and he was like the one, maybe out of five hundred kids, he was like the one. And I worried about that, like, oh, here we are. We're out here in the South and there's no real you know, representation whatsoever. We'll just paying attention to it, you know, and he was a little behind all some things. And I knew, I knew that, I knew that this was going to be an issue. But I watched those folks, those teachers and principles. First of all, they wanted to go to the plantation for a field trip. I said, I'll be damn, this is really aberdent, really really really okay. Uh So that was one and then the other was because he was a little behind, um and this is what third grade. They made him feel like he was the most stupid person that ever existed. And I was like, you're tearing down the child self esteem on a daily basis. We got a go. So then we went to a private school because that was a public school. We went to a private school, and the private school was more diverse. We were excited about that, like, okay, you know, we got some Indian folk and we got some jobs. So some Japanese folk and okay, some Italian folks. That's the fucking here, okay, and uh different ranges or variations of African and I was like, yes, bad, bad, this is all good. Great, And some African American teachers as well. However, those kids were on a system they had already started. They started in kindergarten, so now by the time we get there in fourth grade, again, not only is he behind, but he's okay, really behind. And again it was that self esteem thing, the making him feel like, you know, he was the dumbest person on the planet, and he would say that. And when he started telling me that he was dumb, I was like, Okay, this isn't gonna work out either. Even though I'm paying this ridiculous amount of money for this private school, thinking that it's diverse and they're that. All the talk was, oh we're we're loving and caring to the children and booms, we got all that too. So we got the funk up out of there, I said, Howard said it on, come on, You're not gonna do that to him. So eventually, with the help of a great grade I don't even know what her title is, what she did. Her name is Sharon Green, and shout out to Sharon Green in Atlanta, Georgia. What Sharon Green does is that she finds the school that best suits your child. She spent some time with your child. She yes, what in the concierge service. The concierge service of education, of educating child. Yes, so she did some research, she had some meetings with him. She just laid in the cut and watched them on a normal you know, like for a couple of weekends. She wouldn't say anything. She just kind of watched him and asked him a lot of questions when when they did talk, and she found a school for him. And the school is one student and one teacher, almost like a tutoring service, but it is a whole school. There are other students that go there. It is a like a a office building and in each of these little rooms, the rooms are glass, so you know, you feel like, Okay, you're not just in there with homie and you don't know, I don't know, Um, he's the their glass rooms. Each room is is um decorated for the subject that the teacher is teaching and you go in there for forty five minutes and have one on one learning, which is what he really needed because he was behind and he had to catch up in so many ways. We started off in Cali and in California, the education was like, oh, let's just play in the mud. Yeah, you know, look a look at the creation, isn't it wonderful. Let's just get leaves all over ourselves exactly, my friends. But by the time we got to Tennessee, it was a hot mess, you know, it was. It was a hot mess. So now jet his grade. He got all a's and one beat this last semester, and it is, you know, a real gift to be able to offer him an education at a pace that he needs, in an environment that he feels secure. And also just just the hole just not being afraid to ask questions because he don't want to get played, do you know what I mean? In a classroom full of people who are like, no, we've we've been learning this since you know, first grade, so we're all together in this. You know, that's the one thing I've learned about private schools. You you you gotta start at kindergarten because there's a peace and if you cannot keep up with that base or you're just your your ass out of luck. And that's really what it is. I mean, that's why, that's why a lot of times when kids are switching from public to private, they'll throw that will you have to repeat a grade information out there? And I know a lot of parents have experienced that where their child, maybe a middle school, but I I experienced that. Actually I moved from public school to private school from sixth grade to seventh grade. When I went into middle school, I went to private school, and I got accepted into more than one private school, but one of them suggested that I repeat a grade, and my mother wasn't half having it. So I went to the one that said that said we'll take you as you are, my love. But it still really wasn't a good fit for me. You know, I think it's beautiful, obviously, you know that Jet was able to find and you know, a learning space that that fit him, you know, but that you know, we all know that that is just not the norm. Our children are dealing with a number of different obstacles in their way as it as it pertains to their education. But I said, our country as a whole really is because the project and the experiment of trying to educate an entire population is a fairly new concept. And the concept of trying to educate this population, the one in America is is really, really, really new because when you think about it, there really wasn't such a thing as a national school system prior to the end of slavery. In fact, the only reason why you have public school is because of Black Americans, because the former enslaved people. When we got our freedom, we wanted to be educated. That was number one on the list that we wanted to be educated. And so therefore, you know who was gonna pay for this but the federal government. And so that was the first thing that I mean, even white people in this country have us to thank for having public schools because before that, only the aristocracy was able to be educated. Poor white people didn't go to school either. Huh, there was no school. And you said it. It's interesting because you said that it wasn't a national school system. However, we were all using those same Texas textbooks. Yeah, for a long way too long. Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is that once we start trying to educate the whole population, then it becomes the question becomes what shall we teach them? And and there and there? What shall we teach them? And what? What education? Is their right? What? What? What is their right? What is what? What are their rights to? You know what I mean? And so I think that's where the idea of educating black children becomes. It can no longer just be personal. It is political, and it has been political since the very beginning, even to the moment that we stepped on the shores. What what us not being able to speak our own languages and us not being able to communicate and only you know, being taught what you know, what they wanted us to know, and not being able to read and all these different things. So I do think that you can hear the Bible, but you can't read it. You can hear it, but you cannot read right and and and let's they say once they started reading it, the Bible radicalized people, right, that Turner radicalize that Turner. So yeah, I mean, you know, we could go into a whole bunch of the historical things. But I will say this about my experience. Out of all six children, my children have had every kind of experience other than homeschool. My children have been to public schoolmate school, charter school, and hbc U. They know and and they have an experienced I guess p w Y. So they're you know, predominantly white institution. And I was gonna say, there's a there's something to Jill story and even finding jets education because although my mother was working class like she definitely went through that journey of let's try this public school. And mind you, I was a kid who was went to private school early in life and my whole class that got skipped, so that was an issue for her after I left that private school, respecting that whole skip patient of things and trying at the Christian school because Asian. You know, I tried Grace Brother. We tried to Christian School, but one enough black figures in there for my mama for that, you know what I'm saying. Then we tried to public school, but it just was Mark. So it's an interesting it's an interesting ride. But I would say, as as a grown up, I'm not mad that I can reference now my mother's battle to find the proper, the right one for me. Like I appreciate those moments when she took I appreciate her fighting with my private school teacher about me bringing Malcolm Mexic School as an autobiography, like that part is of education that only abelious Black education seems like it was a privilege that was given starting in the baby boomer you know what I mean. Oh yeah, I mean my mom did the same thing, you know, lied about our address too. You know, my mama now goddamn, it can't. Um, but you know, yeah, I mean that battle, yo, I gotta tell you this. Oh. So her mom takes me out of the public school around the way right because I was fighting every day every day. It was some kind of fighting, and um, she sent me to the school. She always wanted me to go to Greenfield Elementary. You guys know that school that Greenfield is still school that everybody wants to go. She set me to Greenfield because she was I wasn't doing good. I was a good It's downtown Central air condition, okay, right right, right, So she sends me to Greenfield. She doesn't know that there's a program happening. You know, I figured it out. Actually they had grades A, B and C and without any right, without any testing. I was in C. Right. So I'm looking around. I don't know. I'm must have got to baby about the seventh grade. And I looked around and I was like, waiting, where are you from? Out? Well, I'm from I'm from North Philly. Where are you from? I'm from North Philly. Where are you from? I'm from Northfiela. Where are you from? Everybody in this class is from North Philly except for maybe one other black student that is from West Philly, and I was like, wait a minute, so I don't think I don't think I should be in this class with everybody. I should at least be a bee. If I ain't a like, I should be in here. It was confirmed for me. We got a new student from Sri Lanka. She spoke zero English and she was in my class. And then they brought another kid and I cannot remember her name, but she drooled really bad. She would just drew rill. It's not funny, but it is because I'm in the class sitting next to her, trying not to get drew on me. And I was like, this is racist. So happy to be in the school for for all the classes and and and the beautiful environment and all of the things, but it was racist as fuck. They just they just grow trying to find a good education. As a black parent for your child, I mean it is absolute war. Like you have the strategy and the compromise game is very serious. I will even have to throw this little thing in the pot as a kid. My mother, obviously, as all our mothers did, did that you ain't going to that neighborhood school, damn. And we all we all experienced that. But where I ended up though, it's so interesting to me because I really realized this, it's a testament to a bygone era. The primary school I ended up at was Robert Brant Elementary School, and my principle's name was Francis Plumber was a black woman, and every single teacher on staff at my school was a black woman. My science teacher was a black woman, my music teacher was a black woman, my gym teacher was a black woman. Our school counselor was a black wom. Universe conspires, But listen, this is nothing. But this is the this is the reality of And I've actually written about this word the whole essay about it. But this is the thing is that the reality is that I didn't understand how special that was until I started trying to find schools for my children, and I was like wow, And it made me go back and think about that transition from primary school into middle school and why I crashed and burned the way that I did. I was always reading two or three grades ahead, always from the moment I was in kindergarten, and I was always advanced. When I got to private school, I literally almost failed the seventh grade. And when I think back on that environment, going from an entirely black environment one that was headed by and defined by black women. And I'm talking about black women. Some of some of my teachers had their master's degree. And I remember when my principle actually got her PhD, we were told we were no longer allowed to call her Mrs Plumber, we had to call her doctor Plumber. Yes. And so when I think back on that transition, I'm thinking about what was my environment? Like this was a school that was, you know, well known throughout the city, very wealthy, very resourced, you know, very you know, ahead of the game. And I did not flourish there. And as I started to think about that, that really kind of got into my mind with what does it take for black children to flourish? And is there a specific thing? Are we really just challenge and what is blurs mean? Like where you challenge you so challenged that you couldn't overcome that challenge, Like what does that mean? I would say in retrospect, I think the environment just did not agree with me. It was so far into anything that I had ever areas before. And I also think that middle school is a very deep time for children period. And you know, there was a time period where across the country you were noticing that schools were going from the primary school to middle school model into something called K through eight. And the reason why they put K through eight into being in a lot of ways is because they understood that once kids got to middle school, we kind of dropped them off in a building with a bunch of people they don't know during a developmental time that is very difficult only for two years. And so what they're saying is that if you keep a child in the same building where they went to kindergarten, first second grade, that they have adults around who've known them for a long time, so when they get into this developmental stage, it's quite difficult. They had that support, and I think my experience mirrored why that is a good idea, because I did not have the support and the presence of these black women in my life. I really believe that had a lot to do with why I felt. My first English teacher was a white man and all the kids called him by his first name. His name was Pierced. I'll never forget this, Pierced Tyler, and I could not not call him Mr. Tyler. I said, why are y'all calling this dude Pierce? And it drove me nuts because he wasn't even really that young. But it was just like I said, there was this like a vibe of information that was so informal everything at this private school because these kids were so entighted and I had never called a teacher by their first name. I had never you know, my my, my school teachers used to take my hair out when they thought it was too tight and redo it. Wait, you mean your teachers could corn roll and that what you're saying? They were just touching your hair, Like, what do I do with this? My mother was real serious about a nice neat ponytail, right, maybe a little too serious on my edges. And so my teacher, my teacher, what's that come, your baby? And she would take my ballies out, let my hair breathe a little bit, and then put them back in looser. I'm sorry. That is just the idea of being in a loving environment that understands you. Because the understands you because if you come into school and you know, let's let's just say you're Caucasian teachers is ms Joseph Okay? Anyway, Um, and Ms. Joseph. She don't't know why you have a headache. She doesn't know why you're not in the best mood. You know. She can't grasp that something could possibly be simple to fix. Let me tell you something else I had. I went to school with two boys who had been adopted by a white family, and they were both African, but I don't know what country they were from. They're from Africa, and they were Muslim, and the white family tried to maintain culturally like where they had come from, and they did not believe in standing for the pledge of allegiance. And I remember my teacher would all make us respect that. My teacher would not would not allow us to say anything about it. She was like, you all are excused. There were so many things in retrospect when I think back about my experience there, and this was a public school. Then let me fast forward for you guys. Now in Robert Brant Elementary School is no longer predominantly black, the teaching staff is no longer predominantly black. The city is no longer the city is no no longer The Robert Brant that I went to is not does no longer exist. It is a ghost girl. My whole black private school. You know that shi got torn down? Yeah, because he's Layah. School she went to was up on a hill and my aunt's house was and they have torn it down. It's gonne whole black private school from preschool to six sixth grade, all black kids. Now, we weren't blessed with all the black women like Asia had, but sound they did call the girl to graduate fro High school Like it sounds like a beautiful dream just to go somewhere and be understood. I'm gonna tell you. I tell people all the time, understand d C, d m V people that you live on a different planet and you need to appreciate this planet that you. I mean, I don't know about the current folks that's growing up, but for most of us, we lived on a different planet. Yeah. Do you see if the eighties on earlier is definitely a different was a death eighties, nineties, seventies, eighties, nineties, sixty seventies, eighties, nineties was definitely a different kind of worms. But I think now with my own children, I think now about how my children have mostly been taught in public school by white women, and my experience has been diverse, but it is. It is, you know, a situation that's going on across the country. Most teachers in the United States are white women, and then the black men are the they're the least right. They need for black men to teach. They need more black people to teach. But I think more than anything, you know, what we're looking at is, like I said, a youthful experiment, what it means to educate a mass of people. Does this system even work for white people? It can't because you know, they're dumb, because I mean, and how I'm saying white people in general, I'm just saying their kids be dumb. You got a whole situation where they all went to dad on uh jail for trying to cheat to get their kids in college, paying all this money because the kids ain't learning. So it's like, yeah, your privilege will get you what you want, but are you really learning anything this country? Globally? Where does it rank amongst Oh it's pretty you know, it's pretty love, it's pretty low. More conversation after the break. My girlfriend, who is Caucasian, her daughter goes to that same school that the private school that Jack went to, and um, you know she's she's not Jane flourishing. She ain't doing well in school at all. But they've banded together to help her, you know, this teacher and that teacher. And before school and after of course, they asked me if Jet could leave, that he should, that he should leave. Oh girl, it's time to resurrect the fire, and it's time to resurrect the fire, burn fire. Can he do? What leave? You're like, you know what's about to leave? This whole building? What is that? There is this? You know, there's a certain standard that the school has and if this child has fallen under the standard, then they want them to leave. But they didn't ask my friend's daughter to leave. They didn't ask her to leave. She's right there, she's still there, struggling, you know, doing what she can. But that there is a difference. There is a difference there. And I'm so glad that that was the suggestion because I didn't need to hear be. I didn't need he I need. I didn't need to hear plan B or Option B. All I heard was leading. I was like, thank you, bye. You don't you don't you know what? Well? You could you? But you could? I don't want to, but could and I'm paying you this money for what not only are we leaving, I need you to refund me every cent, which they did and I felt better. But nonetheless, you know, we're still you know, finding how to educate this kid what works for him, because I mean, it's not even something that he loves. He doesn't love school. He's not. But I feel like most kids, especially black kids, and there are some kids who like school, don't from but I think a lot of I think a lot of black students are not connect. My daughter said, Mom, it just doesn't give. That's what she says. That's that's the quote. My daughter. She's like, it just does not give. And I thought that was really profound, even though that's slang for now. But you know, the bottom line is that that's true, does not give. What is it giving to you? You know, I would say to people like public school, when you pull your kid out of public school, even though I have done it myself before, and I understand the necessity of being able to decide, because I wanted us to get into the conversation about this quote unquote school choice. But the thing is that I understand as a as a parent, you have to make the right decision. But when you pull your kid out of public school, please believe what you are also doing is leaving your money on the table. If you went into Amazings and you bought a blouse, you bought it, they packaged it up, it in the bag, you smiled at the person who said thank you, and you walked out and left that bag on the dag on countertop on purpose. That's what you do when you pull your kid out of public school. Because at the end of the day, you have already paid. They owe you a product for what you have paid for. H And so therefore, I've always felt that the relationship between the parents and the public school has to shift from you're not doing me a favor. You didn't hook me up. I paid for something, and you are supposed to meet my child where they are. That's the challenge, though, I was gonna ask you to, like, you know, I'm curious about because I don't know that much about these kind of public schools in a sense. But I went to a public high school that was an acceptance and education base, So I'm curious to how y'all feel about those in that sense. Then, so like, like you had to have a certain amount of community service, and your grades had to be at a certain point to get into this public school. Like, how do y'all feel about that situation? Well, I have to say, I love standards. I love them, I get it now and I appreciate standards. So just like all of a sudden, all of the parents, new parents are running around trying to find the right preschool. It's the same thing trying to find the right elementary school, the right and and it depends on what right is for you if your kid is if you are because they're just a child. But if you're thinking, okay, this is gonna help them get to college, you might be in trouble already. But because they get there, you do all that. Now me want to go, oh boy. But and then we question in college? He said, y'all again on ji il, y'all make people question every institution, tradition and situation that we have been two words, come on those two come on institute tradition, let's talk about So let's talk about it and talk about mind who's going? But what about those kids left behind that many didn't have heard and didn't have the time to do the community service that these kids like I'm so I'm thinking that, I'm like, well, so the public schools to just be dope on all, they should all be at the same leg level. Should there not be the special education schools of higher learning? I don't. Let's just think about Let's just think about the reasoning for why you would separate students in the first place. All of this is based on hierarchy and capitalism. It's all based on this exceptional bs. It's like, the bottom line is that we all like to believe that our kids going to be the smart kid. But what happens when your kid has a few What what happens when your kid scores a few points underneath? What happens? Then then you have to advocate? And then what if you're got to pay more? And then and but that's what I'm saying, Then you have to advocate. And so what if you're not able to advocate? What if they just really don't want you? What if they have to choose between you and a white kid who came three points under? What then the bottom lues. We can't continue to buy into these institutions and these these these particular standards that we did not even create. This this standard is not even our standard, and it's not meant to actually include us, just because sometimes we do get included because we're smart and we're awesome and we persevere and our mothers be hustling and they do right, you know what I'm saying. So, yeah, and that situation, get that works out. But you know know what I'm saying, But then what what if your kid gets into the school and let's say they have a traumatic experience at that school, and the only other options other than that school is the neighborhood school than what you're gonna need, and you can't afford private, I don't know what do you do? The point is is that your every child should have access to quality, high rigor education. Every single child should have access to So who has kids? Who has a scientist? The parents or the institution? I always say the parents, But I say, more than the parents, the student. I deeply believe in giving the children a voice. I really deeply believe in that. I think that children can very much dictate how and how they learn and what they learned. I think that's really important. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't be a part of it. What I'm saying is that we have to start to Look, I'll give it to you this way right now. Part of the national conversation is what do we do about policing, And there's a big conversation around defunding and and and completely dismantling the police because we understand that this is not a system that works. If we look at the educational system in this country, it mirrors the carcel system. Also, school be functioning a whole lot like jail. When you go from one classroom to the next, you gotta line up every it got off, every kid got a number. Now they have made all the kids, they had made all the kids put on a uniform and and told you that it was better for them. My thing, well even a little bit because you didn't have to get up and pick your clothes out. No, let me speat yourself into you. You You know how many kids get detention and suspended for not wearing them not wearing that from a proper uniform. They use every single thing they can to police and incarcerate our children, period period. You have never lied, You have never lied, damn it. You gotta remix every situation, every system, every institution. And then I'm like, where we where we start I guess we gotta start here because then in car gerration system, maybe we started the education and we even there are independent There are independent African central schools and they have existed for decades. I know, just not nation widen and everybody city, but I do have them in many many states cities nationwide. But let me, Jill was about to say something, I want to research is mandatory. That's why research is mandatory to find out what works best for you and your child. This homeschooling business. So I looked into it, and homeschooling was uh what two d and twenty dollars to register or or something in that family to register. That's a lot to register a child from homeschool when it's free to register them for public school. Yeah. Yeah, see that's still what a daily. What the company does is that they kind of I don't want to say police. They look at what is necessary, what is required of a student for a certain grade was required? English science, math, history was required, and then they basically hold you accountable as the homeschooler to have all of those things done. Now what you can do, I mean, they they give me an outline. I'm sorry. Basically they're giving you an outline. Basically, that's exactly what it is. They're giving you an outline to make sure your child has matriculated. So Joe, they don't give you the content. They don't give you like they give you the content. They give you the content, they give you the textbooks, all of those things, and then it's up to you to, you know, keep that thing popping and keep the child educated. For people who don't homeschool, this idea, the school that Jett is currently going to, where there's one teacher per class, per subject and one student per subject, made me realize that I don't I much prefer to have homeschooling where I can hire the teachers that I want to educate him, because homeschool is not a monolith. Homeschool can look so many different ways, and I know many parents who have done this. You know, shout out to if your on Instagram, Shout out to Yolanda J at Yolanda J. Shout out to Bay Kimmitt b A y E k E. M I t Um and his wife Makita kimitt Um. So many homeschoolers that I know who have multiple approaches and to how they decide to you know, have their children be be educating, you know, and have gone straight into into colleges. They've had to transition to this too. I've seen a lot of teachers putting together like plans and whatnotos and stuff like that for parents and stuff like that. Yeah, but this is about a partnership. And so I really believe what and I really believe in what Jill said data. And when I say data, I don't even mean like on some old like oh, the federal government pays for a study or something like that. I'm just talking about the way that we have all it's collected data and we talked to one another and communicate, and that we are in community with teachers and in community with parents and students, you know, and so that we try to build on an idea that isn't a bad idea. It's just an idea that was never created with our best intentions at the center, and so we have to kind of reapproach it that was never created with our best intentions at the center. Let me ask all as parents. And so that being said, and that's a huge point I'm realizing at my grand old age at thirty nine. Yes, I pushed it back that things like the stock market and all kinds of savings and portfolio things, um should have been things that are in our curriculum. Now for some people of other nation, not white people, they get this early in life as children, like they get taught by their their father's uncles or whatever, but they get talking school to I wasna ask, y'all, is are we talking about remixing those things as well, because why we're talking about homeschool. I know we're still talking about those same subjects matters, But is it in fact also time to remix the subjects? Oh? Sure, I think definitely. Kids need to understand more about the world and about you know, how it functions in their day to day, about how they're going to go out in and and be present, you know, in the world. But here's the funny thing about all of that, and and and and this is just my belief is that if there is not a serious effort to begin to teach the real history of the world and of America, you know that, I don't care what you learn, you will always center whiteness. You're talking about that is where and that And I know that that sounds typical of me to say, but what I mean this so seriously that everything that we learned centers this, science, philosophy, technology, English, a finance, English English, all of this, all of it centers whiteness. If you're not making a a I mean a massive effort to de center whiteness as a baseline for educating black children, then then you would have to you would have to base whiteness as a baseline for uh economical I don't even know how to say in life like because once you do that, then you it has to not be the basis for life as a grown up. History is so important to being able to dismantle that history is at the core of being it is but cree enslavement contributions by black people. That alone, the fact that you learn about full three fold people during Black History Month and then at my nephew school, they didn't even have Black History Month. There was no information whatso as what listen, I mean the story of that ready to take slavery out of the slave books, I mean out of the textbooks, And I say slavery, you're that we're trying to take it out altogether, because if you don't want to deal with the guilt, you don't want to deal with the reality you don't want to deal with, the guilt you don't want to deal with. Also the fact that, like I said, there's a reckoning that comes with decenturi whiteness. It is a reckoning that goes into every system that we come in contact with. Ya. That's why I said to you as I'm like, yeah, so we need to dismantle this system so when these kids get out of school that the system will reflect what they learn and in school, because if we dismantle it while they're in school, but then they come out and they're like, well wait a minute, that's well, here's the beautiful thing. Here's the beautiful thing about children. When you empower them with knowledge, real knowledge, they will make those changes. They will step up and make All those kids that went in Birmingham that went to jail it was thirteen and fourteen years alter. You know what you're saying, is it not? Yeah. One of the largest anti lynching marches that was ever done was a children's march, A silent children. Listen, You'll be trying. You got kids, you got a mortgage, you don't want to go to jail. So I mean, all I'm saying is this is that all of the things that we're talking about. They implicate something so much, so much bigger then just a conversation around education, which I know we all agree with that, but it is a long term thing. We've only been out of slavery or slavery has no longer been the law for like maybe a hundred fifty years. And we know that that's just a fraction of the time that we were enslaved in this country. And then that's even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a time that we've all been you know, there's been so as so there's there's so much of that going on that we that we have to deal with. But you know, that's just what I keep forgetting. I'm like, I'm a part of the process. Okay, all right, okay, And there's and there's really no way to move forward without everybody, i mean, all the children of every race in America. Keep talking about this, keep talking about this. Um you know, melting pot, Well, it's not melting, it's just a pot with it. I don't I don't want to lose melf. That's that's that's that's honestly one of the things that I always loved about Philadelphia, um, is that you could go to little go to Little Puerto Rico, and you could go to you know, little areas where it's all Greek people, you know, and get some of that culture and eat some of that food and listen to some of that language and that music. I think all of that's fantastic. But we are missing the mark because we're just so focused on teaching white ship, you know, and in the lies that go along with it. The whole Columbus Day business still still for real. But but here's what's so funny. And I've discovered your living room just this year though even though they have in many cities, especially here in Philadelphia, like we no longer celebrates again Indigenous People's Day. But even still even still, just this past year, when activists were trying to get the Christopher Columbus statue taken down in South Philly, white men stood in front of it, fully armed to protect it. And let me just say this, friends, wouldn't you all day but if everything was built around and centered around and your faith and your faith greatness and your faith greatness, wouldn't you want to protect that by any means necessary? It is setting you up your children up. It's setting it's setting up everybody's future, except you know, just yours and your people's. You know, you want to give that up. Nobody wants to give it up. But here's the funny thing. Here's here's where it gets really delusional, honey, where it just really takes me out. This makes me sit back and do one of those like you know, evil character. Last is the part that blows me is that most of these white photes, much like their ancestors, don't actually benefit. They just believe that they do. That they are so invested in whiteness that they are so invested they don't realize that they are being economically oppressed to a degree that they not as much as a but they're not getting what that top one percent has, and they never go into they're selling them a pipe dream, nothing but the girl. They ain't a practice, They ain't protecting nothing but their own oppressive the same way that they're poor white ancestor did after the Civil War, they went out and decided, you know what, for the hopes that I might be able to have with the plantation owner has, I will participate the anti blackness, and I will believe in whiteness, just for the the hope that maybe I could have it. That was a big part of him achieving that white supremacy right as because at the end of the day, they can they can convince the broke but white man that he is better than the black man. We are winning. You ain't met the motherfucker, but I ain't gonna tell you that. But you you weigh better than that nigga right there, if you're really if you're real good and you treat that nigga like a nigga, I'll let you get some of it. Never never let you won't get it, you won't tricky, and you're mask and you're dumb. Mass still be sitting down South Philly with a gun protecting a metal stack while you are still underpaid, can't take a bathroom break, don't have no insurance and got no sucking insurance, and going die with a go fund me, just like every other nigga that you deep. At least at least we ain't dealing with that, and then not to mention, so we dealt with the blacks and the white. But I've also been thinking about this lately, y'all, as immigrants have come into this country for as long as they have. They have they continue not to be taught about the contributions of black people and have informed their own opinions based on how long they've been here, and those things continue to pass on generations. So I also find that fascinating in a way. I'm like, you know, immigrants, I don't feel like you're and I'm not just talking about facility. I'm talking about everybody, even the ones from the Islands are people, not even our west like this. I'm just saying, well, there's a lot, there's there's Like I said, it's history, like you speaking, it's it's a history, its history education Like it's an education issue. Hands down, it is an education issue. I'm just questioning, like seriously, in school that don't talk about all the contributions of all the people. If you keep talking about this melting pot, you're not gonna talk about the masonry work of the Italians that came here that you still see today on the building. And I'm here for that, but you don't talk for immigrsted really just understand the end of the day, we are not immigrants. This the country is not made of just immigrants. That's a big point that he's been fucking killing me because every time you we can talk about we can talk about that, when we can talk about the fact that when y'all came here, you traded your Italians, you traded your you traded all of that, all that culture, all of that ethnicity, you traded it for whiteness. So please, you know what I'm saying. At the end of the time, get to Asia. That's kind of a kind of games in New York though, they you know it was, they had their own different different people depending on you're talking about Irish, yes, and others at their own they know you're talking about draft riots where they just went through the city and killed black people just because they were mad at the government for drafting them right off the boat. I'm glad you mean when they went through New York and they actually set an actual orphanage on fire with black children. You're talking about the fact that Celtics and people who come from that part of the country are part of the foundation of policing Irish. The Irish are the police forces. No, we're not. First of all, everybody has blood on their hands, period. And if we're not going to discuss it, and I don't even need it. I can take my emotions out. We can just talk fast, and we're not going to discuss the history. If we're not gonna dis us what happened. What happened gives you the context for why things are the way that they are, and it helps us to understand how we're going to educate the masses going forward, because, like Jill said, these are lessons that are not just for black children, these are lessons for white children. White children need to understand what actually happens and they don't. I trust you, and I feel and know that the information that you gave was just it's invaluable. What the disclaimer that you give it for a I love it? Give it. No, it's not a disclaim cause I got bad. I'm sorry. That's not a disclaimer. It is just what it is. Some things are observations, just an observation, not a man. I'm just saying, I really do feel and and believe that if everybody here, we already the ship is already so funked up. It's so fun. It's just so fun. If we could if we could possibly cool by y'all, my niggas, if we could possibly have respect and treat everyone with some respect. People did not. It was a lot of murdering, guys, It was a lot of It was a lot of murdering and killing and conniving and manipulation to make this place. But it can be so much better with respect of other people's cultures to begin the meltic process, or at least the not the meltic, but the blending process in a healthy way. Like Jesus Christ, aren't you yeah, don't don't you want to go home? I don't know yo, I don't know them either, yo. Literally, as to tell y'all, literally, this man on the beach, just this white man on the beach asked me yesterday. He was like, where your people from? And I got so stuck, like where my family? Name is you? And so I know it's some Jamaican I want to say, just West Africa. I mean I saw the St. Louis and New York and me he was like, when my people are from Germany and they got a piece of land here hundreds of years ago. And I was just like, man, listen, that's why you wonder how they got that. It's in Jamaica. It is. I mean, I do recognize I do recognize the the bigness. Yeah, it's and I also recognize the need to have um safe conversation about how we move on. But I guess for me, it's like there are things that weighs as black people that we can begin to map out what we're gonna do with our children and I and I go back to communicating, I go back to seeking out all of the people who are doing alternative methods, people who are learning from their experience, and so we can kind of learn also from them, you know. And and that is a community thing that will really be helpful for us in the long look at our right. Community, Yeah, community is everything. And you have the opportunity to be in community with people who are trying all kinds of different things. And so I think so I think that that is the first thing, is to stay open, open minded to the possibilities and to be in communication and community with others. I definitely think that if this history thing has to start in the home, and so if if we understand the necessity of history, we have to also know it. We can't require a thing from other people that we're not willing to do for us. So well, listen, you can always participate in Faminists. Just in case you missed that episode, we were talking about creating our own holidays. We my family and I we created something called Faminists. Family is and the premise of the holidays around the same time as Christmas. Um. The premise of the holiday is to have our family get together and do all the fun stuff that we all like to do. We like to good we like to play games, we like to listen to music and dance and all the things that makes family great. We also added essays. Every person is required to write a one page essay about whatever they want, whatever interests them, so that we can hear our young people and our elders think. And in order to at a gift, you have to write an asset. You don't write an say. You don't get a gift, but you get to still here and and enjoy all of that beautiful thought around your family. Also with Faminists, we do put up pictures of people that we respect and admire and it's a good time. I just decided just now that everybody's essay needs to be about someone that they respect and admire. Coming from the African diaspora, I think that's Famists coming earlier listen and shout out to all the any and every teacher of any race at all. If you're talking about the social injustice that's occurring in front of our faces every day in your classes, that's a conversation. That is something that needs to be discussed, not just in a black classroom, that is everywhere, that is America. Okay. If we we gotta get our kids thinking, we gotta get our kids thinking. And and just first of all, this is my thing. Don't talk about social justice or police brutality to my child unless you teach in that. If you're not teaching it in your class, don't talk about don't talk about it now. And the second thing is that don't expect my don't expect my child to come to class. If you know, if something so bad happens so bad that you think you need to talk about it, you need to turn to my kid and say, hey, what you need to do today? You want to remax, go on home, take the day off. If your parents can't take you here, what we're gonna do. And then you talk to the other people in the classroom and you say, today to this is a lot today and we have a part of our person in our community who's hurting, and so our responsibility today is to love them and to love one there and to better understand what we can do to not allow these things to happen. So it's like, don't don't have a conversation with my kid and ask them how they're feeling, so that they can set the tone that like, no, I don't want nobody to ask them how to feel. I just want the information to be presented to children conversation so they understand. So so you don't have to go to school and act like the ship ain't didn't happen, but it. But if to stick to that schedule or agent based on this is this a police brutality and killing schedule, there would be no work getting done because could lord right? Is it just who's to say? Who's to say any work is getting done anywhere? Don't tell my kid they got something. Do You're gonna give him a test? And you know that that's what's on their minds. You know that I'm intrigued by that in the sense of soothing or being there for for kids in this time when there seems to be a little rest, Who'll be right back? How many conversations were had about nine eleven. How how many conversations you know you think you think no, I think that they were constantly yeah, all the time in classroom. But think about the one day, because there's there's one day, like we we dealt with Chauvin and we didn't even have an hour. We didn't have an hour of peace, we didn't have an hour of wrestlers. We was already having to deal with Dante and then Macaya happened. So I'm just that's my point. I'm like, how do these children in their education process get the both things that you all are talking about. It's all getting so normalized. It's just normalized. You can't ignore the award on your finger. You can't ignore it. And I'm not trying to minimize it in any way. I wouldn't by saying a ward I can't ignore. It's a gaping open wound in America, really, and we're comfortable with black death, We're comfortable with black pain. Black pain just gets to exist and they still want you to do everything and act like ain't nothing happened and the mother is crying, and then you add some music to it and then you gotta mean and you know me like, yeah, I mean, you're right. At the end of the day, we're forced to deal with something that's made normal, and then we have to cope, and then we get punished for coping. We get punished for the ways in which we're coping with something that's unnatural, or at least told how long you can cope because time is limited. So it's like, all right, you got you can cope for a second, but I'm gonna need you back tomorrow. But wait today tomorrow, so i'thing just happen. How I'm gonna cope with that? You know? We had Dr Jennison here and I'm gonna quote her. I'm gonna quote her on this, and I'm gonna say this. She said, these timelines and deadlines is the white man's creation. It's a capitalistic creation. Timelines, deadlines, this is dude, that is due. We have done to do this. Somebody created that, and just as soon as as quick as they can create it, they can uncreated some American, they can uncreate it. And if we we, we must begin to make people make space for me. M hmm. May take up all the space, take up all the time. And I tell my children this all the time. I may not be in every room to advocate for you, because I'm just not gonna be everywhere all the time. So if you need more time, take all the time. If you need a second or third or fourth explanation, get all four, take up all the space. Make everybody stop. I don't understand my neighbor. He's from Pakistan, and that kid is gonna get put right out and put in some other classes, sent to some other school, and it's our job to advocate for that student. If that happens, it's our job to tear the whole ship down. Maybe we're we're inside a bubble fighting for something and we need to just get outside of the bubble altogether. Yeah, in interesting ways to educate our children, because because when you know, someone asked me recently, how did I how did I teach jet about jack God? I was like, we set outside in the grass. Mm hmmm, well, you know, some other people may want to go to to every church and all of that. We set outside in the grass. We looked at the stars, we looked we looked at the dog on trees, you know, earthy or whatever you want to call it. My God is there, Okay, that's my that's where I am with it. Opting out is always an option, and it's a beautiful option. You do not have to participate. Participation is a choice. But if I do participate, you're gonna give me what I came. This is so revolutionary. I feel like this is revolutionary, like take the space, take the time. I'm sorry, you got me all excited. And they're they're I mean, they're businesses out here for you. You know, um, young mathematicians can't figure out what you want to do. You know, it's it's always great to see a black woman or a black man teaching mathematics. That is wonderful. It's exciting for our children. If if that is something that you enjoy doing, there is a business out here for you. Speak up, show you, show your face, let them know what you can do so that our parents can hire you and you can bless children. Math. It's one thing at a time, Just one thing at a time. Math the soul subject that is white supremacist resistant math. Hm hm hm. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought I was that new math. Do how they come up with that? Oh? You right? I'm sorry, No, no, no, I don't know. I mean I don't know. The one thing I will say is that there was a documentary that just came out, I don't know the name of it that talked about how you know, technology hasn't has biased, has racial biased, and technology and science was a thing that at one point people thought that that was, you know, impervious to racism. But we found out it is not down to Google face recognition, down to trying to put your hands in the automatic water that when you go to the same and the sensor doesn't the sensor doesn't pick up black. I'm tired. Why, I mean, why why? I love being black? It's fine, It's fine. At this point, I feel like I'm like, it's like you are information, honey, you are we need this. Yes, I feel like it's always the bearer of the Why why do you think you had a part? You are keeping them on down? Come on what I'm every day? I mean, it was it was a black woman who Yeah, I want to say it was a black woman who discovered this. I'm gonna get all my all my fact straight. But I do know that there was a time when we thought technology was the one kind of you know, neutral space, and it turns out that it's not so. If technology is not, the math is mine because at the end of the day, you need mad for that. So you know algorithms, that's math. Math. Oh God, I oh white supremacy. It's the history. If you don't know it, you cannot create a new thing. You have to know what the old thing was. We don't even know what the old thing. How you something new if you know the old thing. I gotta know the old thing. That's that's got to know the old thing. Got to know the old thing. I feel optimistic though, I still I'm still optimistic. And the reason why why I am is because I know that some of the greatest minds to ever think thoughts worked on these things, wrote about these things. Philo sufficed about these things, and they tried hard and they got us to this point. We're just not maybe gonna see the end of the road in our generation, but we will be able to put down a part of the pavement. And I feel like for us, our job is to make sure our part of the pavement is smooth without cracks and it's laid baby. So I think there's a part of this that I accept for myself, and I understand that it is big. But it's not my job to attack the whole of it. It's my job to do my part to make sure that my piece, my part of this road is paid properly, and that I said the things that I did, the things I should I should have done based on what I knew, and I tried to know as much as I could only get something that freund I was like, that was a free sound. I feel like you should wrestle now. I feel like you should. You should put on a little outfit and with a mask, and you should jump off the top row. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like body, Yeah, you need to growl and somebody hard. Yeah, I love that. That might be my birthday photo for this year, yo, my wrestling outfit. Yeah. Look, this thing here is a journey. It's a journey. And if you you managed to have some children, then you gotta do the work. You have to do some research and out and pay attention to your kids's best for them, what really suits them. The information about who we are and um and what we've done is more parent than ever ever before. So the information is there for you to share and get great pride to your children and self worth and self esteem. It's there for you, it's there for them. So we gotta do our part. We gotta do our work with the children saying, man, how do you eat it out? One bite at the time. We need to get the kids to do that. Dot Coming up next on the show, What's on Your Heart, an occasional segment where we're check in with people we respect about how they're really feeling. How do y'all? I think that's somebody calling. That must mean it's time for What's on your Heart. We'll look at here and look at here. Somebody has stopped by to talk to us. Let's see who it is. Introduction. Oh, yes, indeed, yes, indeed, today we have doctor Joshua and Myers. He is an associate professor of kind of Studies in the Department African American Studies at Howard University. Dollar He's also the author of We Are Worth Fighting for a history of Howard University student protests in nineteen eighty nine. We will not discuss how we all were in eighty nine. Certainly we were old enough to be protesting, but we're still gonna keep it a sacred anyway. He is currently working on a book about Cedric Robinson, the time called the Time of the Black Radical Tradition, as well as the editor of A Gathering Together, which is a literary journal, and uh, you know, we're just gonna talk. Also too, I've gotten the sneakers to his class, and he's freaking brilliant, and I'm just hyped. These are the mystery class says that I make everybody schedule my life around. Wow, you're so dope. Thank you. So I'm like super hype that he's here with us, because, like I said, I just I firmly believe now that old people should go to school, like there should be free school for old people, because when you get this age, you want to learn it. When you're young, you're whack. You don't even know what's in front of you. Sometimes I listen to the kids in your class and I'm like, huh, I'm grateful, little book. Okay that way. The bottom line is, it's been a pleasure. So welcome, welcome, welcome, Dr Mars. How you doing. I'm doing great, And it's been a It's an absolute pleasure and honor to be in conversation and in digital community with you all. And so yeah, I'm just happy to be here. So we have one question. Could it could take a lot of turns, because that's what happens when we ask questions. Dr Myers, what's on your heart? Wow, what's on my heart? It's a beautiful formulation really if you think about it, it's connected to the various ways that we make sense of our reality. What's on the heart is usually was also on the mind, right, And if you think with many traditions, including the ancient humility Egyptian, there was a single word for the heart in the mind. And so you all are right on it with this question. And I think for me, you know there's a sister right in Philadelphia where you are, who our teach us at tan Cofa Charter Academy. She's the founder of tan Cofa's Charter Academy, and she says, the hardest thing to be is to be in community with yourself. And sometimes I can take you to different places, whether it be sad or painful, And especially when all of our forms of intimacy are reduced to the digital. And so I've been thinking about how we should care for each other in these times, and especially admit the conditions that led to alight selation. We have to figure out forms of care that look different. I don't know if I'm ever going to get another chance to say this to you, Jail, to you Asia, that the music that you all have created is only possible if you all had loved us, right. This is this is a production art, right, It's something that comes out of a deep love for for us. And so folks have to understand that that there's a tradition of doing that. There's a tradition of of care as artistic reduction. And in the society, as Richard Eishem talks about, where black people are supposed to be undeserving or incapable of love, Creating art that speaks about black people loving each other is this perverse of act. It is this subverse of gift. And so love has a sound. And you know, we've been showing each other the power of this subversive gift for a very long time. And I'm happy to be in conversation and community people that extend that tradition. It's a tradition that I know has sustained me and sustain the communities that I represent, and it's going to sustain us for a very long time. So thank you. A oh my goodness, how does the heart clap? How does the heart clap? How does the heart snap? Because I thought y'all felt that. I thought y'all felt that to the core. I mean honestly though, Dr Meyers. My vibe with you is I love the way that you approach how you teach in terms of making sure that music and art is available to connect to the study of how we behave and how we do things. Before class were always playing music, and I've discovered artists that I had no idea even existed, Like I felt like being taught by you in multiple ways, and then based on what I do, I'm thinking, I don't even know who this is, but just this why range are the ways that we communicy case And I just appreciate that so much because that link is not always made. And you know, I just love you to kind of speak to how we can learn about ourselves because I think we just have this very narrow view of that, you know, especially during this time, and God bless all the folks that post the facts and the blurbs and the things and that, and I think that's awesome because I have learned things that way. I will not even front but I just want you to speak to the many ways that we can teach each other about each other. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's it's a story, right, And so our deepest registers of human knowing that come out of who we were before the experiences of enslavement were generated around questions of identity that were often perpetuated through storytelling, right, And so that's something that enslavement could not disrupt. And so it is not an accident that the first forms of intellectual production once we're wearing, after we were enslaves, were the spirituals, were the work songs, were the the stories that literally passed down mouth to here. And in that sense, I then as a professor, have to figure out a way to tap into that in order to do the work that was given to me. And so I can't like music. You know, there's there's no separation between you know, body and so hard in mind, right, and so music can't just be in the ether of you know it kind of industry or art world that sort of renders it as this thing over there and then make a hard separation between knowledge. That's not what we've been about. And so it's not you know, as you know right, music becomes a teaching tool because it's part of the thing that's being taught. It's not just something that's grabbing your attention, it's literally the thing, right. And so the music that we made, the art that we create, then become necessary parts of the stories we tell about ourselves. And let's be very clear, music is going other forms because that could not be colonized, right, The the thing that makes it what it is, right, can't be colonized. They can try to buy and sell it, right, but they can't appropriate the actual essence of it, which is why we keep moving when every time they try to take it away from us, we create something different, right, And so that thing is ultimately what I'm trying to convey to our students. And you know, sometimes I play stuff that they would be familiar with and and recognize, and other times I play stuff that they don't even know or even consider, because we've always been so complex and sold that first in the various ways we answer this basic question of who we are right, the very identities that then come out of all parts of the Africana I asked for which converge on that on that singular question, you know, who are we dr marks. I just really want to have you speak to this other thing about how we deal with not deal with how we communicate with the young, because one of the things that observed in your class is that you have this way of making everyone feel like that their voice is worthy, that what they have to say is relevant, and that you know, what they have to bring to the conversation is like you're it. The energy that you give is so welcoming in that space, and I know that it's intentional. So I just kind of wanted you to speak to that because I feel like we can all use some help with that. Yeah, I would. I would say that style was was was was the style that was given to me too, and so I was I was brought up in that style. Um, you know, I come from a family that were largely educators. I didn't think I was going to end up being one, but you know, ancestors have a plan, right, But when I got to college, he was the same thing, right, and so you know equal There is a concept I'm called say by coming from again another Middle Egyptian term, where it basically speaks to the idea of being in the process of teaching and learning right. The person in charge was called to say by but that that term means instructions, and it also means that learning and teaching happened at the same time. I can't have the relationship to a student that makes me a kind of authority without recognizing the fact that students are also authorities of particular things. And so, you know, taking that approach allows me to open up the way for them to give things to me, right, and so there's a reciprocal There is a giving so that I can give back and that helps me. It helps them feel as if this is an actual circle, right, as opposed to being a you know, you know how lecture halls I set up. You have the person and the friend, and then you have the audience and almost sometimes you have a raised platform. That's never been how African people may may meaning right. We've always used circles. They're always in circles. We're always moving around, right, And so that also is the case in terms of how you organize. I'm teaching right, and so if you look at a circle, everybody has an equal parts of right. And so I come with with probably a little bit more age, a little bit more books read, but they have things to write, I don't listen to all the users that they listen to. I don't know all the experiences that they have. And so we have something, you know, coming from my my teacher, Grant car called presence, and in fact, he developed these with the Philadelphia Freedom Schools and he says, there's there's such a thing called horizontal presence and vertical presence. Horizontal presence is what you brain as an individual your experiences, and vertical presence is what you bring as being part of a community. And so the beautiful thing about Howard is you have black people from all across the world. Nobody can be an expert of all those experiences. So students have to be the teachers and the students at the same time because this is a collective journey. So that beautiful. You made that sound so easy. I was like, drs, can you remember a conversation where that was a little bit more challenging than you had planned? Yeah, I mean we all have challenges and we and we fail a lot at this, right because you're doing something that you know goes against every form of academic training, right, And that's what black studies is about. Being in African American studies is you have to reject a lot of those forms of training, and so it's always a work in progress. And so part of what I have to do, you know, when people don't buy into it, you have to try to try to reach them in with these that you you know, sometimes it's just that it's sometimes a struggle, and so it doesn't always work. Right. If it worked all the time, we would be free. Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, you know, depending on what the challenge was, somebody didn't read or somebody didn't you know, do the worth that they were supposed to do. I usually take it as my failure, even though I know that students have responsibility. But by making my failure, you know, I never get comfortable with you know, thinking that I'm the best teacher, or thinking and I'm the greatest actists. And so it allows me to rethink. Right, I've been rethinking my whole career as a teacher. Two years ago, I stopped grading at all, right, and so my students they don't receive any grades they all they only receive feedback. And so what that does is it removes the pressure that they feel in other classes to meet a certain number or to meet a certain category and it allows it opens the way for a different kind of learning. And so now I'm reading because I want to learn, as opposed to I'm reading because I want to make sure I passed this mid term. That's a different orientation altogether. And I had to adjust that, right because generation A Z they come differently, right, And so I got rid of grading and hopefully and it has I think opened up the way for students in a different environment, especially with COVID pandemic, even though I started doing this before the pandemic, but in environment where you know, they faced pressures that come from all areas, their parents, student loan companies, like all all these different things are happening, and I'm like, okay, for this one class, at least you ain't got to think about none of that. Just think about black people experience that sounds free, like free for freedom, and let me tell you are something. The kids sometimes it's such so much indoctrination that I've actually heard him give this speech in class and kids don't know how to even receive it. Don't even believe you, They don't even believe them. They're like, well, I'm treating they liked, You're not gonna give us no grades. And then sometimes you also hear the panic and students who are so used to their measure validation. Their validation is integrade, so they need to continue that that's feeling of validation, and it forces them to push back at this thing. Right. I'm so grateful for this conversation because my my son is just not with it. He is not with it. He has presented every argument there is on why school is anything that he sleeps, anything that he should have to do. He cannot grasp it. He said they may go in the school alone. He was like, you can't see that if they're teaching the same way to even teaching since the beginning of time. Mom, you can sit in a row. You don't see it. So I'm like, oh, how do I do? I do? I do? So this is this is perfect timing because it affirms this whole homeschooling business that I know that I can't do. But I got people all open country. I'm like, okay, hoy, I need you to teach my son English. Holy I need you to teach my sons science. I'm like, I got I got resources, So yeah, why you have resources? Though? My question that Dr Marier's in relation to what you said, though, is for a parent who's not Jill, whose child comes to them in that same way that jill Son came to Jack came up to her, what do you say to that, Because at some point you do want them to be maybe in a in a child in a school's facility. It's COVID now, so it's easy to have these kind of you know what I mean. But yeah, I mean, so there's a lot, right, So black educators have done a lot of work on all of these different strengths. Right. There's a black homeschooling like community, um that's been doing this for generations. There's also black independent school tradition, right that comes out of really the Civil War. If you're really gonna lempting this because um, you know, the reason that it's a law in many parts of the United States of America for for schooling is because black people wanted it to be a law. Right. When you read Black Reconstruction in America by W. GiB Two Boys, he talks about the founding of the public school, it is because black people wanted literacy. And you have black politicians who are forcing this into these constitutions, These new constitutions after the Civil War because they know that literacy is going to help them make is going to help make their freedom meaningful. And so the black colleges come out of black you know people, black churches, and so you have that now, that being right, So that being said, sorry I was wrong about the hoard. Sorry, well, how are more I spellman um founded by liberal whites? But you do have yeah, yeah, the church schools, Morris Brown and others will perforce um. Yeah. So that that's important even when you want more spelling. The white didn't realize that you put black people in the same room, it's gonna be subversive just because of that. Right. It's so y'all have one plan and we have another plane we're doing. My book is about right, the different plans for black education in either case. The flip side of that is independence is difficult in terms of unfree in terms of the unfree society, and so we've had to make a choice. Yes, independent, independent, Trying to be independent is difficult in an unfree society. And so what the tension with the black independent education movement is what you do with the fact that the vast majority of our students might still be stuck in public schools, and so people like a sa Hiliar, one of the great thinkers on education, always talked about, you know, making sure that we have an impact and influence on the public school system. And so in anti Citty nowfer instances when Philadelphia students walk out of schools because of their lack of African American history and studies courses that you know, puss. It's sets a chain in motion where you begin to see folks demand black studies at the K through twelve level, and black studies becomes literally a holistic thing. It's not just you know, the study of history is to study of black existence. And so you look at a collection that that came out of Portland, Oregon. I think n the Portland baseline essays, they're talking about mathematics, they're talking about science, They're not just talking about questions of history. Because Black people have always been whole people's and so the idea then is that education should should be about our whole beings, and we have to develop curriculum, continue to develop curriculum to meet that. And when it comes to you know, our people, we have to do what other folks have done in terms are taking control of the public commons when it comes to the provision of an education, and that is an ongoing struggle. Cards you was on is one of the people that you know where each that fight. But you know, but it simply we pay taxes, don't we So hey, it's our common system and so our our students have to be careful in that way, and we we don't have to reinvent the wheel with this right look at the Ocean Hill Brownsville thing in Brooklyn in the nineteen sixties and come all the way forward. You know, we have we have models for what was called back then community controller schools. It doesn't have to be the state that controls the schools. We can control our schools. And that means people you know who have um children in those schools then confuel that it's a part of them, just as we have you know, churches and other community organizations that we feel are part of us. The school should be the same way. Did you here? I think I heard it briefly one of the states. I think it could have been Ohio. If if it's not Ohio, I apologize, but had opted out of Black History Month. Mhmm, yeah, I mean it's I mean, yeah, the the whole, the whole move that we see with the emergence, the re emergence, the continuing emergence of white nationalism is very much intertwined with the public education system, which is why we have to That's why Hilliard says, we can't neglect the public education system when it comes to our children. And so, yeah, I mean they're organized. You know, we have to be organized too. So basically the solution is prepared to be more involved in the children's education, in the system that they're partner. Yeah, my mama was. I guess I can't say nothing, it would help. I mean, I've always said I've always felt like that the your your neighborhood school, you opt out of that, you're leaving money on the table. You've already paid for it. And in a lot of especially in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the money for the school systems come from property taxes. So at the end of the day, even though that's an equitable the reality is that's where they get the money from it from you. And so you should be able to have some saying that, and that you should be able to you should mean what you should be willing to not leave that conversation for other people to have. M hm hm. We see how it's going. So this show is about education and resources and us taking a moment to come to our own conclusions with with a little loving guidance, no pressure. But this is this is what this is what it is. I hope we've given you something to think about. I know, Dr Meyers, you have given me so much to think about. Thank you so much for coming agent. I said it before, I'm gonna say it again. You don't grow. You're gonna make us dope. I don't work that. You're making us dope, book and smarter. I'm gonna found a new word for dope in a minute. Thanks. I I knew Dr Virus was gonna come in here like it already knew that, so I was just like I'm just gonna lay back wait for it to happen. I just already knew, you know, And I gotta say this, you know, while I have you in this forum that as a person who deeply I mean, these women know, it's my desire to understand who I am consistently at a deeper level. That's just what I want. And having the opportunity to do that has. I mean, it has burst me while I open and I'm like so full when I come out of that moment. And that's why I schedule it. That's why I'm I go, That's why I want to be there. I want to be present, and I just encourage everybody listening too be intentional about reading. There's something about this moment for me that has tied me back to text. And I know that because I have stacked books. I have stacked books next to my bed. They have been looking at me like, hell, what is your problem? Library girls got library shells full of books. Yes, but this opportunity has tied me back to the power of text, the power of our folks in being intentional about writing and leaving us pavers and you know, bread crumbs, and we have to take them. We cannot keep leaving that on the table. That is that's the one thing we're gonna have to really get. So that being said, since we are the show of resources and solutions, and I'm a baby and Asia's class while she's a baby in your class, which is all confusing because you'll got me rethinking everything that's been programmed, every program But anyway, can you doctor write you ChIL. Can you Dr Myers give us maybe three resources for the simple black person who is just frustrated, yes, and things they know, but we have no idea. You know. It's funny. When those anti racist booklets were coming out, somebody asked me to do one, and I completely made it about black studies rather than anti racist studies. So um, yeah, yeah. But in either case, there are some books on there that I would definitely recommend it, and so it's called it's a it's a study so list called Black study in the Time of Trouble that you should be able to if you look at my website or just google that title in my name, you should come up. But one book that's not on there that I would add, um, you know, just being in a room of creators and people who are connected to that tradition. There's a book by I equally A. R MA I E. First name A y I, middle name k W E I, last name A R M A h I equally RMA who's a very important neo novelist. But he has a book of nonfiction called The Eloquence of the Scribes, The Eloquence of the Scribes, and it speaks to the importance of the creative word in the history of people of African descent and what you can do with the power of that creative word. Well, we thank you so much for coming. Yes it ours really are, Thank you so much. Thank you handclaps, Yes, yes would be How do you eat an elephant? One by? It time? What's up everyone, It's producer Eves Dr Myers just dropped a bunch of resources. I'll add those the episode description along with a link to Coded Bias, the document to you that Agel was talking about. It's about artificial intelligence and facial recognition software. Enjoy Bolowini's role in uncovering and pushing back against bias and algorithms. Oh, and the ladies mentioned the episodes We Can Create Our Own Holidays and Seeing the Humanity of Our Mother's featuring Dr Johnson Dias. Go back and listen to those episodes if you haven't already until next week, y'all, Hi, if you have comments on something you said in this episode called eight six six, Hey Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six four three nine five four five by don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents J dot ill the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Layah st Clair, and Aga Graden Danceler. Its executive producers are Jill Scott, Seawan g and Brian Calhoun. Is produced by Layah st Clair and me Eve Jeff Cope. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Larenger. J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.