Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 49 | The Hannah-Jones Reckoning
Transcript
- Charles Cole: Welcome to Color Commentary, a podcast where the stories shaping our world are told in black and white first. Then we dig into the deeper meaning in full color. Each week I'll be bringing you the news like this. First, we'll start with what I like to call the black and white section, which is a clear, straight shooting rundown of the facts and the traditions of Grace like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section where I have my own personal opinions and insights. Sometimes it'll just be me. Sometimes we'll have guests. ⁓ but it'll always be fun. ⁓ I'm a scholar, I'm a hip-hop junkie, a movie, and a culture nerd, and an avid book reader. So, you know, in these shows you get glimpses of all that. Give my full self, man. So with no further ado, let's get into it. Now, for today's episode, it's gonna be a little different. You know, instead of me just talking at you the whole time, I asked my director Tommy to come in and sit across from me and He's gonna put me in the hot seat. And basically there's been a lot. ⁓ this Nicole Hannah Jones article has, you know, put a lot of gas ⁓ in in the vehicles of education journalism. And she's the biggest education writer in the country, in my opinion. And, you know, she's pumped some lifeblood into the education zeitgeist. And there are conversations that are happening. And I've, you know. Done a few different things, but been getting a lot of questions and from a lot of different places. So we're taking an amalgamation of some of those questions that I've gotten in other mediums, ⁓ along with some of Tommy's own questions, maybe about my take or thoughts on this entire topic of segregation and education and quality and racism. It's a it's a lot of things in there. So we're gonna have fun with it. ⁓ to be clear, I've I've written about this, I've talked about it on this show. ⁓ A Black Hands came back together on Freedom Friday, which is also on the same network. ⁓ and I've written about it in my Substack. In addition to we hosted our second salon for the Agentic Institute, and the article came out right before that happened. And so even on stage with ⁓ these incredible national leaders of Kareem Weaver and Debbie Vinnie, we also talked about it there. And so there was a lot of different Vibes I caught from that, there was a lot of different responses and reactions. That's all over the map. And I just think it's an important discourse. So we're gonna milk it one more time. But before we get to that, ⁓ I want to give you a recap so we're all on the same page. And then Tommy'll take over and we'll get into it. Does it sound good? All right. Well, so that's what we're gonna do first. All right, we're gonna Recap this conversation, catch you all up in the black and white section, and then you guys, ⁓ we will have a quick break, and then Tommy will be joining us through the magic of the internet. It's great, it's great things, right? All right. So with that being said, here's the recap in black and white. See, that it's supposed to, right when I do that, then it goes black and white. I like to feel like I have some type of power in my personal life somewhere. Anyway, 10 years ago, in 2016, Nicole Hannah Jones wrote an essay in the New York Times magazine ⁓ called Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City. So she and her husband, both products of integrated schools, made a deliberate choice to enroll their daughter in a segregated, high poverty. mostly black school in Brooklyn as an act of solidarity. ⁓ and also the the school wasn't like super poor either, if if it was even poor at all, if you go back and read the article, but let me stay focused. ⁓ her h argument was that when families and resources flee, ⁓ they're a big part of why those schools stay separate and unequal. And her kindergarten age daughter ⁓ was on the cover at that time and the piece moved a lot of parents to think Differently about where they sent their kids. ⁓ Nicole Hannah Jones is an excellent writer and she's very persuasive. And it was a very, very popular article. On Sept September 20th of this year, she published a follow-up. And the title is a question: In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did She Betray Her Own? It's a 10-year reckoning, and at times it can be a hard read. She lays out how her daughter earned good grades for years without actually being taught and how she pulled A's and algebra and then failed the state exam and how in the end Hannah Jones let her daughter choose her own high school. ⁓ her daughter chose a selective, mostly white screen school, the exact kind of school that her mother has spent a career criticizing. And Hannah Jones writes that she is left with a little bit of regret. The piece ⁓ did not just get read, it set off a fight. And within days, ⁓ parent choice advocates and Education reform voices claimed it is vindication. The Cato Institute, Reason, Fox News, and others argued that her own story proves the case for letting parents choose. A writer at the National Desk said the essay reignited the whole fight over school choice and academic standards. On the other side, defenders pushed back on the idea that she was a hypocrite, including the piece in Salon, arguing that wanting the best school for your own kid does not make you one. Right? Like so. It just got, you know, the sharpest criticism aside the black community as well. Black writers engaged it hard. ⁓ some agreed and some were critical. And Hannah Jones herself told the grill that she was not prepared for the backlash ⁓ she got from school folks in particular. And it spilled past the internet, right? Like a board in school pulled a scheduled speech from her over fears of the backlash. ⁓ I jumped in the fray as well with a piece called Read Out Loud Day, where I tied her story to the great inflation numbers, ⁓ and to something that I keep coming back to. And that's the safety net that most kids ⁓ don't have. And you know, that's that's pretty much what happened. And I I also wanna lay this out in the black and white section. While I did have criticisms and do have criticisms of of of Miss ⁓ Hannah Koja of ⁓ Miss Hannah Jones. Always do that. I'm sorry, Miss Nicole. I'll be flipping the names, I'm sorry. But, you know, I wanted to remain respectful. I my criticism is not that of Cato and Fox News. ⁓ there are right wing pundits and people that just want to dunk on her because they just don't like her and never have. ⁓ and you know, I'm I'm not a part of that group. I think Nicole Hanna Jones is brilliant. I want her to continue to win awards, which I think she will. I think this is gonna get her a pulser. ⁓ I I I and and I also know that her she's gonna be okay and her family's gonna be okay. ⁓ my criticism was that of not just ideology, but the realities of ideology and just what's at stake when people, you know, make those choices. And that it's a little easier, not easy at all. But a little easier for ⁓ Nicole Henna Jones to make those arguments because her and her husband do have safety nets, and they they will be able to spare their child from a a a lot of what can happen if they did not have them. And a lot of people that read her and that follow her did not. And so, but I also don't think she was a hypocrite. I think she put her money where her mouth was. You know? ⁓ now, being that. She and her husband didn't have to attend those type of schools, right? I could see her daughter being a little more annoyed and upset at it. But I also think that that family has ⁓ more than enough resources and money to go to therapy and work that out. And I actually think this all this would bring them much closer as a family. And she might have put this young girl on a trajectory to to surpass her mother in journalism. I have no idea, right? None at all. But with that being said, this is the black and white section. And on the other end, back in color. We're gonna have Tommy and we're gonna have a discussion. ⁓ I've I've looked at the questions, I helped craft some of them and organize them, but I did not study them. and it's gonna kind of come out as a combo. So hope you're willing to go down the ride with us. All right, see you on the other side. Peace. Welcome back to Color Commentary. I'm your producer, Tommy, here with the Dr. Charles Cole III to talk through last week's episode. Charles, when you read the piece, what was the first thing you felt before the analysts in you kicked in? ⁓ there was a few things. One, I just the first thought was Nicole Hannah-Jones really is the education reporter of our time. Like she just really is like they're like, nah, we're gonna put you back in New York Times magazine so you can have as big of a spread as you want. I I didn't think I I she's the type of writer that doesn't get a word count. ⁓ she can do whatever she wants and ⁓ when she decides to write, it moves things. So that was one. And then two was a little bit of retribution because ⁓ N Nicole Hannah Jones has also been very critical of people that exercise parent choice. ⁓ And and has been a very big voice and and maybe even not as much as her, but a lot of people that follow her. ⁓ and it just reminded me of me being in this struggle with parents for over a decade. and I remember when the original piece came out, I remember people quoting it to parents that I was working with who were trying to make the best decisions for their kids. ⁓ so there was a bit of vindication and and a bit of like, ⁓ I guess she had to kind of humble herself a little bit to write this. Those are my initial thoughts. And then I started to see commentary. And there were some people that, in their attempts to like support her, would kind of still continue talking down to other people, especially black people that are making these tough choices and don't and don't take these choices simply and easily. ⁓ so then it sparked me to give the opposite view of families. That don't have those type of resources at their at their beck and call when needed and and the real, you know, consequences that they may end up paying. ⁓ and some of those were very personal for me. Like I've written a book about it where I talk about three three students that were successful and use three pseudonyms of real people from my life that grew up very similar and were not. ⁓ and one of the things that all three of those kids had. those pseudonyms where it didn't work out well was that, you know, they they could barely read. They weren't proficient. They weren't getting what they needed from school and they and they got that stuff in other places. And there was no net to capture them, to to save them. And and it wasn't me trying to draw this super dramatic thing. It was a real life thing though. And I wanted I wanted the piece to move from this theoretical, heady, like thought experiment space. To like what actually can happen. And all of that, Tommy, in this very verbose answer, but all of that while acknowledging, I agree with the sentiment that when you have more and you're blessed with more, you can be in a position to do more. ⁓ I'm not, I I commend her for actually, you know, trying to to kind of she really believed in this thing and she did it and she she was the social scientist in the moment, right? Like But that it was a theory. It was a it was a framework. ⁓ and there's fallout from frameworks and theories. Now that do it doesn't mean that she was moving in wrong direction and and that her heart was in the right or wrong place. But I felt like it was my job to enter this conversation with nuance, honesty, sincerity, and also respect for who she is, but also a deeper reflection and appreciation from where I come from and the people that I tend to help and know and love and what they had to deal with. For sure. And I remarked to you after the recording that was your most fiery episode. You seemed even more passionate about that than anything we've recorded yet. why do you think it hit differently with you? So much of an education writing comes and goes. Why did it hit differently with you? Why is Ed World talking so much about it? Why were the eight black hands guys fired up about this one in particular, do you think? Man, it hit me in a lot of different ways because I grew up in you know, on the other side of that system, right? I went to a double digit number of elementary schools across the country. I I early on I saw the difference in education quality and what happens, even though I might not have had the words in the moment. ⁓ and then I dedicated my life to education and first as a social worker and then, you know, to help in my larger community, working in the s same school district that I grew up in in Oakland and and dealing with the issues there. And I I always told the truth there. ⁓ I've always believed in self-determination. And while I do know this is a systemic issue and it's gonna constantly be a systemic issue, that it's not going away anytime soon. Poverty's not ending tomorrow. The isms are not ending tomorrow. So what I've always done is train parents to fight and train communities to, you know, fight back and and what does that mean? Right. So it hit f it it it was. It was very personal for me though, and I I gave a little bit as an answer just now. Like, I've lost real friends. Like, real people have like died. ⁓ there's real consequences to this stuff. And it to and to getting it right. And and it's hard to be very critical of a mom who's making a different decision for herself and her family, especially when she's lost two boys, one to the system and one to death, and she got her third boy coming up. And she's gonna do something different that might not jive with what everybody else thinks they should do. ⁓ and I they these people are the only people that gotta deal with the consequence. They she's the one that gotta bury, they have to bury those kids or go visit that child in the system, in the system system, right? ⁓ my only thing was just seeing that humanity, and I actually don't have strong opinions about any decision somebody makes because I don't run their household. I don't know their family. I don't know what they're dealing with. The only time I have an issue with the decisions people make is when they completely shit on parent choice, but they're actively exercising parent choice the entire time. They actively shit on or rightfully bring up the racist history behind standardized tests, and maybe this ain't it, but then they make those same privileged choices by what? Looking at those tests. Looking at the that proficiency rate that they talk shit about, and even in this story, the daughter, which again, I'm never gonna disrespect her daughter, her husband, or her. So that's an innocent child. But that's what she pointed out. Like I looked up how our school did. It did poorly. And then this tutor reaffirmed how poorly it was by pointing out that she was lacking basic math knowledge that she should have gotten elementary school, even though she's gotten all these A's. So that's why. And I've been talking about this shit for I don't know how long, Tommy, since we started the show, since before years. How many reports have I done about, you know, people call it great inflation? We actually call it great illusion because it's it's more nuanced than inflation. Illusion because these are kids that fit these, ⁓ these anti-DEI people that's like, ⁓ these black kids or these brown kids are these poor kids, we're giving them breaks. They don't want to do better when these are kids that. Absolutely wanted to do better they took pride, Tommy, in not just doing well, but being the best. Like when we were doing this study in Oakland, they wanted to be compared to their peers and they wanted to see how they did across the state and across the country. And then when they got back to them, that outside instead of eight out of ten of being proficient, three out of ten were, they were pissed because they felt like a opportunity was taken from them and they they wanted the work. They wanted the rigor. ⁓ and I've been yelling this, but I'm not a New York Times, you know, reporter, right? I don't I don't have that that type of reach. I don't have that type of clout and I don't have the lyrical dexterity and thoughtfulness that maybe a Nicole Hannah Jones has to get that off. So maybe I took this as a moment the same way a lot of other people took it as a moment and hopefully the nuance of it comes through. Sure. I don't know if this is true, but I'm pretty sure this is true that Jonas Sauk, the creator of the polio vaccine, tested the vaccine on his own kids. And ⁓ to great result in that they were inoculated from polio. And various other heroes of ⁓ epidemiology have tried ⁓ vaccines and stuff on themselves and it worked. In this case, ⁓ this author tried a ⁓ education experiment on her daughter and it seemed to have failed. She calls it a betrayal. Her daughter, the most quoted moment is her daughter saying she never got the education she wanted. What do you think about all this? I agree. And I don't think she intentionally did it. I think she had great intentions. ⁓ but you you have to take into account that neither her nor her husband went to those type of schools. They went to some of the best schools, you know, these these integrated schools, these schools that have access. and on some level they put their daughter more through the ringer than what they went through. ⁓ And I think that there was a little bit of arrogance and hubris on her part, not her husband, because he didn't want to, ⁓ where she thought that her money and access and s and and social capital alone would fix it. ⁓ while also making a few mistakes around how involved she actually still needed to be despite ⁓ the resources she was trying to put into the school. So I I I think it's actually quite fair. I think they're gonna be fine. I think her daughter will be able to understand why she did it. I think her daughter will, you know, understand that she was trying to do something good. but yeah, a sixteen-year-old should be a little pissed off about that. What what do you think the goal was? Do you think it was a good article? Do you think it was to I don't know, prove to people that it's possible to get someone a good education in these kinds of schools? What what what was the goal? I think the goal I th one, I think was a great article. Because it's a ten year like almost ethnographic like like testimonial essay, ⁓ where you're getting a real, real time ⁓ results in a social experiment over like l like a longitudinal study almost. You know what I'm saying? Like and and that this is what she published, right? I'm thinking the things that she probably didn't say. ⁓ and and and I don't know if you noticed Tommy, but she actually had another version of this that went a lot softer on herself and her daughter read and her daughter was the one that said, No, you gotta go harder on yourself than that. So ⁓ really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was I think it was I think there was a lot to be learned here. I also think like I think about most things in media these days, Tommy, ⁓ that it was a Rorschat painting and that many people are going to pull from it what they kinda want to pull from it. But I feel like there was a lot to be learned that one of the most staunch ⁓ supporters or not supporters of parent choice, who actually had to exercise it, ⁓ looked at that and and and had to apologize for hubris. ⁓ And she had to acknowledge that she's getting she's getting it from black people right now, which is not a it's impacting her in some ways, but she also admitted that she kind of deserved it because she didn't give a lot of those same black parents ⁓ grace in the decisions that they made. So I think it was I give her huge kudos for writing it. I think she's gonna earn all those awards. And now her daughter just she just interviewed her daughter or they interviewed each other on This American life this past weekend. So I'm s I'm in the middle of that. I haven't finished it yet. But they're both about to turn us into a moment. They're gonna be fine. So ⁓ it's gonna do what it needs to do. ⁓ give me so I guess I'm sort of working around this, but give me the strongest version of her position that you that you still disagree with. Steel man her argument. ⁓ I I think I think that it is my thing is the sentiment, ⁓ By which she has disdain for parents that are in these situations and making different choices than what she would have made. and I think that she's still, you know, she's still firmly on her side. And I think she's now trying to clean it up a little bit and still to still make these larger cases against parent choice. ⁓ but I think it's moot because in the end of the day, she exercised it. She used it. So when you have to live in these dichotomies when you have to live in like, you know, like it it doesn't every everything in life doesn't play out as cleanly as it may on the page or in a podcast. Yeah. And that is the biggest piece. ⁓ I only have that's the only thing I have an issue with. Charles, I feel like I'm not quite figuring out how to ask you about your position on parents and choice. Can you speak to that without a real question? Yeah, absolutely. I I mean here's what my belief is. I actually am not a zealot of traditional public schools, charter public schools, private schools. I I don't I don't love any type of schooling, any system of schooling. I don't love it at all. What I love is people and our people. And I want them, and then when I say our people, I mean black people, poor people, whatever, but everybody, right? Like everybody needs education, but I focus on what I focus on. And so in that I believe that black parents deserve dignity and with dignity comes, self-determination. And they get to make decisions, right? Like the same, you know, I as a in in when I was in grade school, I was on a bus for an hour by myself with my sibling, training bus to get to school, because that's the decision that my my my my parents made based off of the circumstances we were in. And and I just don't think that this level of paternalism of being like, I get to pick where you go to school, but for myself, I get to have different options 'cause I have money. I I don't rock with that. I I think parents just want and deserve the same level of agency and choice that wealthy parents like ⁓ Nicole Hannah Jones gets to enjoy. And I want them to be able to do it without having to feel guilty about it or being fif or being made to feel like they're stealing from a system or that ⁓ that their whole ⁓ entire local school system is failing because they made a choice. ⁓ I think that that's an incredible amount of pressure to put on a poor struggling people that want the best for their kids. And we haven't even taken into account what their own schooling and upbringing may have been. That that that's that's where I land on a lot of this stuff. I'm missing some of the broader context. I apologize. But can you explain to me how her choice, her her article flies in the face of school choice? Isn't she making a school Isn't she making the choice by putting her daughter in the school? Yeah, she's exercising school choice, but what she believes in is she believes that, ⁓ in large part and and and and I know she's not gonna see this, Miss Nicole. I might, if I get something wrong, blame my head and not my heart. But she is somebody who's ⁓ personally not a choice advocate. She believes in in community schools. and she thinks choice ⁓ hurts traditional public schools and that it takes resources from those schools. ⁓ and if people with means and money just made different decisions like she did and mixed that money and class and privilege into some of those tr you know, quote unquote failing schools, that that's the way to to kind of do this as opposed To being allowed ⁓ you know, ⁓ to to to to pick a school on the other side of town. She she's not a proponent of it. I what I mean, isn't it sort of a collection ac collective action problem? Wouldn't a thousand Nicole Hannah Joneses, a hundred Nicole Hannah Joneses and their children, have a better chance of affecting the culture and prospects of a school than a single one? Well, yeah, theoretically, yeah. Absolutely. Right? And and it but it starts with one. Like again, I get Where she's coming from. Like, I don't, like somebody, it, you know, look, the path on a hundred of a hundred miles starts with one step, right? Like, so, you know, her putting her money or a kid where her mouth is, like I said, like I think it's valiant. ⁓ and I think I do think that it actually made her grow some humility on this, on the situation, right? But I I think that she still believes what she believes. Like I said, I don't, I have no problem with her, like. Doing this experiment and trying and and I think she really believed in it, right? I think she really thought that it would be different and go differently. I mean, when you read the piece, like there are moments where she's like crying, you know what I'm saying? And like, yo, do we keep up this experiment or do we give in? And eventually she gave in. And I and I and I would hope that that experience right there, I I I don't I'm not even hope. I I've heard her say it. I think that that changed her in that way. And I think that even though she has these still these strong Collectivism beliefs. And I share in a lot of those beliefs, Tommy. Like I share in like there's something we we have to save our schools, right? Nobody else is gonna necessarily do it. But in the meantime, I can't be mad if somebody's making a different choice than than what I might have wanted them to make. So I just hope that like the bashing of parents that make different choices stops, right? Or like I've just and I've seen that in person. I don't want to project that onto Nicole Hannah Jones, even if some of the people that were doing it were zealots of hers. Does that make sense? Her her original article, Tommy, gave a lot of gas to a lot of people. And a lot of those people were black, a lot of those people were white. A lot of those people were very, very liberal people, ⁓ whose kids were in different types of schools, right? But they still had the moniker of being traditional public schools, but they were the the blue-ribbon traditional public schools. Whereas the kids in West Oakland were not gonna get access to that school. ⁓ and and if they did, that same lady who who was shaming these other black parents for Making other choices, whether it be charter or private school or homeschooling, they would be in a uproar and a tizzy if they kid ended up bussing to to to their kid's school. So I and I've seen these things play out in real time. Well, you're being critical. That's what you're getting. Yeah. You're being critical but respectful. You're giving her a lot of grace. ⁓ but the author told the Grio she was not prepared for the backlash from black communities. Were you surprised that she was surprised? No. No. Because the other thing, and I said this on A Black Hands, where it's definitely a different crowd and and we, you know, we having our in the crib conversation with no filters, but I'm gonna articulate this better because of present company, right? Because I think it's important to get it right. These is rich black people problems, baby. Like, so it's different. She got a different level of she's breaded out. Like, they rich. Like, they rich, rich. And I'm not trying to count they bread. I don't know exactly how much they make. I know that they're probably easily millionaires. And again, I s I don't say that with disdain. Like, I hope that they double their bread. Like, be I like seeing successful black people. It does not bother me at all. And You still become a little detached from, you know, people that are making different types of decisions, ⁓ with different levels of money. And the people that she probably like the black people she knows, you know what I'm saying? Like, like she can her and Michael Harriet can call each other, right? They're a different type of black people. Dope black people, but different with different realities and different options. So, no, I'm not surprised that she may not be in tune. With ⁓ the decisions that somebody with far less money than her makes and far less access and far less social capital. I'm I'm not at all. That that was the that's the point of the criticism. Yeah. Let's move to your sub stack. You wrote that grit asks kids to carry the weight the system should be carrying, and then agency gives kids and families the tools to see what is happening and do something about it. Unpack that for us, Doctor. In this story, where do you see grit being demanded and agency being denied? Did this child not have to shoulder the the the the larger weights of the decision that her mother made? It was the kid, right? The kid went to those elementary schools and the kid got those grades in middle school and didn't have a teacher and you know ⁓ thought that she was acing these classes just to find out that she wasn't and having to start over again and take tutoring and had to the the kid actually said I had to learn everything from my tutor. The kid then was got to choose our high school and then went to that that higher performance school where she thought she was gonna you know, she was on par and had to deal with that ridicule and deal with that, right? Is that is that not to the letter and to the T of what I've written about for ironically the past decade while this very child was going through it? True. Well, she was brutally honest that her kid was getting A's not actually learning. Your takeaway for parents is to verify real achievement, not just the grades and to choose without guilt. For a parent who does not have your training, what does verifying actually look like on a typical Tuesday night? Love it. I love this. And I wrote a book about it and it's free. So thank you for that. It's called The Agency Black Parent, but every race can use it. I quite ironically, one of the biggest groups that uses it almost more than black people, I think at one point it was more, is Asian families. ⁓ especially first and second generation Asian parents that are learning the public education school system. ⁓ It is asking knowing the questions to ask, right? Like what does proficiency look like? Where is my child fit? Are they behind? Are they pr on grade level or proficient? Are they at mastery? What does mastery look like? If they are proficient, how do they get to mastery? If they're below proficiency, how do they get to proficiency? And if they're at mastery, you know, how how can they help? Who can they tutor or or whatever the case is? It's asking ⁓ it's being very curious. It is having multiple touch points with your kids' teachers. ⁓ multiple times in a semester. which I built out a tracker for that. It is ⁓ you know, knowing some of the language and beats, right? Around like when you come in and ask a teacher if your kid is performing on grade level, if you don't hear back in a in a reasonable bound of time, let's say a week or two, or you don't see evidence of real assessments, then go down to the principal's office and and and you need to, this needs to become a larger conversation. Our young people actually suggested ⁓ adding proficiency directly to the report card to to which would kill some of this grade illusion. ⁓ like, you know, at some point a teacher or a system or an adult needs to explain how this kid has straight A's in all of these subjects, ⁓ but is under proficient under, under, under, under, under in proficiency in all of them. So there are a ton of things that a parent can do. And you have to comport yourself. You have to go on with a plan. And you can Google some of these questions whether you get my book or not. ⁓ but go and be focused on that. Record everything. and you gotta build that plan and you gotta be the quarterback of your kid's, you know, advocacy. For a parent listening who feels stuck between their values and their own kid, what would you actually tell them? ⁓ I well one, I would say if you if you ha you know. Have a have a conversation with your spouse. And if your kid is of age, have a conversation with your spouse and your kid, ⁓ or whoever your support group, your support system is, ⁓ and really try to envision the best future that you want for your child. We have this practice in the book where we do a visioning of 20 years in the future, and then we get very specific about the happiest vision, and then we cut that down to 10 years, and then five years, and then what needs to be true in two years, what needs to be true in a year, and so on and so forth till we get to next week. Well, we get to tomorrow. That's how we built out our plan. and ask that kid if they're old enough about their values, which Nicole Hannah Jones actually did, right? She ironically, she she eventually did most of the things that I wrote about that one should do in that book. ⁓ she just didn't start there. She she got there because she's a very smart ⁓ and capable woman, ⁓ with a very smart and capable husband, and they both love their very smart and capable daughter. So It's just some tools and ways to think about this stuff, right? Like, what is your line? You know, everybody has their line, like define it, have conversations. And then I don't really get into the wheeze of what those decisions might be, right? Because again, it's not my it's not my family and I don't have to live with the consequences, but I want them to have the tools. I don't want to ever tell people what to think, but I want to give ⁓ a process and a framework in which how to think. ⁓ okay. So that's it. You if you sat with a a parent. Now if you sat with The author herself, you could sat with Nicole Hannah Jones, not to debate, just to talk. What would the content of that conversation be? ⁓ well, I don't think that would ever happen. But ⁓ I think I mean one but one, I I would give her, you know, I think she deserves her flowers for who she is and what she's been able to do. And listen, let me also shoot her some bail. I have sharp criticism of like the thought process and what came out and how it came out. But I also understand her having a quick trigger finger, right? I I I absolutely ⁓ I get her. I get how she can group a group of people together. ⁓ because there are some white supremacist people that really do hate her, right? Like that anything she does, they watching and bird dogging her so they can dunk on her in different ways. ⁓ some people just hate her because they ain't her, you know. Some people, ⁓ Don't like that she's a very confident ⁓ woman in this space, black woman in this space, ⁓ or by ⁓ or gets benefit of biraciality or whatever. And like there's a lot of nuance and a lot of things coming her way that I don't even have to go through or understand. So I I I don't she's human, which is why the apology from was good enough for me. ⁓ but I would talk to her about her experience. I would talk to her about her takeaways and I would ultimately talk about talk to her about you know what she wants her legacy to be. And I don't know if that's a premature question. I think s you know, those that tend to make legacy are oftentimes too busy to think about legacy and they just live. Maybe that's the best way to go about it. But I would ask. I would ask, and I would ask what she'd want the next, the next side of her, her, her career to be. Like I would just be, I would be more curious. than anything. And I would ask, because I what I do think about her, and I could be wrong, because I like to debate too. Like I actually like it. I like disagreeing with people on some level. I used to debate in high school. I loved it as a sport, you know. ⁓ and I like it when it's done in good faith, when it's actually just good ideas against other good ideas and like where you land can be interesting and what you can learn. I and I feel like I actually feel like she has the power to help reestablish that on some level. ⁓ depending on how she handles some of this. She can't change a whole system by herself. ⁓ and I'm not gonna send her on the same fool's errand ⁓ that some might call it, you know, in the same way that she just had to go through this experiment with her kid, right? But I do think ⁓ I do think she can engage some some different voices and and create a more nuanced conversation that I think will serve the country ⁓ really well. ⁓ will serve it better than this binary. This false binary that I think that's kind of playing out right now. ⁓ and I don't think it's that's really helping us as a people. Okay, next, you got some feedback, maybe ⁓ in your DMs, some comments, positive, negative. Anyone you want to vaguely or specifically answer back to give some more context to, floor is yours. Yeah, man. Yeah, and this isn't Hannah Nicole Jones' words. This actually feedback wasn't directly on me, but I think ⁓ somebody put in our group text. ⁓ and it was a sister. ⁓ and she was just, she just started off wrong, bro. She just started off basically on some for all y'all too dense to who who are too obtuse or whatever who can't understand why she did this or her rationale. It's like, hold on, stop timeout. Timeout. ⁓ people that's doing that. where it's turning into a ⁓ an intellectual versus like or anti-intellectual conversation or that people can't grasp these concepts or, you know, and therefore they can't talk about it. I just think that that's I hated it. I hated it. And I think that it actually made people's vitriol towards Nicole worse. ⁓ I think some of her zealots made it worse on her ⁓ by by their own level of brashness. And ⁓ I would just say to those people, man, like there are people that's making these decisions. And these are not hypothetical, theoretical, you know, ⁓ like postdoc, you know, graduate conversations that's being had. Like these are choices that's peep that people are making that's going to impact lives, real lives, lives of humans that they created, that came out of them. That they're ultimately responsible for. ⁓ these are scared parents in many cases that are doing making the best decisions with the bet with with the information that they got and are scared to death that they're making the wrong decision. And these are parents that regardless of what decision they make, A or B, all of these decisions have consequences, right? All of these decisions have things you have to live with. ⁓ that that That is the feedback that I would give. I I I think nuance can't become extinct in 2026. And I think it's on the road and on the path to doing that. Everything is not just super cut and dry. And different decisions will be made by different people. And those may both be the right decisions for those people. I never have a judgment for somebody that's choosing the school in their neighborhood. The same way I'm not judging somebody choosing the the the the this better school or this charter school or or this school that they think is better or going into homeschooling. People parents don't come by these decisions easily. I don't think it's easy for any parent to have three kids and all of similar age and three of those kids and all three of those kids go to different types of schools. I think that's a very intentional parent ⁓ who just created a very difficult scheduling and execution ⁓ you know, requirements for their household, right? They're not, they're not, they're not making their lives more complicated for no reason. So I I just think we got to have a little bit of grace for the humane and for the humanity of people. So that was the biggest one that touched me. I think a lot of answers I gave earlier kind of addressed both the commentary I got, both positive and negative. I think some people thought that I was conflating ⁓ some real life things that are very more system centric and heavy, ⁓ that should not get splattered on to this Nicole Hannah Jones conversation, which I disagree with. I think that those decisions lead to real, to real life things. ⁓ and I think some of the props that I got was seeing people's humanity and bringing in real life anecdotes of of of what people are dealing with and trying to do, right? Listen, Oftentimes, right, like when you're doing well financially and educationally and on a business level, you get to have these, like, if we're looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you you you get to look at that top tier of self-actualization and you get to, you know, walk through the park and ponder life and the decisions that you made, right? Like, I understand it, right? I have I have advanced degrees, like I've been in those situations. But I also remember being really, really poor and living in shelters. And like you just, that's just not where the headspace that you're living in. You're living in the headspace of survival. What is what decision is gonna improve my chances of X, Y, and Z? And a lot of people are coming from that place. And ⁓ and I just have a lot of empathy for those people. And I think sometimes people When I'm in certain rooms, Tommy, I know this is this is this is a long one, but I know we're getting towards the end of the question, so I'm gonna lay it out. Yeah, I've been in rooms ⁓ with other doctors or grad school people or the the the educational, the academic elite, ⁓ and some of those people being black and brown elite people, ⁓ and some white. And they have and they didn't grow up the way that I did. And they often discount ⁓ the needs and and desires of Of people that don't make the type of money that they make or they don't understand some of those things, right? I I've been in those spaces and you know, and people treat me differently. And I've also been in spaces with I'm still in spaces constantly with the people that I grew up with, right? Where a lot of people around me are still struggling and making these tougher choices. And they don't, you know, they might not be as tapped into the latest data or research, ⁓ but they do have their lived experience and they're trying to make different decisions. And sometimes they find somebody. That they actually trust that they think represents them, right? You saw the same thing happen Tanahasse Coates, who is incredible. I think he's a modern day Baldwin. I love Baldwin. I'm not trying to offend anybody that loves Baldwin, but I just think his elegance with writing is top notch. And I think Hannah, I think I think Nicole Hannah Jones is that for a lot of people as well. I I I I enjoy her writing even when I'm disagreeing with it. Like she's that good. ⁓ she's that good. She's really good. So, ⁓ That's that that's the nuance of the topic. And I don't think I think there are while there are a lot of takes, Tommy, I don't think a lot of those takes are nuanced. ⁓ and I and I know I know I would get more attention. I can get us more buzz. I can get us more clicks. If I did just kind of betray myself and go less nuanced and go full mask off, chest off, you know what I'm saying? And I can I can talk. I can I'm I'm good with a microphone. ⁓ But that would be a betrayal of of of my internal compass and what I really believe and think, ⁓ along with all the inputs that I have and lived experience that I have and and and what my reaction and my responsibility would be to the few people that do listen to me. So that's how I kind of land on it. Well, thank you, Charles. Send us out. So ⁓ one, I'm just really grateful for Tommy, you know, who is my producer, and we have a lot of conversations, and you know. I love having conversations with Tommy. I think I think we have a lot of things in common. I think there are certain things that like we we're genuinely curious about each other with. And so I I love those conversations because it allows me to open up and talk to a different audience and and somebody that I you know, I respect everybody that I talk to, but it's very different talking with a black hands versus talking with Tommy. and you can go check out The Eight Black Hands episode. It's up now. I think it just passed ten thousand views. I definitely am a lot more animated there and it's a different dynamic, right? It's it's the eight black hands mixed with the Freedom Friday crew. So there's at least five or six people there. Five people, I think. We all gotta talk. We all are trying to get in and and and you know, and it's it's structured but it's ⁓ supposed to be more of this barbershop conversation. So it's a lot more emoting. There's a lot more emotion that's happening. and and I believed everything that I said over there, but here I can I'm I I have a different demeanor because it's being reflective on all the things that happened. ⁓ so huge shout to Tommy for for being in there. ⁓ I kinda threw that on him. And so he he took it like a champ. He took it like a G. So any issues you got, bring him bring ⁓ to me. If you got any, I doubt you will. But ⁓ if you do, I want that smoke. ⁓ and for that, thank you all for listening to Color Commentary and we love to hear from you. So, you know, drop us an email at colorcommentarypod at gmail.com. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show. Leave us a five-star rating, share it on social media, and join us every Thursday for more color commentary with Dr. Cole. Peace. Peace.