"I say to you: I refuse"
Nikole Hannah-Jones Is A Force and An Inspiration
Dear Troublemakers,
I still remember where I was the first time I heard the name Nikole Hannah-Jones. I was sitting on a bench outside a tiny airport in the South riveted by her story on an episode of the podcast “This American Life”. It was about school desegregation - a topic she was very familiar with having been a participant in the school desegregation busing program in Iowa as a young student. When it came time to dream about guests for The Next Question, her name was on the top of my list. If you’ve seen that episode, you know what a badass she is. She rattled off dates and ideas from memory with ease, and got us all thinking hard about the state of public education in this country. Towards the very end of our conversation, after the cameras stopped rolling, after we had bonded over bourbon, I asked her why she agreed to come join us. I don’t remember her exact words, but she basically said she wanted to try her best to support other Black women with vision.
Swoon.
I have been following her closely ever since. Not just her career achievements, but how she has stayed so true to herself through much of the public support and vicious scrutiny in the wake of 1619 Project.
But watching her navigate the recent racist and unnecessary tenure debacle at UNC, in which she ultimately chose herself by demanding what she deserved by being offered the tenure, AND THEN turning down the offer to go to Howard U. with Ta-Nehisi Coates was next level. I mean INCREDIBLE.
(You should watch Nikole and Gayle unpack more of this story here)
We stan a queen. For who she is. For what she’s given us. For the ways she moves through the world as herself. For her commitment to our community. For the inspiration she gives all Black women navigating a world not made for us.
I’m so glad Nikole is still here.
A FEW MORE THINGS FOR YOU THIS WEEK…
July’s Article of the Month It Was Never About Busing by Nikole Hannah-Jones (are you sensing a theme yet??)
Question Time - There has been so much attention on Critical Race Theory in schools lately. What points of connection do you see between CRT and Busing? What was your school like - who taught you, who sat in class beside you? How do you think that shaped your own education? Tell us in the comments!
LOVED this Mary J. Blige documentary (and the animation was so beautiful!)
S H O U T O U T to this young (spelling bee) champion!
Rachel’s new book is available for pre-order now. This one’s tough, friends. Miss her.
Last week we had to reschedule our monthly Troublemaker’s Q + A Meeting (paid subscriber’s keep your inbox eyes peeled for a sign up link soon). If you are reading this and would like to switch your subscription to paid - DO IT and you will be on the list for upcoming dates (plus me in your inbox once a week - yay!)
WEEKLY WISDOM
“For too long, powerful people have expected the people they have mistreated and marginalized to sacrifice themselves to make things whole. The burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice, and not the powerful people who maintain it. I say to you: I refuse.”
- Nikole Hannah-Jones
Stay wild and holy and free,
- Austin
The NYT piece on busing is, like most of Ms. Hannah-Jones' work, inspirational and outstanding. Since you posed questions in the newsletter, I'll share my own small story as a tiny part of the wider picture.
I grew up white in a white, wealthy corner of Pittsburgh - Squirrel Hill - in the 1970s. I attended the neighborhood elementary school, Whitman (since closed down as a school and turned into a community center). For me, it was my neighborhood school - I frequently walked to school with my friends. The school was clean, and nice, and staffed with excellent teachers - just what you would expect in that kind of neighborhood.
Every morning, three busses of black students pulled up, part of Pittsburgh's desegregation efforts. I had no idea where they came from - my guess today is Wilkinsburg, which isn't really that far away but may as well have been Mars for all that the rest of our lives were segregated. The kids from Wilkinsburg and the kids from Squirrel Hill were integrated throughout the school - in the same classes, eating lunch in the same spaces, playing on the same playgrounds. That doesn't mean there was much social integration - I was one of few white kids who made some friends with some of the black kids. They were nice, and they treated me nicely - better than some of the white kids from my own neighborhood. That, all by itself, was a huge benefit to MY education.
I never saw that school as a failure, then or since. It made my education better, and I suspect it was better for my black classmates too. I certainly hope so. Those of us who lived through it couldn't see it as a "failure".
But then, as Ms. Hannah-Jones and so many others have pointed out, there's a big difference between what actually happened and what we "remember" happening. I'm still working on understanding the former and letting go of the latter.
Bravo Nikole Hanna-Jones and Austin Channing Brown! (And white women, Holy Agitate.. Revolt against these oppressive patriarchal systems... we gotta look deep at our ways, own the garbage & lead our people of all of this created white race crap that is still not right!! Integrate your lifestyles, find yourselves a resonance group and go... the time is Now!!!)