Sunday, June 25, 2017

Tears...


Michele Russo
This American Life-The Problem We All Live
Nikole Hannah Jones

Well this was certainly my most favorite piece thus far.  I felt myself tearing up on many occasions while I listened to This American Life- The Problem We All Live With . How moving, touching and truly sad this all was.  I felt as if I wanted to jump through the speaker and hold Mah-ria’s hand and tell her “I'm so sorry that you are going through this.”

Four and a half pages later, I sit back and read through my notes.  There were several pieces of Nikole’s article that jumped out to me.  Pieces such as “same convos, never works,” “bad schools never caught up to the good” and “we haven’t closed the achievement gap.”  At one point Nikole shared her personal experience with being part of a desegregation process as a young child.  She recalled getting up early to get on the bus- referring to it as a very hard thing to do.  She then made a really significant statement….”We were taken out of our community and put into someone else’s community.  We never felt like we belonged.”  How powerful that she speaks of the separation of communities---communities that were in the same state.  She referred to her own community and then specified someone else’s community.  I was particularly intrigued by that comment.  

My heartstrings were pulled on a hundred times over while listening to this piece.  First, when Nikole describes the memory that has stuck with her over her lifetime- that being the pool incident.  Her white friends were invited to her side of the community and her pool.  They all, one by one, graciously declined the invite, as their parents had all said no, but “you can come to my pool.”  The separation of both a “black pool” and a “white pool” is enough to make me cringe.  You couldn’t even swim together?  Heartbreaking.  





The tears really built up when listening to poor Mah-ria’s story.  This sweet, kind and intelligent lady.  She truly seemed to be full of life.  So much to offer.  However, has not been granted the opportunity.  The opportunity of an equal and worthy education.  Both her and her mother gave us a true depiction of the Normandy School District.  Mah-ria’s school had been on probation for 15 years----how does that happen??? How can you be on probation for 15 years???? What does it take to lose accreditation???? I thought about that over and over again----mind boggling, really.  The excitement in Mah-ria’s voice when learning that she was finally going to be given an equal and worthy opportunity, both educationally and socially, when learning of the “transfer law” and being informed about her transfer to Frances Howell school, provided me with a sigh of relief.  Finally, this girl would have a chance---a chance at something that once seemed inexplicably impossible.  She speaks of her attendance at the town meeting, where parents of children at Frances Howell spoke of their frustrations and anger about the merging of schools.  Many statements were made such as “What is going to happen to our accreditation,?  Are we going to have metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs,?  I don’t want to worry about my child being stabbed or taking a drug.  We don’t want this bad behavior coming into our school.”  Two particular comments that were made stood out to me.  So much so, that I capitalized them in large letters with several underlines and exclamation points…..OUR COMMUNITY!!!  OUR SIDE OF THE BRIDGE!!!!  Ugh- made me sick to my stomach.  All I could think about was the heartbreak that Mah-ria and her mother were experiencing.  Truly gut-wrenching.  Mah-ria’s mother’s comments about her own child- potentially being the one who could “be a doctor and save their kid’s lives,” was one that also made me smile.  She was right---100% right.  How could those parents sit back and judge these poor, underprivileged children who are so deserving of great things?  They are children for god’s sake….children.  


I loved listening to this.  I really did.  Nikole’s key points on how successful desegregation truly is was spot on. It’s really upsetting to me that it’s still “uninvited to the table.” I felt it to be especially empowering listening to real life moments of both Mah-ria’s experience and the parents remarks at the town meeting.  I wonder if the parents of Frances Howell listened to this interview- from start to finish- would feel differently about their remarks.  Could they put their kids in Mah-ria’s shoes? Maybe it would be seen in a different light...Maybe they would see that in order to get to the other side of the bridge, you must cross the whole thing.


6 comments:

  1. I had the same reactions you did as I listened and read along to Hannah Jones's interview. I was appalled at the way the parents of Frances Howell students were demonizing these students without knowing them, and then I began to think. They were afraid and uncomfortable, and in the front of their minds, they were thinking about the best interests for their children (although that does not excuse the derogatory or discriminatory remarks they made about the Normandy students). For the Frances Howell parents, though, they were privileged enough to live in a community with enough resources to provide quality education to their children. I looked up the demographics of Normandy, MO and St Charles, MO (the county that Frances Howell belongs to), and I was astonished at the difference between the two. Normandy has a 27.4% poverty rate while St. Charles only has a 6.15% poverty rate (I used datausa.io to locate this information)--Normandy's poverty rate is quadrupled that of St. Charles...and it's not the only area we see that.

    So, I think when you ask if the parents of Frances Howell students can put their children in Mah'Ria's shoes, I'd say they can try, but they really will not understand it because they have the economic (and probably class) privilege where they would not have to experience it. What we should be asking these parents is if they are willing to work with these families to ensure that these black students gain access to quality education because, after all, that's why so many of the parents "shopped" for a school district like Frances Howell. The main difference though? They had the privilege and opportunity to shop while the Normandy families were relegated to the one school in their area. I think Armstrong and Wildman (2013) would agree that we need to be aware how our black communities are not being given access to the education they deserve, rather than pretending it's a different issue altogether.

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  2. Michele, I am on the same page.....heart wrenching and painful. Almost embarrassing that this is going on in this country (and only a few years ago). Before I even started the audio, I thought I would only listen for a few minutes, then take a break, and come back to the audio...OMG could not pause it..I was totally drawn in to the story. I almost got a little teary when Mah'ria after one year of attending Frances Howell rec'd word that she (and others) had to return to Normandy because now it was "non-accredited". What part of the word "non-accredited" makes for a good school system?

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  3. Michelle

    Obviously we shared the same views and feelings on this article, as you've already commented on mine. Like Lisa, I also could not stop listening and like you, once it was done I had to sit back and look at my notes with one thought running through my head " Is this really still going on??". Obviously it is and it is just one more issue that I've been blind to and I am grateful that my eyes are now wide open. My heartstrings are right there next to yours for those studnets of Normandy and all students who are facing these issues everyday.

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    1. Michele, couldn't agree more with the compelling emotional appeal of this particular episode. Before this, what I knew of busing was my a distance memory of my mother's recollection - exactly the scenario they reference (Boston). No one has ever, to my knowledge, discussed the staggering success of these programs. And I'm glad you mentioned Jones's quote about community (being a minority transplant & relative outcast), as Delpit had mentioned in her piece the importance of retaining diversity and nurturing these communities while arming them with the codes of power. It's all so tricky.

      (this is Mandy from my dreadful tablet, not sure if I am signed in!)

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  4. Michele, we share so many of the same feelings and emotions listening to this. It was truly heartbreaking to hear the stereotypical and racial judgments being made about a whole school of children. The comment "We never felt like we belonged" resonated with me. Imagine constantly feeling like an outsider and that you are not really an important part of a group, yet you are physically part of that group. I often worry about this in my school with ESL students with very limited English proficiency. Some are new not only to the school or the city but new to the country. I feel it's so important to build a classroom environment to accept and understand differences and try to make everyone feel safe and respected.
    I was also rooting for Mah' ria throughout her story. I was really emotional as well, especially when things finally were going well for her at Francis Howell and it seemed she would be forced back to Normandy. I can't imagine my child going through such issues as a teenager. Knowing she heard all the terrible things Francis Howell parents were saying made me really think about how cruel people can be. They made sure to be clear it wasn't a race issue, but followed it up false accusations and accusatory statements. As I thought about the situation, it occurred to me, black parents probably deal with this and explain cruel, unfair behavior to their children much earlier and much more often than someone born into white privilege.
    Thanks for sharing the news cast video. It put faces to the "mean people" and also showed other supporters. I thought it was interesting that the news story ended asking Normandy parents if they were still going to send their kids to Francis Howell even though they don't want them? Wow...

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  5. I was wondering if anyone would comment on the fact that Nikole was herself a product of such desegregation efforts. And while she talks poignantly about how hard it was for her (including the pool incident), it is also clear that it COMPLETELY CHANGED HER LIFE COURSE. Access and Opportunity. So well said.

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