Where Should I Send My Kid to School?
9/17/21 - A simple question with loaded answers.
On today's episode, we unravel a few of those knots with Courtney Martin and Dr. Dena Simmons, whose interracial friendship has weathered distance, accountability, academic rigor, heartbreak, and mutual support. They met over a decade ago when Courtney profiled Dena for her book about young activists, Do It Anyway. At the time, Dena was a classroom teacher. Since then she has earned her PhD and is writing her own book about breaking up with whiteness, the forthcoming White Rules for Black People.
Dena also gave Courtney notes on a subsequent book, Learning in Public, about Courtney's decision to send her white child to her neighborhood school in Oakland, rather than seeking a private school or other public school that centered whiteness. Dena's notes and questions to Courtney are included in footnotes and strikeouts in the main text.
This is a conversation about building better schools, deeper community, and how friendship can be at the heart of our activism.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: WHERE SHOULD I SEND MY KID TO SCHOOL?
[Ads]
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend
Ann: A podcast for long distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I’m Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. I am so excited to hand over the mics for today's episode. Mics being plural. Our guests are Courtney Martin and Dr. Dena Simmons, and they are united by a couple of things like one, they are true deep now, long running friends. They are intellectual collaborators, people whose ideas about the world have really informed each other's work. And, um, most recently they have both been working on books and were each other's accountability and kind of like feedback partners through that process. Courtney's book is out now. It's called Learning in Public: Lessons for a racially divided America from my daughter's school. It is about her choice to send her daughter who is white, like Courtney, to just the public school down the block, rather than trying to get her into a like air quotes here, better rated school slightly further away, or send her to private school. And the book is about living your values, living your anti-racist values specifically if you're white and, uh, living in community holistically. And Dena Simmons is also at work on a book, which is not out yet. Um, it's forthcoming in 2022 called White Rules for Black People. And, um, Dr. Simmons is an education expert. She is the founder of Liberate Ed, a collective focused on developing school-based resources at the intersection of social and emotional learning, racial justice, and healing. Um, so they have this kind of shared background in really caring about equity and specifically right now, through a lens of education they met when Courtney was working on a book about young activists called Do It Anyway. And, uh, Dena was one of the people that she profiled and they have since forged a really deep friendship that I, that I think has really found maybe a new public outlet in their work on these two books. Dena appears throughout Courtney's book, learning in public as a quoted voice in the footnotes. You know, often when people write books, they will have, um, you know, folks with a different life experience, read them to give feedback. Sometimes this is called a sensitivity reader, but I feel a little eyeroll about that phrase. And, uh, in this case, Dena was someone who read a lot of pages of Courtney's book, and rather than just, you know, take her feedback to heart, Courtney decided to actually quote her in, in the footnotes so that her, her voice, which is often one posing difficult questions, really prodding Courtney to think deeper about some of the things that she's saying, or the descriptions that she's using that appears very straightforwardly credited to Dr. Dena Simmons. So I'm interested in all of that and which is, you know, one reason why we wanted to have them on the show, but their conversation really is about what it means to live in community with people of different races, what it means to decenter whiteness. And it's a conversation about getting past the structures that we are born into and trying to make personal choices that do not play into those larger injust structures.
[theme song]
Ann: I am so excited to hand over the mics to Courtney Martin and Dr. Dena Simmons.
[interview beings]
Courtney: I'm Courtney Martin, and I'm the author of a book called Learning in Public: Lessons for a racially divided America for my daughter's school. I also wrote a book called Do It Anyway, the new generation of activists, which featured Dr. Dena Simmons, would you like to introduce yourself Dr. Dena Simmons?
Dena: Well, it's funny because you don't need to call me Dr. Dena Simmons, but yes, I did earn my doctorate. I'm Dena Simmons, and some people call me Dr. Dena Simmons or Dr. Simmons. Uh, I am the author of the forthcoming book, White Rules for Black People. And I am the founder of Liberate Ed, which infuses radical love healing, and racial and social justice into social and emotional learning for collective liberation.
Courtney: Yeah. And I am, you can't see me, listeners, but I am wearing my Liberate Ed shirt today to rip Dena's work. And let's, maybe we should start with our, our meat cute story, which is that, um, I'm a journalist by training and in the, um, when was that 2000, we've been friends for at least a decade, right?
Dena: We've been friends for at least a decade. And we probably first met via your email in 2008, I think.
Courtney: Okay. So around that time, I was feeling like deeply disillusioned about the state of the world and sort of pumped up on my own, uh, like white girls socialization of like, I'm going to unleash my talents on the world and everything's going to change. And, and then just was like deeply disappointed by the fact that that wasn't true. And so I got really interested in how does social change actually happen? How can I look to others who have more sustainable generational ideas about that? And so I wrote these very long profiles that added up to this book called Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists. And while I was working on that book, I decided I really wanted to think about teaching as activism. And I wanted to profile a teacher and I wanted it to be a classroom teacher or someone younger than 35, because that's how I was defining youth then because of course I was like inching towards it. And I asked a friend who is the most talented young teacher you've ever seen in a classroom. And without skipping a beat, he said, Dena Simmons. And, um, I said, can I have her email address? And he said, yes. And I emailed you and tried to explain what I was up to. Um, and what did you think?
Dena: Well, so I, so I get this email from some Courtney Martin right, who's explaining her book project, which sounds exciting. And it took me a while to write back because I wanted, I didn't want to perpetuate a single narrative of like the teacher savior, who goes into the hood and, you know, like the kind of stories that we already know when we talk about children of color, children of color, black, indigenous, Latinx, children of color who live in historically marginalized communities. So it took me a while. I had to sit with that, like, what would, what would I do, if, what would I say, what were the stories I would tell? And finally, I decided, you know what? It doesn't have to be the same old narrative that has been told. It could be a counter narrative. It could be a new narrative. And so I wrote back and I said, yes, sure. I'd love to learn more and meet you. And we, we, the rest is kind of history, you know?
Courtney: Yeah. I mean, the rest is kind of history. I mean, I came up and sat in Dena's classroom for an afternoon. Um, I remember it so well actually, now that we're talking about this, I'm like, wow, I really remember so much about that classroom. And I sat in the back while you taught for an afternoon, just kind of fly on the wall. And I was so moved by just like everything about the way you handled that classroom, like the way you physically moved. I remember how you would be teaching a lesson and have these asides to individual kids that were like ways of loving on them, but also correcting them. And there was sort of this like incredible dance of both unconditional love. And I, I'm going to demand excellence and like demand that you show up. And I believe in your potential in such a profound way, which interestingly is so much a part of what this current book is also about. I just realized, and I, I think I've never quite remembered that that was, that seed in my own consciousness was probably planted that afternoon when I watched you teach.
Dena: Thank you. And I think it's important for folks listening to know that my school is, or, you know, is located or when I was teaching, I was teaching in the Bronx, New York. I'm also a Bronxite. I grew up in the Bronx. And so I spent much of my childhood living in the Bronx and was super excited to graduate from college and go back home because that's everything I've known. And I was stripped from that place, uh, to go to boarding school and then came back and was so excited to be home again, it was sort of a homecoming, but, uh, it was great to have you in my class. I often had visitors in my class, so my students, and I just did our thing, whether people were in our class or not. So I thank you for seeing that. I get that from my mom. That's sort of like warm demander. Like I love you. And I'm, I see, I know what you can do, and I'm going to push you to do what you can do well, and so, you know, I miss teaching.
Courtney: I love that, you know, you've just heard how Dena lives out the legacy of her mom. And I also do that. My mom is like a gatherer and a convener and a person who turns everything into a party. And so when the book came out, I decided I'm going to apply for a grant and try to get all the people in the book together. And we all got together and had a really good party. Like it was really, really fun. Um, these amazing people, Raul Diaz, Megan Martin Robinson, Rosario Dawson. You should look all these people up if you haven't heard of them. Like we, we got together at this house and we all, I mean, I had met each of each of you and spent a lot of time with each of you because of these in-depth profiles. Um, but you all had not met one another. And that was just like such a deep pleasure to see this book, which had been kind of in my brain and, and on the page come to real life with everybody together. Um, do you have any memories of that? Of all of us hanging out?
Dena: I actually have, yes. I have memories of both convenings that you were able to bring together. One was the first one when we were in Cape Cod and it was the first time this little Black girl from the Bronx had ever been to Cape Cod. You know, I was like, oh, wow. I'm in Cape Cod.
Courtney: Yeah first time this white girl from Colorado Springs. We were all like, how did we end up here? Wow.
Dena: And also it was the first time that I saw bioluminescence.
Courtney: That is one of my biggest memories from that, that trip. We were out late at night, we'd all been drinking and there was bioluminescent plankton in the water. And we were tripping out if, no, if you've not seen that, it is truly magical. Like it was so special.
Dena: I just felt like even though we had all just met each other for the first time that we were already family, like, it's weird. We hadn't met each other and I'm still in touch with, with most people in the book. And I think there was something beautiful about, we think about writing and doing profiles on people that, and especially you as a journalist is how do we build community through writing, right and I think you did that with that book. Um, and now you have this new book, which is very personal, it's more, one of the most personal books that you've written. You know, it's a book about your own motherhood, your choice to send your daughter to neighborhood school, which meant that, you know, you had to explore what that, what that meant about your whiteness, about your privilege. Um, because in your context, you live in gentrifying Oakland, right? So all these questions come to play as you're writing this book. And so I'm curious if you could let us know, like, why this, why write this book? Why, why is this, why is this book important?
Courtney: Thank you, my friend, um, I wrote this book, well, I always think of sort of, there are probably many origin points of it, but one of the most obvious is when we moved here from Brooklyn to Oakland and I was pregnant when we moved and then my daughter Maya was born and I would just walk and walk and walk in the neighborhood with her in the ergo, listening to podcast, probably listening to call your girlfriend, um, and trying to kind of put myself back together. You know, motherhood is such a destabilizing experience. And so I was just really trying to like, remember who I was, and also kind of meet who I was becoming. And I kept walking by this neighborhood school Emerson elementary. And it was so beautiful to me because especially coming from Brooklyn to Oakland and this neighborhood is just filled with flora and like gorgeous trees and flowers. And I was like, this school is so beautiful and kind of looking at the kids and observing their joy. And then it really occurred to me like, where are the white kids? Because this neighborhood is mixed. And I've seen a lot of little kids in this neighborhood, like where are they going to school? And, you know, as I've often said, that question launched a journey of a thousand moral miles of, of interrogating my whiteness, of interrogating the contradictions within sort of progressive white spaces where there's so much talk about equity, injustice. And yet when these big fork in the road moments happen, like where do you send your kids to school? Um, I think so many of us take what we perceive to be the much safer route. So I, I learned so much after those original questions from journalists like Nicole Hannah Jones, and, um, Professor Rucker C Johnson at Berkeley and others about the ways in which integrated schools do have a profound effect long-term effect on kids of color. And it's a dose response relationship. So the earlier and the longer kids are in integrated environments, you know, the more likely they are to go to college, the more likely they are to earn more over lifetime, the more, um, you know, healthy, they are lifetime and for white kids, so that's for kids of color and for white kids, uh, you know, they do fine academically and in all other ways, and they have this other set of social emotional skills because they've been living in and learning in multiracial environments and multi-class environments and that kind of thing. So cognitively, it all made sense. Like, of course we're going to send our kid there, but the emotional work of really examining my own psyche and all of the biases they're in and kind of breaking for my social circle in making a choice that no one else was really making that I had known before was, is another big piece of the book, which is like the messier stuff than the research, which is, you know, it's pretty easy to put research on a page, but it's another thing to actually live it and, and face yourself.
Dena: So this idea of research, I just want to just, um, clarify, cause you know, people can hear the research that you cited and say, well, you know, of course, you know white people are going to be fine, not without knowing sort of the context, what, what makes the white children who go to any school that they go to. Okay. Right. And why do black children and, you know, indigenous and other, you know, latinx and other kids of color, why do they need sort of proximity to whiteness in order to get all these gains? And I think some people may say that like, they may hear that and they may think, oh, well, you know, they may not understand the context of that. Do you want to talk a little bit about that so that people are not going around making like simplistic, you know?
Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. Well like Nicole Hannah Jones has, there's nothing magical about white children, which is very important to reinforce. Um, I mean the short answer is racism, which is that structurally, we live in a society that so deeply disadvantages families of color and so deeply advantages, white families that economically I can basically homeschool my kid without homeschooling them. Right. I can surround my kid with books. My kid is not going to experience any economic instability at any really, um, remarkable level. I can access healthcare for my kid. I can, you know, depend on generations of housing wealth to purchase a home in this neighborhood. It's all of the connective tissue. That means that white kids can not really depend on their schooling experience for a lot of things that kids of color have to depend on their schooling experience for. So it's, it's sort of like layers on layers on layers of racism and, and that's both historical and contemporary.
Dena: And I would say that, you know, many ways schooling could be harmful for a lot of, you know, as, as you know, I'm a black person. I've spent a lot of time in predominantly white spaces. And most of what I've learned about myself in those predominantly white spaces was that I had to assimilate, that I had to edit myself, that I had to change who I was in order to be successful or successful according to white standards. So, you know, school schooling, you know, school, which is, you know, my schools, I've always been a good student, but at the same time, as, because I learned how to follow the rules, like the rules, I've learned how to perfect whiteness, but there's so many children who go to, you know, maybe Emerson who might find school to, you might not, it may be defiant. And actually those kids are the kids I'm interested in because they're like, no, no. Why should I do what you tell me to do? Because it's not good for me. And so I don't want to, I just want to be careful not to make school the savior. I do know that happens a lot, but you know, I think in your explanation of the research, what, what I get from that is the way the system, many systems conspire to ensure that the most protected children in the world, which I believe are white children continue to be protected. And that the children at least can at least, you know, the least protected children is everyone else. And I would argue that it's indigenous and black children who are the least protected children. No one cares about what happens to us. And so, um, but if you go to school with some white parents, some nice white parents, which you talked about in your book, they're going to come make sure that, that, that, that school gets the most that they can get because their children are there. Right. And so let's talk about nice white parents. Like, did you encounter any nice white parents in your, in your quest for writing this book?
Courtney: Dena! I am a nice white parent. You know that. This whole book is me like interrogating my niceness in so many ways.
Dena: But we know it doesn’t matter how nice you are if you are participating in a system that is not nice to me.
Courtney: Cliff notes of the book, I am a nice white parent. I'm trying to get less nice all the time. And you know, part of the journey of the book, one of the real tensions in it is, um, you know, part of my training has come through this amazing movement called the Integrated Schools Movement. That's like white parents who are choosing to integrate schools, trying to get together and like do our work around whiteness and think about how we show up and what kind of resources do we have and how do we offer those? And also how do we do a lot of listening and not trying to like remake schools in our image, which obviously is gentrification not integration, but the edict of that movement is really like show up, shut up and stay put, which in some ways is awesome. And in other ways is complicated because if I'm in that space, if I'm part of that community, A it's important for me to be authentic, like the show up, shut up, and stay put is a very nice thing, actually in a lot of ways, it's like, I'm just the white person who's going to come and just be a fly on the wall and like, please don't don't mind me. And my kid's gonna be fine. So don't worry about my kid. And it's like, all very in that vein versus being able to say, I'm here, I'm definitely gonna like over bias on listening. Cause I know like white people like me show up and don't do a very good job listening. I'm also going to try to show up authentically. So if like I have something to say, and I know parents of color want to be in real relationship with a real human, not some like white person trying to do the right thing, which is so annoying, then I need to be authentic and I do need to offer my resources. That's part of why I'm fricking here. Right? So like I'm not just going to show up and be quiet when people are talking about there's a need for money or there's a need for this kind of in-kind, you know, resource or whatever. But that is really like, it's an art, not a science. It's really tricky. And it's part, it's a lot of what the book is about is me trying to like navigate all that stuff. But I do want to, I want to talk about something really specific with you. Cause I think it's so important and I don't hear people talking about it very much, which is accountability. You and I basically had this in some ways, very serendipitous thing, which is that we both got book deals around the same time. And then I was like, Hey, if you need any support, let me know. And then I can't remember exactly how it all came down, but then I was like, I need support. I know that. So, um, can I pay you or do you want to trade pages or like, is there some way we can, can work together? Um, and so we have been trading chapters for like over a year and it's been, so I mean it hugely informed my book and you know, you can speak to your experience of it. I did decide at some point that I was really interested in leaving some of your edits in the book so that readers could learn from you alongside me, rather than me changing the book, according to your expertise, and then not acknowledging that like that's where it came from or that it had been the way it was before. So no one could like really learn from it. Um, and I've got all, I've gotten all kinds of interesting feedback about that. Um, so check that out in the book, if you're listening and, and intrigued, there's lots of like strikethroughs and footnotes from Dena. How do you feel about that? Like how do you feel about seeing your edits in the book? How did you feel about giving me feedback and like, what was, what's been your experience of getting feedback from me?
Dena: Yeah. So, you know, I have to, I also, so this, I would say this is not the first time where I've given you feedback, remember in your, your, your other book. Yeah. Um, can you remind me of the title?
Courtney: The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream.
Dena: In that book. I did read a chapter and I did give you feedback. I think you have a practice of that. So, uh, you know, I had, I was used to, I mean, I was used to, I'm used to, as a teacher, you give feedback all the time. And um, and so I was what I was honored that you asked me, you know, it's sort of hard to share your pages, you know, you're, you're usually when you're writing a book, sitting down by yourself, looking at your pages and most of the time you're like, I hate myself. I hate this paragraph. And so I still, cause I'm not done. I still write Courtney those like self-deprecating messages. And she's always like, what would you tell someone that you love? And so like, it goes through this whole questioning while I'm like answering the questions, which is good. But--
Courtney: Also quick aside, Dena is an incredible writer, which I learned very early because I think when Do It Anyway, came out at some point, I was like, Hey, let me know if I can ever be supportive of what you're working on. And you like sent me some essay that you'd published or a short story or something in, in the, maybe it was the Middlebury magazine or something. And I was like, holy, this girl can write, like you are such a good writer. So all of this self-doubt is it's good for you to be transparent about it, but I need to self-correct that like as your friend.
Dena: Yeah, we are all on learning and learning white supremacy and whiteness. I told you that I was good at following rules, which also meant I was good at listening to what people told me about myself. Yeah. So I picked up the messages in the environment, in the white environments that I was in that said, Dena, you are too much and not enough all at the same time. So there was never any way to calibrate being just right. And so, so, but you asked me for feedback, I was honored and it was a great opportunity for me to share my pages on a book about race, a book called White Rules for Black People, which can make some people feel unsettled. Um, cause I wanted to, I was curious about, you know, how you would respond to what I was saying in your white body or white existence. Um, not that I was prioritizing it. Right. Which, which we did have moments, you were like, how come you always say never. And always when you're talking about white folks, that was always, that was always a pushback I'm like, because never and always is my truth, okay. [laughter]
Courtney: I was thinking about that and what you said, something so interesting, you weren't prioritizing me. And I think one of the really fascinating sort of, it's not really a paradox. I was going to say paradox, but sort of dynamics in our, in our reader, reading for each other was my book. The primary audience for my book is white people and especially white moms, but I want to be always in conversation and accountability and like in relationship with people of color and especially Black women. So, so that is an interesting layer for us of you giving me feedback. And then in your book, your primary audience is not white women. And, but it's helpful for you to have the support, uh, first in some ways of my comment, comments, but I'm thinking also about what you originally said that like, you're so good at following rules. And I would often be commenting and thinking, I know you said like, I want your opinion from your white body or white perspective, but I would also be doing this layer of thinking like, am I putting rule like a white rule? Like the whole book is about breaking up with whiteness and here I am saying, this is how it's feeling for me. Obviously you, you're a big girl. You can do whatever you want with my comments. But there is a part of me that would think like, I don't even know if I want to write this down because I think it's, it's me coming from this place of like, oh, this is what good writing is. Or this is, yeah. I would try to tell you, I'm not sure.
Dena: You would say, this may just be me, but I'm just going to let you know, this is how this hit me. This is how I died. I, this, this landed on my spirit, but I think what was beautiful about our exchange Courtney is that we have a foundation of friendship and love so that we can push each other. And we can talk about things that so many people in our nation are not comfortable talking about. And don't want to talk about it because oh dear. What if I say the wrong thing or, um, I don't want to cater to white people's comfort, like all the sort of feelings and discomforts and vulnerabilities that come with talking about race or talking about race, across race. You know, there was something beautiful about our foundation that could allow us to push each other. You know, you pushed me. I had never written a book. You're like, I don't know. I don't know how many books you got, like four, three or four. It doesn't matter. I know exactly. You got mad books in you, boo. I was writing the first one. So sometimes he would give me feedback. Like this is, you know, the, you know, that would help me as a writer, like, cause I've never written a book before. So I, here I am like navigating this terrain, uh, alone. And so it was nice to have you along for some of the ride. Um, so, so I appreciate it.
Courtney: I’m still here for the rest of the ride, by the way, do you know hasn't turned it in yet?
Dena: I may send you some.
Courtney: Anytime. Well, I'm thinking about people listening. Do you know who might be like, that's great that you guys have this friendship and this foundation, but what if I just don't have that? Are there other ways to be accountable or how do you find those friendships? Um, I mean, how do you think about that? Cause like you don't have the energy probably for too many white ladies like me. [laughter]
Dena: White people take so much,
Courtney: Like I try not to, but I obviously do. I'm asking you to like read my pages about my like racial development. Um, so like how do you think about who you befriend and the energy it takes?
Dena: Girl. All right. So I have white people in my life and white people that I love. And one of the realizations that I learned early on when I sort of entered the white world, so to speak, which was in boarding school, right. Because I grew up in the Bronx, everybody in the Bronx looked like me. I am, uh, you know, uh, my mother's from my Antigua, I'm a Caribbean Black woman. I'm a Black woman from the Bronx. And so I spent a lot of my life actually learning to, to love whiteness and to love white people. And so aspire to whiteness because that's what I thought success was. Right. So I had, so, so in my book, I'm kind of trying to break up with that idea, that very limited idea. And I have, and it has been very painful and the, in the sense that the realization of it being bad for me and unhealthy, you know, came over time and then came in a very ugly way, most recently in a traumatic experience. But what I would say is that I see in just like white people take so much like white people are a lot of energy. And so when I was in high school, I would have these white friends who I loved, but then they would say something that would remind me of my difference. And so like white folks that I want to have around me are white folks. Like you like white folks, I could be like, Courtney, really? You said that like, like I could kind of push, push back or you could be like, oh sweat, let me check myself. I was just talking to my white friend, one of my white friends and colleagues. And she started the conversation that we had today and said, oh my god, I realized, I asked someone like a person of, of, of, a bilpoc person, a black and you know, and Asian person. I asked this person where they were from. And I felt so bad and I actually wanted to ask this question, but I asked this, where are you from question, which, you know, in many ways is a microaggression. Like why can't I be and my nonwhite body be from the United States? Right. So, um, so then, so we started the conversation there and we can push back and learn from each other. So I want, I want my folks around me who are about that collective liberation life about that racial justice life, about being vulnerable about it, having important conversations across difference. It doesn't have to be race. It could be queerness. It could be ability. It could be socioeconomic status because invariably I grew up in the Bronx. So I grew up poor. I don't have daddy to show up to like show up for me. So I have one of my best friends from college is likely to inherit a brownstone in park slope. And I was like, yo, leave half of that for me, that’s reparations right there. Like, I literally have the best half of it for me. You started several generations ahead of me. Okay. So like, if you want to do, you know, those like individual reparations I think is what I need. I need white folks to be around me, he's going to be about that individual reparations. Like
Courtney: Yeah, no, that's real. And I think even I think about that between us at different moments, I've thought like, you know, uh, planting a seed for your book. So people will remember to follow up. Like there's a really powerful and disturbing professional experience in Dena's book where she, you know, breaks up with whiteness in the context of one of the most elite institutions in America. And, um, you know, says goodbye to all that in this really important way. And I remember like, we're having brunch and you were talking about thinking about quitting and you're like, but financially, you know, what do I do? And I was like, listen, I'm dead serious. Like if I can support you in any way. And that's just like between friends, but I do think between friends who come from different levels of economic precarity and, and different racial backgrounds, like, like we need to have those conversations. Like we need to show up for each other. Not just assume. And in some ways I could think, like, I shouldn't say that cause what she'd be offended or something was like...
Dena: No, I literally said.
Courtney: Like, if we're going to be friends, like we have to collectively look out for each other. And that means if you have excess money, when your friend is in a toxic racist environment and trying to get out and the barrier is money, you should be talking about that.
Dena: Yeah. You, you came up with solutions. Of course. I was like, no, no, no, I'll be okay because that's another thing, right. Where, where I have not learned to ask for help. Right. I didn't watch my mom do it. And how often do black women get asked if we need help? Right. So I don't have a practice of asking for help or receiving it. And so of course I'm learning how to do that.
Courtney: And I have a white savior training and I'm like a two on the Enneagram and all the things. So it's easy for me to offer help. It's not as easy for me to ask for help or to show up in public in a way that's like imperfect. And like, I might, I'm not as good as I thought, like my shit stinks too. And like have, have you have to spend your precious energy and time on like investing in me. That feels hard for me to ask. And, and I mean, part of it's that my own issues, but also another layer is a really important thing for listeners to keep in mind, which is, if you are a white privileged woman asking your friends of color for different kinds of support could be laborious. Like you maybe need to ask if they would like to be paid, you know, first like something like this, we, we decided let's exchange pages and that will make it feel good. But the labor that your friends of color are doing to like enrich your professional life is real labor. So like, think about it.
Dena: I really believe like, you know, I always tell people, listen, diversity is good for everybody. And you know, like what, what will we do without our flavor? Like I say, flavor, I can talk about my Caribbean flavor, my Black flavor, like, just think about how planned the world would be if, if they didn't have, like, we didn't have so many of the, the genius, the people that we know and the people that we don't know, and the people who we didn't get a chance to know because their genius was stolen from us. Right. And I think about that. And I go back to the classroom when you first were where we first, one of the first encounters that you and I had and like all of the genius that was in my classroom. And all I was doing as an educator was trying to escalate that genius. I was trying to wipe away the layers so that my students who were blinded by years of injustice and, um, being ignored and marginalized, you know, and I, you know, let me just actually correct myself. Um, I don't want to use ableist language. I said blinded. Um, and so I want to correct myself and do what you do, Courtney, your book, learn in public. Um, I think that they were they're they're um, they weren't able to realize their genius because of all that had been put in their way and all of the room, the sort of, you know, it's like when you walk into your building and it has graffiti on it, and it's this trash outside and their gates on the windows and there's bars outside, you start to believe that maybe you should be locked inside somewhere. And so I just wanted to, to take my children, to take my students, um, out of those gates, you know, walk alongside them, learn from them and just facilitate whatever it is that they needed to, to, to understand what they had to offer to themselves. So their communities to each other and to the world. And most importantly, to me, their teacher, because teaching is, is, is a mutual learning. I learned, my students taught me. I am who I am because of my students, every type of student I had from kindergarten, all the way to grad school.
[ad break]
Dena: And you're a teacher, we're teachers to each other too. And I think that's something in terms of friendships, like how does that like mutual learning happen in friendships?
Courtney: Totally. Yeah. And, and it can't happen if anyone's trying to show up perfectly, or anyone feels unsafe. Like there are all these ways in which I think we romanticize a multicultural, multiracial, multi-class friendship, but like there have to be some really important foundations to it. Like I'm thinking to myself, I have to know I'm going to show up imperfectly and risk being loved by you in all my imperfections. And, and you have to feel safe enough to wanna spend time with me and, and know that I really do love you and want to share my resources and, you know, be real with each other. Right.
Dena: I love you too. And I love you too. And whatever resources I have to offer, those are for my family. It's collective. Right. I'm uh, wanted to ask you a question about the response to your book, right? So your book came out in a moment where we have very irate, mostly white folks who do not want their children to discuss race, to talk about difference, to talk about being a woman and women's rights and suffrage, and, you know, our, what you would call anti critical race theory, although they don't oftentimes know what it is. So how has that sort of the context, our current day context played into, you know, conversations about your book, maybe reviews, or just emails that you're getting from people, because folks will send the emails.
Courtney: Oh yeah. Folks will send the emails. Um, I'm getting a lot of emails from like 70 year old white dudes who have really good ideas about how I should live. Um, I, the critical race theory controversy is so baffling on some level. I mean, it's not surprising at all, obviously, right. We live in America, we've all been observing. What's been happening over the last four years slash 400 years. Um, but one of the things that feels so resonant with what I was trying to explore in the book is really pushing white people to transcend this narrative around our own innocence and, and white progressives in particular. I mean, the people who are like storming the school board meetings, talking about critical race theory tend to be more conservative folks, obviously. Um, but I think white progressive's see that and, you know, get off on really distancing ourselves from that. And like, well, those are the bad, the bad white people. Right. Um, and I'm one of the good white people because I'm woke and I'm like curating my kid's bookshelf to have, you know, kids of color in it and do, you know, showing up at the right protests. But I think I, I really feel as if, um, white parents and white progressive parents need to understand that we're not all that different from those folks showing up about the critical race theory in the sense that we are not willing to quote unquote expose our kids to certain kinds of communities out of some perceived, um, you know, excuse of like we're trying to get the best for our kids. Um, it's not all that different from not wanting to expose your kids to the truth of slavery in this country or not wanting to expose, expose your kid to the truth of the civil rights movement. Um, and so I guess my reaction to that question is like, it would be easy for me to tell you, like, just to hate on all those white people and talk about how ridiculous it is. On the other hand, I think there's a spectrum in which my peers in Oakland are very connected to those people, as much as we like to pretend we're not. Does that make any sense?
Dena: Yeah, because I always say to people to get your cousins, because there are people, people, so many people have, you know, that uncle or the aunt or that cousin, or even parents who have different political leanings and that they have different, um, ideological understandings. And so I think what white folks need to do is get their cousins, get their moms, get their sisters and push them to engage in the work that's necessary for collective humanity. You know, I just put on Instagram the other day. I posted, you know, two images of people who did not like to white folks who did not, who were upset that they were had to put on a mask. And my, my response to that is, is white people are so used to having the world catered to them. You know, you have to learn how to do things that they have not learned how to experience the world, where they have demands and rules put on them. And, you know, they have not experienced the consequences of not following rules. And when, when I say rules, it's like, we know that from data on, you know, jailing and sentencing statistics, like there are the rules or the law is used in different ways to manage different bodies and to police different bodies. And so when asked to do something that is good for the common good, where has been that practice, where, where has that practice been in white communities and white folks tend to live in communities with other white folks and, you know.
Courtney: And rely on private goods, the white people are not real attuned to the common good it's, it's like an education as a perfect example, where, um, when COVID hit, you know, white families flooded into private schools where they could pay to have an infectious disease specialist on staff or headed to the whiter schools where they could be guaranteed, there would be higher vaccination rates or like, you know, measures in place. And, and that's, that's like, I think a lot of this is about control and about white people being so used to being centered. So if you choose, you know, as we did to go to an integrating school as a white family, you are not going to be centered. And then how are you going to respond to that? Do you try to center yourself? Because that's like your instinct, that's what you've been socialized with and you're not going to be in control. Like the, the, and you shouldn't be like, that's not, it. Community is not about control, community is about interdependence and mutual flourishing. So like, what does it feel like to let go of, to control, to decenter yourself? Um, and the book is like a big bet on the idea that the only way white people and white moms in particular are going to learn how to de-center ourselves is by actually seeing ourselves accurately. So a lot of the book is like centering whiteness in order to de-center it. Um, and I think, I think it's, you know, you'd asked about reactions to the book. I'm getting a lot of, you know, seventy year old white dudes telling me how to live, but I'm also getting a lot of emails from white moms who have young children who are just, you know, really wrestling and who has used the book in ways that are really moving to me in terms of, you know, progressing their own thinking and, and, and their own acting really. So I it's all the things which I knew putting the book out into the world, um, let's end with, will you tell me one question that's on your mind these days, as you are working on this book, you're writing and this beautiful organization that you've created in your phoenix rising from the ashes of that elite institution, which you have to get the book to read about. You've created this organization, Liberate Ed, like what, what's a question that's on your mind these days.
Dena: Well, besides how can I get more sleep? A question that I have is what will be my legacy? That is a question that I ask myself every single day, like, what is, what is going to be my today's legacy? Like, what is the difference that I'm going to make today? And then as I, you know, I also ask myself, um, in the most idealist way, what can I do to make the world a better place? I know it's so idealist, but that is how do I leave here better than I found it. And here can be earth. Here can be the office, here can be wherever I am. So those are the questions that guide me. How about you?
Courtney: Well, I do want to say probably a very undervalued form of legacy is friendship, which is what we're talking about. Like, people think of children, they think of work, but I don't think people think enough about the legacy of friendship, which is just such a profound legacy. So you have, I'm part of your legacy. If that, if that makes any sense.
Dena: Well you put my name and your book, so I’m stuck with you. [laughter]
Courtney: That's true. That's true. Okay. What question have I been sitting with? Um, I think I am, I am really thinking a lot about like grief and anger lately, actually. And this is more in my personal life and in my like intimate relationships, but I think I'm learning and maybe this is about whiteness and femaleness and the socialization I had growing up, but I have never really learned how to let rage and grief move through my body first to feel it. And then to let it move through my body. So I'm having like therapy sessions where I'm just like, geez, like this whole feeling, your feelings thing does not seem worth it. Like I'd rather just be like compartmentalized. And, um, but then like 24 hours after that, I'll be like totally exhausted feeling all this sadness and anger. And then like 24 hours later, I'm like, oh, I do feel lighter. Like the works. Like if you actually move it through your body, go to a different place. So that's very personal and very...
Dena: How about this? How about if you knew that rage or anger really comes from a place of injustice and one way to turn that rage into something useful is through activism. You've been, you know, sort of, how do you shift these feelings, work them through your body and then make something beautiful with them. Like when I'm sad, like after heartbreaks, you be like, yo DB you wrote mad poems. I'm like, yes, I did. These are heartbreak poems. There's something about like, you know, that, that moment of being sad and introspective and reflective that some beauty can come out of. So it's sort of welcoming all those emotions. I mean, now we're starting to move to therapy now, but that's how friendships start, right? Friendships have a therapeutic, um, component to it, right. We feel good for us and it should be good for us.
Courtney: And part of what you're satisfying about our friendship is it's all the layers. Like we have this very intellectual friendship and a social justice related friendship and an emotional friendship. I mean, I send you pictures of my child and I love your mom.
Dena: We are like all the ways connected with that. I wish that the listeners would find the people in their lives that lift them up that are good for them. Like truly good for them. And also, I would say if there is someone who is not good for you, set those boundaries or say goodbye, and, you know, friendship breakups are just as difficult but sometimes, maybe what we need to feel as light as you were feeling, working the emotions out of your body.
Courtney: Yeah. That's a really good point. Well, I'm not, I'm not letting go of you. Don't call me after this interview and break up with me. [laughter] I'm holding on to you. Um, but I also, I can't wait until COVID is better and we can sit in my living room or your living room or wherever and share time in person. But till then, I love you. And I'm so, so, so grateful for you.
Dena: I love you. And thank you. I appreciate you, have a great day. Bye everyone. Take care
[interview ends]
Ann: Again. Courtney's book is called Learning in Public. You can find more about her work at courtneyemartin.com and subscribe to her newsletter, which is called examined family. You can get updates on Dr. Dena Simmons’s work and find out more about her forthcoming book, White Roles for Black People at denasimmons.com. That's D E N A S I M M O N S dot com. And, uh, I'll see you on the internet.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.