That job is that you raise your kids to be the best they can be, better versions of you. You really can only give your kids a few things, among them unwavering love and support and the best education you can afford.
Nichole Hannah-Jones is the SideShow Bob haired black woman that conjured up the 1619 project. That project is nonsense crafted by a nonsense woman. I though she had a PHD, but actually doesn’t and isn’t an academic per se but a journalist. She was given an honorary doctorate, so I guess I can refer to her like I do academics of her ilk – Dr. Stupid.
She hit the news recently because she wrote a piece about shortchanging her kid’s education.
So, like the generations of Black parents who came before us, Faraji and I felt an obligation to make educational decisions based on the collective good and not just our individual advantage. New York is considered one of this nation’s most liberal cities, while operating a school system that is among the most racially segregated. This segregation exists because policymakers and affluent parents — even those who profess a belief in integration and equality, — shed their advocacy at the schoolhouse door and refuse to take or support any substantial action to integrate the city’s schools. Faraji and I decided that our role in this struggle meant upending the status quo and sending our child not to a wealthy white school but to a poor Black one.
This woman grew up with a great education in a small town in Iowa, then went on to prestigious colleges. Her BA was from Notre Dame. Yet, when it came to her kid, her fixation on race was more important. So she sent her to New York city public schools. In that piece that she wrote, there’s an image of the father dropping the kid off at school in the morning. She’s stepping out of the back of an S-class Mercedes. That blew my mind. You can afford a big Benz, surely you can invest in your daughter’s education. For years – nearly ten of them, I didn’t have a car at all, only a company van, then a Ford Taurus. Herself gave up her career and I worked my dick off to give our kids the best childhood we could. That included them going to a Catholic school. We did that until I lost my job and we could no longer afford it. By then we had moved to Plano, so the kids moved onto one of the best public school systems in the country.
We moved because as my oldest was approaching middle school, we didn’t want her to go to the crappy high school (was a good one when my siblings went) that served our area. In Plano, that wasn’t a problem. We planned ahead thinking of their futures.
The point is these are monied people. We aren’t. But we managed to do it. They could’ve done it with ease.
On with the story.
From what I gather, Her daughter asked to pick her high school. Somewhere along the line (She’s 16-17 now) she confronted her mom.
“Her daughter Najya is 16 now. In the essay, Najya tells her mother, “I never really got the education I wanted.”
Not wanted. Deserved. Her parents got a great education, yet kicked down the ladder when it was time for their kid to climb it.
Najya struggled. A tutor later found gaps in her long division and fractions. She earned A’s in a class she barely understood, because her teacher never checked her homework. In eighth grade, Najya asked to choose her own high school for the first time, and she picked a screened, mostly white and Asian school, the kind her mother had spent a career arguing against. – Natalya Murakhver, Restore Childhood
This shit blows my mind. I’m guessing that when she got to the good high school, she realized just how far behind she was. I’m not sure you can get any of that back. Fact of the matter is that the first few years of school set the pace for learning for your life. By third grade, you need to be able to read and understand, write, do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If you can’t read, you can’t learn in school. If you don’t have math basics you’ll never understand the math you need for life skills, such as understanding percentages and interest. You don’t get the basics down, you’re cooked and I’m not sure you can tutor or remedial ed your way back.
I read a piece a long while ago about race based admissions where a black girl that wanted to become a doctor. She got into a good school in pre-med, and promptly drowned. She’s in classes where her peers there did AP Sciences all through high school. She had one earth science class. Could she have gotten there? Sure, but after a ton more catching up.
I can’t even fathom being that cruel to your kid, then trying to justify it.
Hannah-Jones writes about the phone call where Najya asked why her mother hadn’t thought about her instead of other kids. Hannah-Jones answered, “I feel like you got cheated. And I’m sorry for that.” – Natalya Murakhver, Restore Childhood
I feel like you got cheated.
You feel.
That’s a weak, deflecting apology. Wow. What narcissism. Wasn’t us that cheated your kid. You did. Own it.
I wouldn’t blame the kid one bit for guilting the parents into a top flight university, then on graduation day cut them out of her life. They deserve it.
Nothing but a shoulder shrug from the media. Far as I can tell.
