#446: Just A Word
Plus: Articles on school integration, masculinity, and Janet Jackson’s braids
Most of you know this by now: I read a lot of articles and listen to a ton of podcasts each week to bring you the best pieces on race, education, and culture. My process is far reaching and wide ranging — a tour of hundreds of publications! — and my hope is that all of this foraging of the Internet means I don’t miss anything worth your time and attention.
But sometimes, there are gems that elude me. That’s what happened this week. A New Yorker article mentioned a new book that is based on a podcast published three years ago. So I listened to the podcast, then bought and started the book, and then asked myself, “How did I miss this?”
The podcast is Southlake. It’s outstanding, and I encourage you to listen (that is, if you haven’t already!). It’s about a rich white suburb outside of Dallas-Forth Worth that has a problem with racism. It’s about how a community failed to heal from a racist incident involving its young people. It’s about the backlash our country has experienced since the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning of 2020. It’s about the fight to protect or destroy our public schools. I think you’ll appreciate it. If you take time to listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Not interested in listening to an upsetting podcast about a community coming apart? Here are a couple more pieces to check out. They’re about:
how a group of white moms are fighting for school integration
what nine people think of masculinity and what it means to be a man
the meaning of Janet Jackson’s braids in the movie, “Poetic Justice”
📚 All right, it’s time to get to the main event. If a piece moved you, or elicited a strong reaction, I encourage you to share your perspective. Hit reply or leave a comment.
1️⃣ Just A Word
This disturbing (yet unsurprising) podcast episode is about how a mostly-white community in a Texas suburb failed to respond to the harm that white students caused when they chanted the N-word in a video after a homecoming dance in 2018.
Instead of addressing the issue head-on, and instead of following a district plan to address racist bullying, teachers and administrators at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas quietly treated rampant use of the racist slur on a case-by-case basis. Raven Rolle and other Black students, who made up just 3 percent of the school’s student body, did not feel heard. Meanwhile, white students argued that their freedom of speech was being violated. They asked, Why can Black students say the word while white students can’t? “To me, it’s just a word,” one white boy said.
Note: This is the second episode of a six-part series. Although not necessary, if you have the time, I recommend that you start from the beginning.
By Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton • NBC News • 40 min •
Apple Podcasts • Whole Series + Transcripts
➡️ More? Check out Mr. Hixenbaugh’s new book, They Came For The Schools. I’m in the middle of it, and it’s superb so far. In addition, this article includes a discussion of Southlake as context to explain the current attack against public education.
2️⃣ 70 Years Later, Moms Are Still Fighting Segregation
In last week’s lead article, Prof. Bettina Love argued that 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, it is abundantly clear that “our schools are separate” and that “most white Americans appear unwilling to integrate them.”
But something hopeful is happening in the Pasadena area of Southern California, where decades of white flight have left a whopping 50 percent of families sending their kids to the city’s 40 private and parochial schools. White moms are fighting back.
Reporter Nadra Nittle does an excellent job telling the story of school segregation in California and following the efforts of the Pasadena Education Network, an organization of mostly moms who promote family participation in public schools. When fellow white parents tell them they want their kids to go to a “safe school,” PEN parents push back. “They could never really articulate what safety meant,” one mom said. “What safety meant was they didn’t want their child in an integrated, diverse school. They just didn’t.”
By Nadra Nittle • The Hechinger Report • 18 mins • Gift Link
3️⃣ Manhood: What Are Men For?
Two weeks ago, Amanda Machado’s piece, “The Abstract Rage to Protect,” explored how men’s need to protect is a root cause of toxic masculinity and violence toward women. (If you haven’t read it yet, do!) In this illuminating collection, the editors of The Point Magazine interviewed hundreds of people from all genders, asking them questions like, “How did you learn what it meant to be a man?” and “What are men for?” It was fascinating reading the responses. Most striking to me was to see how easy it is (given our conditioning) to say that being a man means “hard work” and “taking responsibility” and “protecting women,” as if those are exclusive traits of one gender. My favorite answer was more expansive:
Men are for what anyone is for, to love and to laugh, to learn, to take care and to be taken care of, to breathe when the air still allows it, to gain through time a sense of what a good life looks like, and to seek it out.
By The Editors • The Point Magazine • 14 mins • Gift Link
4️⃣ Janet Jackson’s Worn-In Braids Have the Most to Say in ‘Poetic Justice’
I appreciated this piece by Darian Symoné Harvin on Janet Jackson and the journey of her braids in the movie, “Poetic Justice.” Ms. Harvin writes:
Over the span of the film, we see the progression of Justice’s braids from pristine to worn-in, which is a realistic detail. Now — to be very direct — your boyfriend does not have to die for you to end up with less-than-pristine braids. Any Black person who’s held on to braids long after that unofficial expiration date has been to the edge of no return. So to think of all the relatable circumstances that lead one further away from booking that next appointment, or setting aside hours to take braids out in front of the television, it is realistic for Jackson to have those blurred parted lines as she plays Justice. Exhaustion, tiredness, long hours on your feet doing other people’s heads, grief, family. Not only are fuzzy braids inevitable, but they are the mark of a fast and fly girl living in any era. In this case, the braids helped Jackson to capture the mundane <> brilliant balance that Black women and femmes often strike. Expertly. If fresh braids are the equivalent of a fresh attitude and guaranteed self-esteem boost, worn braids represent a certain kind of struggle.
By Darian Symoné Harvin • Studio Symoné • 7 min • Gift Link
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In conversation with the article by Machado, I had never articulated for myself that the violence of protection was also a way to legitimize harm. “I can commit harm to others if I am protecting you.” The logic boomerangs and echoes back in personal relationships, and it makes me think of “I hit/ abuse you because I love you” (All About Love, hooks). I also think about the violence used against protesters of war and imperial violence. The logic also echoes Israel’s argument in justifying genocide and extermination of the Palestinian people. “We commit violence against the Palestinian people and state to protect the Jewish state.” Men and empires justify violence through altruistic intent to “protect” others or oneself, even if it is dehumanizing for others. An unspoken truth about this logic is that in the name of protection, men and empire also obtain and maintain systemic power and control through violent domination.
This “abstract rage to protect” is the keystone of the patriarchal domination many of the men in this article mention. Samuel, who shared that nice quote about humanity and manhood (which was my favorite too), also shared how he learned what it meant to be a man through the physical domination of his father at 14: “If I were to abstract away what I learned, then, it’s that to be a man is to compete with and defeat other men.” At a superficial level, they’re both men and they are performing gender roles and sure… It’s Just A Game. Boys Will Be Boys! Boys Play Rough! I am most interested in his father’s prolonged confession and why he felt “emasculat[ion].” I am interested in why it took him so long (at least a few years, since Samuel is now 25) to confess his shame to his son. I am interested in the “altered” power dynamics between father and son.
What happens to you if you’ve been playing this game your whole life and one day, you lose? What happens if you’ve been playing this game your whole life but one day, you win? Can you be both keep your dignity and be a loser of this game? Can you both keep your humanity and be a winner of this game? What happens if you do not play? What does it look like to actively reject this game? Nate, 21 year old college student says, “I learned how to be a man from the other boys in school. I was never told explicitly what it meant, but when I got it wrong it was made obvious.” There is implicit punishment in not being able to perform manhood. I can only imagine how isolating it is to lose or to not understand the game. There is a lot of loneliness in being disconnected from yourself and others. As an educator, I am always wondering what it looks like to teach empowerment in spite of patriarchal violence.