The Atlantic Interview: Nikole Hannah
Jeffrey Goldberg
The public schools in gentrifying neighborhoods seem on the cusp of becoming truly diverse  as historically underserved neighborhoods fill up with younger  whiter families. But the schools remain stubbornly segregated. Nikole Hannah-Jones has chronicled this phenomenon around the country  and seen it firsthand in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. âWhite communities want neighborhood schools if their neighborhood school is white â she says. âIf their neighborhood school is black  they want choice.â Charter schools and magnet schools spring up in place of neighborhood schools  where white students can be in the majority. âWe have a system where white people control the outcomes  and the outcome that most white Americans want is segregation â she says. In a recent episode of The Atlantic Interview  Nikole Hannah-Jones and The Atlanticâs editor in chief  Jeffrey Goldberg  discuss how integrated schools are good for white children and black children.
âIf one were to believe that having people who are different from you makes you smarter  that you engage in a higher level of thinking  that you solve problems better  there are higher-level ways that integration is good for white folks â Jones says. For black children  the benefits of attending an integrated school are much more drastic. âItâs literally  will you receive a quality education or not? Will you be a full citizen in the country of your birth?â In a hyper-competitive economy where test scores and college admissions and lifetimes earnings are all linked  Hannah-Jones has seen that the soft benefits of integration  like empathy or compassion  are low on a familyâs priority list. âMost white people are willing to trade that â she has found. An edited transcript of their conversation is below.  Jeffrey Goldberg : You and I have both had these conversations with my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates about the arc of history and which way it bends. Iâve adopted the viewpoint of Barack Obama  that history is an arrow and the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. And Ta-Nehisi says that there really is no moral arc  but if there were it would just bend toward chaos. Are you in the camp of people who say that long-term optimism is premature?
Nikole Hannah-Jones: I think it has not a lot of basis in historical fact. I would say the arc is actually a circle. It just perpetually turns back on itself.  Goldberg : But letâs use African-Americans as an example. Life has gotten better  no? Before there was before there was Brown v. Board of Education  there was no Brown v. Board of Education. Before there was a Civil Rights Act  there was no Civil Rights Act. We donât live in a period of history free of lynchings  but the number of lynchings has gone down. There are more African-Americans in the middle class since Reconstruction. Life in America for African-Americans has gotten better. Itâs been stutter stepped  but we ainât in 1866 or 1873. Hannah-Jones: I am not a slave. That's true.  Goldberg : Well â¦ All right. Hannah-Jones: If thatâs the bar.  Goldberg : No  no  no. Hannah-Jones: None of us would argue that there hasnât been progress in a range of things. I guess I get almost offended by people who want us to pause and be congratulatory about forward progress.  Goldberg : I just want it known for the record that I'm offending you already. And we havenât even started. Hannah-Jones: I mean  in a country that has set itself apart as a beacon of democracy  the fact that weâre applauding that black folks now have had  for 40 years  full citizenship rights in the country of their birth  in the country of their grandparentsâ birth  in the country their great grandparentsâ birthâit's just hard to feel a lot of optimism.
 Goldberg : Iâm not arguing for applauding. Obviously there is a long road to go. Iâm just saying that there is a direction to things. Hannah-Jones: Well  thereâs forward progress and then we move back. Weâre clearly right now moving back. So yes  we get the Voting Rights Act and now we get the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. We see a wave of voter suppression. We get Brown v. Board of Education and now black children are more segregated than theyâve been since the 1970s. We never made any real progress on housing segregation outside of the South and the West even though we outlawed housing discrimination in 1968. The wealth gap for black and white Americans is the largest that itâs been since we started really recording this in the 1970s. There are more black men incarcerated than were black men enslaved during slavery. There are more black men killed by police than there were black men lynched in a year.  Goldberg : Okay fine. You win. Hannah-Jones: For small numbers of us  thereâs a lot of progress. And for large numbers of us  I think the progress can be very hard. Itâs still really bad.  Goldberg : Iâm not disagreeing with your analysis on any of those. It just seemed two years ago that we were moving in the right direction. Hannah-Jones: And then what happened?  Goldberg : Well  a reaction. I want you to analyze the root of these continuing dilemmas. Is at the bottom what weâre talking about a lack of understanding on the part of white America about the actual lived lives of African-Americans? I mean  Germany grappled with what it did in a way that Americaâs never grappled with what it did. As Ta-Nehisiâwho can always out-pessimism meâonce said  Germanyâs easy because Germany killed all the people it hated.
Hannah-Jones: I would say weâre not grappling what this country is about. Period. Not for African Americans.  Goldberg : Youâre not one of these people who says  âThis is not who we are.â Hannah-Jones: No  this is clearly who we are. I write about race from the year 1619. The English landed at Jamestown is 1607. Twelve years later  we have imported Africans to be enslaved and determined that they will be a wholly different caste of people with no legal rights in this country. Thatâs one hundred and forty years before we declare independence and decide that we want to be a country. This is embedded in the DNA of this country. I mean  Ta-Nehisiâs claim to fame is âThe Case For Reparations â which says weâve never even repaired the damage that weâve done and we only grudgingly even give legal rightsâon paperâto this group of people.  Goldberg : It is amazing that we are talking about Robert E. Lee and voter suppression as issues in 2017. Hannah-Jones: I mean tell me another country where a group of people break off from a country  try to fight that country  and lose  and those people are glorified and defended by the highest office in the land.  Goldberg : So the South won in one key cognitive wayâin a narrative way? Hannah-Jones: Yes  of course. What we were fighting in the South was a national sin. We want to pretend it was a Southern sin  but it was a national sin. We canât grapple with the South unless we grapple with ourselves.
 Goldberg : Two issues preoccupy you: housing segregation and education segregation. Theyâre linked  obviously. To get to a place where thereâs actual equality in housing and actual equality in educational opportunities for African-Americans  what has to happen? Itâs not just a legislative process. Hannah-Jones: It is not. Though  equal rights for black Americans has always had to be legislated. Itâs never been willingly given. What it would take  if weâre honest  is a fundamental restructuring of society. Our public schools are not broken  but are operating as designed. Our public schools were set up to provide unequal  inadequate education for black children. So thatâs what they do.  Goldberg : But arenât the public schools just a downstream problem of housing segregation policies? Hannah-Jones: No. They are clearly linked  but whether you have integrated communities or segregated communities  we have school segregation. In communities that are gentrifying  the gentrification stops at the schoolhouse door. White communities want neighborhood schools if their neighborhood school is white. If their neighborhood school is black  they want choice. Housing segregation just becomes a convenient excuse. The problemâand I never use the phrase âwhite supremacyâ because itâs a word that people automatically discount as soon as you use it  but that is the problem. We have a system where white people control the outcomes. And the outcome that most white Americans want is segregation. And I donât mean the type of segregation that we saw in 1955. I don't mean complete segregation. I don't think there are very many white Americans who want entirely white schools. What they do want is a limited number of black kids in their schools.
 Goldberg : What do you call âcurated diversity.â Hannah-Jones: I never talk about school inequality in terms of âdiversityâ because I think itâs a useless word. I think itâs a word that white people love. When I say âcurated diversity â it means white parents like a type of diversity so theyâll still be the majority and there wonât be too many black kids. White Americans  in general  are willing to accept about the ratio of black Americans at large: 10 to 15 percent.  Goldberg : But you get into the 20s... Hannah-Jones: When you get into the 20s  white folks start to exaggerate how large the percentage is. So in New York City  one of the most segregated school systems in the country  if youâre a white parent in the public schools  you donât want all-white schools.  Goldberg : Because youâre a liberal? Hannah-Jones: Yeah. But what you want is a majority-white school with a small number of black kids and a good number of Latino  a good number of Asian. That makes you feel very good about yourself because you feel like your child is getting this beautiful integrated experience. The problem is that the public schools in New York City are 70 percent black and Latino. So  for you to have your beautiful diversity  that means that most black and Latino kids get absolutely none. The tolerance for increasing particularly the percentage of black kids is very low  and even lower if those black kids are poor. No white parents in New York City mind having my kid in their school because they feel like Iâm on their level. But if you get too many of kids like mine who are black but poor  thereâs very little tolerance.
 Goldberg : Do most white parents in New York City achieve curated diversity for their children? Hannah-Jones: Yes.  Goldberg : Theyâre winning that? Hannah-Jones: Oh  definitely.  Goldberg : And itâs the black and Latino kids who are not winning because thereâs not enough whites in that sense to go around? Hannah-Jones: There would be. I hear this all the time: âYou canât integrate schools in York City because thereâs not enough white kids.â But that's only based on the premise that you canât expect white kids to be in the minority. The demographics of the New York City public schools are about 40 percent Latino  almost 30 percent black  15 percent Asian  15 percent white. If you picture a classroom like that  that's a beautiful school. Thatâs a beautifully diverse  integrated school. You could have that if you chose. We just donât choose it  because we automatically say  âYou canât expect that a white parent will put their kid in school with all those black kids.â  Goldberg : If you were the dictator of America  would you outlaw private schools? Would you force all the white kids  and all the upper-middle class and upper-class African-American kids  into the public-school system? Youâd have a deep level of parental involvement  right? Are private schools immoral in this context? Hannah-Jones: Interestingly  right after Brown there was consideration of whether or not Brown had to apply to private schools  or whether we should get rid of private schools in the United States altogether  understanding that the way to subvert Brown is to simply withdraw from public schools. Which is what happened all across the Southârather than share a public good with black folks  state legislatures decided to shut down public schools altogether and pay vouchers for white students to go to private segregation academies. We think it sounds absolutely crazy to consider ending private schools  but that was a consideration.
The answer to your question is yes  you would have to. If you truly wanted to equalize and integrate schools  you would have to. But you can go a step shorter than that. New York City public schools are majority black and Latino. But you can go to any of the suburbs around  and theyâre very heavily white. So in New York and all across the North  you could simply move into an all-white community and go to all-white public schools. And thatâs how you avoided desegregation. In the South  most school districts were countywide. So you either paid for private school or you dealt with desegregation. In the North  you didnât have to do that. The key difference between the North and the South is for the vast majority of the history of this country  90 percent of all black people lived in the South. The South responds with Jim Crow  by passing laws that restrict the movement of black people. The North doesnât have to do that. It has a very tiny black population. Itâs only once black people start migrating out of the South in the 1900s that the North shows its true ugly racist head.  Goldberg : Youâve described something that I actually experienced as a kid in the 70s. I was in a school system growing up that was about 60 percent black  35 whiteâthe local system right outside New York City. Very unusual. My experience going from kindergarten through 12th grade in that situation was fairly tension-free. People actually got along. There was mixing  there was interracial datingâ¦
Hannah-Jones: Your first crush was a black girl?  Goldberg : No  weâre not even going there. Hannah-Jones: OK.  Goldberg : But  yes. And the second and the third. Hannah-Jones: Why are you turning red right now?  Goldberg : Because Iâm interviewing you and youâre not interviewing me. But yes. My high-school sweetheart for many years was an African-American woman whoâs a very delightful person. It was an atmosphere where that could happen without consequence. Granted  a lot of the people from the white parts of town went to Catholic parochial schools. If the school district actually took in all of the kids who lived within the boundaries  it probably would have been 30 percent black. For the whites who went  it was a fairly beneficial experience. I can look back on that and say it was better for my intellectual  moral  civic developmentâmy emotional developmentâto do that. That  you argue  is disappearing slowly as an experience for whites and blacks. The country is resegregating. Talk a little bit about the benefits for whites of integration. Hannah-Jones: I think this is where you struggle trying to convince white people they should do this. Thereâs a clear imbalance for black kids. Itâs literally  will you receive a quality education or not? That is what integration means for black kids. Will you be able to transcend poverty? Will you be a full citizen in the country of your birth?  Goldberg : Hitching a ride to the white majorityâ¦
Hannah-Jones: Hitching a ride to the white majority  with the understanding that in a country built on racial caste  they get an inordinate amount of the resources. Things that are acceptable for black children are never acceptable for white children. So if you want what white children get  you have to be where white children are. White kids donât need black kids in the same way. Segregation does benefit white families. That is why the whole institution of segregation comes about.  Goldberg : How does it benefit white families  though  in a practical way? Hannah-Jones: In a practical way  because you get to hoard resources. You get the best of everything. Even in a community where the schools pretty much suck  if thereâs a school with black kids  itâs going to suck worse.  Goldberg : I would disagree with the whole premise. Hannah-Jones: Would you?  Goldberg : Well  going to the second half. The benefits of integration for whites I think outweigh whatever resource hoarding you could do. Hannah-Jones: Itâs soft benefits versus hard benefits. The soft benefits of integration  which I think are also very importantâitâs just a much harder argument. White people understand that theyâre fighting to get into white schools for a reason. It is a benefit. Theyâre going to get the best teachers. Theyâre going to get the best instruction. Theyâre going to get the best curriculum.  Goldberg : With the assumption that itâs a zero-sum game.
Hannah-Jones: With the assumption that there are good teachers and bad teachers.  Goldberg : And that the bad teachers are going to be... Hannah-Jones: ...overwhelmingly put into our schools. Yes. Nothing about the American experiment tells us that we value black kids the same. We just donât. I wrote about school resegregation in Tuscaloosa for The Atlantic. They created an all-black high school and an integrated high school. They promised the all-black high school it would have the same courses  and they just donât do it. There was actually no reason not to do it. The white parents who wanted the integrated school didnât give a damn what courses you offered in the black school. They werenât fighting against giving those kids physics. They just didnât care. In the end  they were poor black kids and they didnât have that much value and no one thought they were going to go to college anyway. Now  if one were to believeâwhich I believeâthat having people who are different from you makes you smarter  that you engage in a higher level of thinkingâand thereâs been research that shows thatâthat you solve problems better  there are all these higher-level ways that integration is good for white folks.  Goldberg : The richness of the human experience. Hannah-Jones: Right. My daughter is in a high-poverty school. Weâre clearly not poor. I think it makes her a better human being. I think she gets to see that these kids arenât any less than her. They just have less than her. But those are all hard soft-arguments to make to people who fundamentally view education as  how my kid will rise to the top above every other kid and get into Harvard. They donât actually give a damn about their kid being a better person.
 Goldberg : You talk about âhardâ benefits and âsoftâ benefits. I don't think they are that soft. Hannah-Jones: Most white people are willing to trade that. There is an explicit racial fear that black kids are more dangerous  that if they put their kids in these schools  their kids are going to be exposed to violence  theyâre going to be exposed to bad culture. Thereâs no longer the belief that black people are racially inferior but that black culture is inferior.  Goldberg : They donât say it in such a blunt way  do they? Hannah-Jones: They said it in a blunt way. In my daughterâs school  when white parents who lived next door to my daughterâs school would come and tour  they would tell the principal  âWe'll bring our kids  but only if our kids are in classroom by themselves and you keep them together through fifth grade.â  Goldberg : You mean  a white class. Hannah-Jones: Yes. This is what is being demanded.  Goldberg : And this is in âprogressiveâ Brooklyn. Hannah-Jones: This is Brooklyn. Hipster Brooklyn. There is this intrinsic racial fear that cannot be mitigated by facts. Thatâs the thing that is really embedded in all of usâthe belief that black children are not as smart. There are exceptional black children  right? âOf course  I know little Johnny is smart  but heâs not like the rest of the black kids that are culturally depraved. That bad culture is going to rub off. We need to protect our kids from large numbers of these kids.â I've had parents tell me  âThe middle-class black parents at the school are fine.â
 Goldberg : Whatâs so interesting here is that you're not talking about stereotypical Trump voters in Alabama. You're talking about hipster Brooklyn. Liberals kind of piss you off? Hannah-Jones: I am only writing and speaking to liberals at this point. I'm trying to get people who say they believe in equality and integration but act in ways that maintain inequality and segregation to live their own values. The most segregated parts of the country are all in the progressive North. If you could just get white liberals to live their values  you could have a significant amount of integration.  Goldberg : You know what group of people who would be really uncomfortable listening to  you  talk? The heads of progressive private schools in New York City  Boston  Washington. Hannah-Jones: But hereâs the thing. Weâre in a capitalist country and if you can pay for something  then so be it. What Iâm dealing with are public schools which are publicly funded for the public good. Every child should walk into a public school and get the same education. Those are the parents that Iâm speaking to. What we are finding are parents who say they believe in a common good but they want a public school that operates like a private schoolâyou can screen out the kids you donât want  you can hoard resources in the school  you can hoard all the best teachers  you can determine what curriculum youâre going to get. And if that means that two miles down the road  another publicly-funded school doesnât get any of that  then so be it. That  to me  is the height of hypocrisy.
The public schools in gentrifying neighborhoods seem on the cusp of becoming truly diverse  as historically underserved neighborhoods fill up with younger  whiter families. But the schools remain stubbornly segregated. Nikole Hannah-Jones has chronicled this phenomenon around the country  and seen it firsthand in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. âWhite communities want neighborhood schools if their neighborhood school is white â she says. âIf their neighborhood school is black  they want choice.â Charter schools and magnet schools spring up in place of neighborhood schools  where white students can be in the majority. âWe have a system where white people control the outcomes  and the outcome that most white Americans want is segregation â she says. In a recent episode of The Atlantic Interview  Nikole Hannah-Jones and The Atlanticâs editor in chief  Jeffrey Goldberg  discuss how integrated schools are good for white children and black children.
âIf one were to believe that having people who are different from you makes you smarter  that you engage in a higher level of thinking  that you solve problems better  there are higher-level ways that integration is good for white folks â Jones says. For black children  the benefits of attending an integrated school are much more drastic. âItâs literally  will you receive a quality education or not? Will you be a full citizen in the country of your birth?â In a hyper-competitive economy where test scores and college admissions and lifetimes earnings are all linked  Hannah-Jones has seen that the soft benefits of integration  like empathy or compassion  are low on a familyâs priority list. âMost white people are willing to trade that â she has found. An edited transcript of their conversation is below.   [TGT]  : You and I have both had these conversations with my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates about the arc of history and which way it bends. Iâve adopted the viewpoint of Barack Obama  that history is an arrow and the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. And Ta-Nehisi says that there really is no moral arc  but if there were it would just bend toward chaos. Are you in the camp of people who say that long-term optimism is premature?
Nikole Hannah-Jones: I think it has not a lot of basis in historical fact. I would say the arc is actually a circle. It just perpetually turns back on itself.   [TGT]  : But letâs use African-Americans as an example. Life has gotten better  no? Before there was before there was Brown v. Board of Education  there was no Brown v. Board of Education. Before there was a Civil Rights Act  there was no Civil Rights Act. We donât live in a period of history free of lynchings  but the number of lynchings has gone down. There are more African-Americans in the middle class since Reconstruction. Life in America for African-Americans has gotten better. Itâs been stutter stepped  but we ainât in 1866 or 1873. Hannah-Jones: I am not a slave. That's true.   [TGT]  : Well â¦ All right. Hannah-Jones: If thatâs the bar.   [TGT]  : No  no  no. Hannah-Jones: None of us would argue that there hasnât been progress in a range of things. I guess I get almost offended by people who want us to pause and be congratulatory about forward progress.   [TGT]  : I just want it known for the record that I'm offending you already. And we havenât even started. Hannah-Jones: I mean  in a country that has set itself apart as a beacon of democracy  the fact that weâre applauding that black folks now have had  for 40 years  full citizenship rights in the country of their birth  in the country of their grandparentsâ birth  in the country their great grandparentsâ birthâit's just hard to feel a lot of optimism.
 Goldberg : Iâm not arguing for applauding. Obviously there is a long road to go. Iâm just saying that there is a direction to things. Hannah-Jones: Well  thereâs forward progress and then we move back. Weâre clearly right now moving back. So yes  we get the Voting Rights Act and now we get the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. We see a wave of voter suppression. We get Brown v. Board of Education and now black children are more segregated than theyâve been since the 1970s. We never made any real progress on housing segregation outside of the South and the West even though we outlawed housing discrimination in 1968. The wealth gap for black and white Americans is the largest that itâs been since we started really recording this in the 1970s. There are more black men incarcerated than were black men enslaved during slavery. There are more black men killed by police than there were black men lynched in a year.   [TGT]  : Okay fine. You win. Hannah-Jones: For small numbers of us  thereâs a lot of progress. And for large numbers of us  I think the progress can be very hard. Itâs still really bad.   [TGT]  : Iâm not disagreeing with your analysis on any of those. It just seemed two years ago that we were moving in the right direction. Hannah-Jones: And then what happened?   [TGT]  : Well  a reaction. I want you to analyze the root of these continuing dilemmas. Is at the bottom what weâre talking about a lack of understanding on the part of white America about the actual lived lives of African-Americans? I mean  Germany grappled with what it did in a way that Americaâs never grappled with what it did. As Ta-Nehisiâwho can always out-pessimism meâonce said  Germanyâs easy because Germany killed all the people it hated.
Hannah-Jones: I would say weâre not grappling what this country is about. Period. Not for African Americans.   [TGT]  : Youâre not one of these people who says  âThis is not who we are.â Hannah-Jones: No  this is clearly who we are. I write about race from the year 1619. The English landed at Jamestown is 1607. Twelve years later  we have imported Africans to be enslaved and determined that they will be a wholly different caste of people with no legal rights in this country. Thatâs one hundred and forty years before we declare independence and decide that we want to be a country. This is embedded in the DNA of this country. I mean  Ta-Nehisiâs claim to fame is âThe Case For Reparations â which says weâve never even repaired the damage that weâve done and we only grudgingly even give legal rightsâon paperâto this group of people.   [TGT]  : It is amazing that we are talking about Robert E. Lee and voter suppression as issues in 2017. Hannah-Jones: I mean tell me another country where a group of people break off from a country  try to fight that country  and lose  and those people are glorified and defended by the highest office in the land.   [TGT]  : So the South won in one key cognitive wayâin a narrative way? Hannah-Jones: Yes  of course. What we were fighting in the South was a national sin. We want to pretend it was a Southern sin  but it was a national sin. We canât grapple with the South unless we grapple with ourselves.
  [TGT]  : Two issues preoccupy you: housing segregation and education segregation. Theyâre linked  obviously. To get to a place where thereâs actual equality in housing and actual equality in educational opportunities for African-Americans  what has to happen? Itâs not just a legislative process. Hannah-Jones: It is not. Though  equal rights for black Americans has always had to be legislated. Itâs never been willingly given. What it would take  if weâre honest  is a fundamental restructuring of society. Our public schools are not broken  but are operating as designed. Our public schools were set up to provide unequal  inadequate education for black children. So thatâs what they do.   [TGT]  : But arenât the public schools just a downstream problem of housing segregation policies? Hannah-Jones: No. They are clearly linked  but whether you have integrated communities or segregated communities  we have school segregation. In communities that are gentrifying  the gentrification stops at the schoolhouse door. White communities want neighborhood schools if their neighborhood school is white. If their neighborhood school is black  they want choice. Housing segregation just becomes a convenient excuse. The problemâand I never use the phrase âwhite supremacyâ because itâs a word that people automatically discount as soon as you use it  but that is the problem. We have a system where white people control the outcomes. And the outcome that most white Americans want is segregation. And I donât mean the type of segregation that we saw in 1955. I don't mean complete segregation. I don't think there are very many white Americans who want entirely white schools. What they do want is a limited number of black kids in their schools.
  [TGT]  : What do you call âcurated diversity.â Hannah-Jones: I never talk about school inequality in terms of âdiversityâ because I think itâs a useless word. I think itâs a word that white people love. When I say âcurated diversity â it means white parents like a type of diversity so theyâll still be the majority and there wonât be too many black kids. White Americans  in general  are willing to accept about the ratio of black Americans at large: 10 to 15 percent.   [TGT]  : But you get into the 20s... Hannah-Jones: When you get into the 20s  white folks start to exaggerate how large the percentage is. So in New York City  one of the most segregated school systems in the country  if youâre a white parent in the public schools  you donât want all-white schools.   [TGT]  : Because youâre a liberal? Hannah-Jones: Yeah. But what you want is a majority-white school with a small number of black kids and a good number of Latino  a good number of Asian. That makes you feel very good about yourself because you feel like your child is getting this beautiful integrated experience. The problem is that the public schools in New York City are 70 percent black and Latino. So  for you to have your beautiful diversity  that means that most black and Latino kids get absolutely none. The tolerance for increasing particularly the percentage of black kids is very low  and even lower if those black kids are poor. No white parents in New York City mind having my kid in their school because they feel like Iâm on their level. But if you get too many of kids like mine who are black but poor  thereâs very little tolerance.
  [TGT]  : Do most white parents in New York City achieve curated diversity for their children? Hannah-Jones: Yes.   [TGT]  : Theyâre winning that? Hannah-Jones: Oh  definitely.   [TGT]  : And itâs the black and Latino kids who are not winning because thereâs not enough whites in that sense to go around? Hannah-Jones: There would be. I hear this all the time: âYou canât integrate schools in York City because thereâs not enough white kids.â But that's only based on the premise that you canât expect white kids to be in the minority. The demographics of the New York City public schools are about 40 percent Latino  almost 30 percent black  15 percent Asian  15 percent white. If you picture a classroom like that  that's a beautiful school. Thatâs a beautifully diverse  integrated school. You could have that if you chose. We just donât choose it  because we automatically say  âYou canât expect that a white parent will put their kid in school with all those black kids.â   [TGT]  : If you were the dictator of America  would you outlaw private schools? Would you force all the white kids  and all the upper-middle class and upper-class African-American kids  into the public-school system? Youâd have a deep level of parental involvement  right? Are private schools immoral in this context? Hannah-Jones: Interestingly  right after Brown there was consideration of whether or not Brown had to apply to private schools  or whether we should get rid of private schools in the United States altogether  understanding that the way to subvert Brown is to simply withdraw from public schools. Which is what happened all across the Southârather than share a public good with black folks  state legislatures decided to shut down public schools altogether and pay vouchers for white students to go to private segregation academies. We think it sounds absolutely crazy to consider ending private schools  but that was a consideration.
The answer to your question is yes  you would have to. If you truly wanted to equalize and integrate schools  you would have to. But you can go a step shorter than that. New York City public schools are majority black and Latino. But you can go to any of the suburbs around  and theyâre very heavily white. So in New York and all across the North  you could simply move into an all-white community and go to all-white public schools. And thatâs how you avoided desegregation. In the South  most school districts were countywide. So you either paid for private school or you dealt with desegregation. In the North  you didnât have to do that. The key difference between the North and the South is for the vast majority of the history of this country  90 percent of all black people lived in the South. The South responds with Jim Crow  by passing laws that restrict the movement of black people. The North doesnât have to do that. It has a very tiny black population. Itâs only once black people start migrating out of the South in the 1900s that the North shows its true ugly racist head.   [TGT]  : Youâve described something that I actually experienced as a kid in the 70s. I was in a school system growing up that was about 60 percent black  35 whiteâthe local system right outside New York City. Very unusual. My experience going from kindergarten through 12th grade in that situation was fairly tension-free. People actually got along. There was mixing  there was interracial datingâ¦
Hannah-Jones: Your first crush was a black girl?   [TGT]  : No  weâre not even going there. Hannah-Jones: OK.   [TGT]  : But  yes. And the second and the third. Hannah-Jones: Why are you turning red right now?   [TGT]  : Because Iâm interviewing you and youâre not interviewing me. But yes. My high-school sweetheart for many years was an African-American woman whoâs a very delightful person. It was an atmosphere where that could happen without consequence. Granted  a lot of the people from the white parts of town went to Catholic parochial schools. If the school district actually took in all of the kids who lived within the boundaries  it probably would have been 30 percent black. For the whites who went  it was a fairly beneficial experience. I can look back on that and say it was better for my intellectual  moral  civic developmentâmy emotional developmentâto do that. That  you argue  is disappearing slowly as an experience for whites and blacks. The country is resegregating. Talk a little bit about the benefits for whites of integration. Hannah-Jones: I think this is where you struggle trying to convince white people they should do this. Thereâs a clear imbalance for black kids. Itâs literally  will you receive a quality education or not? That is what integration means for black kids. Will you be able to transcend poverty? Will you be a full citizen in the country of your birth?   [TGT]  : Hitching a ride to the white majorityâ¦
Hannah-Jones: Hitching a ride to the white majority  with the understanding that in a country built on racial caste  they get an inordinate amount of the resources. Things that are acceptable for black children are never acceptable for white children. So if you want what white children get  you have to be where white children are. White kids donât need black kids in the same way. Segregation does benefit white families. That is why the whole institution of segregation comes about.   [TGT]  : How does it benefit white families  though  in a practical way? Hannah-Jones: In a practical way  because you get to hoard resources. You get the best of everything. Even in a community where the schools pretty much suck  if thereâs a school with black kids  itâs going to suck worse.   [TGT]  : I would disagree with the whole premise. Hannah-Jones: Would you?   [TGT]  : Well  going to the second half. The benefits of integration for whites I think outweigh whatever resource hoarding you could do. Hannah-Jones: Itâs soft benefits versus hard benefits. The soft benefits of integration  which I think are also very importantâitâs just a much harder argument. White people understand that theyâre fighting to get into white schools for a reason. It is a benefit. Theyâre going to get the best teachers. Theyâre going to get the best instruction. Theyâre going to get the best curriculum.   [TGT]  : With the assumption that itâs a zero-sum game.
Hannah-Jones: With the assumption that there are good teachers and bad teachers.   [TGT]  : And that the bad teachers are going to be... Hannah-Jones: ...overwhelmingly put into our schools. Yes. Nothing about the American experiment tells us that we value black kids the same. We just donât. I wrote about school resegregation in Tuscaloosa for The Atlantic. They created an all-black high school and an integrated high school. They promised the all-black high school it would have the same courses  and they just donât do it. There was actually no reason not to do it. The white parents who wanted the integrated school didnât give a damn what courses you offered in the black school. They werenât fighting against giving those kids physics. They just didnât care. In the end  they were poor black kids and they didnât have that much value and no one thought they were going to go to college anyway. Now  if one were to believeâwhich I believeâthat having people who are different from you makes you smarter  that you engage in a higher level of thinkingâand thereâs been research that shows thatâthat you solve problems better  there are all these higher-level ways that integration is good for white folks.   [TGT]  : The richness of the human experience. Hannah-Jones: Right. My daughter is in a high-poverty school. Weâre clearly not poor. I think it makes her a better human being. I think she gets to see that these kids arenât any less than her. They just have less than her. But those are all hard soft-arguments to make to people who fundamentally view education as  how my kid will rise to the top above every other kid and get into Harvard. They donât actually give a damn about their kid being a better person.
  [TGT]  : You talk about âhardâ benefits and âsoftâ benefits. I don't think they are that soft. Hannah-Jones: Most white people are willing to trade that. There is an explicit racial fear that black kids are more dangerous  that if they put their kids in these schools  their kids are going to be exposed to violence  theyâre going to be exposed to bad culture. Thereâs no longer the belief that black people are racially inferior but that black culture is inferior.   [TGT]  : They donât say it in such a blunt way  do they? Hannah-Jones: They said it in a blunt way. In my daughterâs school  when white parents who lived next door to my daughterâs school would come and tour  they would tell the principal  âWe'll bring our kids  but only if our kids are in classroom by themselves and you keep them together through fifth grade.â   [TGT]  : You mean  a white class. Hannah-Jones: Yes. This is what is being demanded.   [TGT]  : And this is in âprogressiveâ Brooklyn. Hannah-Jones: This is Brooklyn. Hipster Brooklyn. There is this intrinsic racial fear that cannot be mitigated by facts. Thatâs the thing that is really embedded in all of usâthe belief that black children are not as smart. There are exceptional black children  right? âOf course  I know little Johnny is smart  but heâs not like the rest of the black kids that are culturally depraved. That bad culture is going to rub off. We need to protect our kids from large numbers of these kids.â I've had parents tell me  âThe middle-class black parents at the school are fine.â
  [TGT]  : Whatâs so interesting here is that you're not talking about stereotypical Trump voters in Alabama. You're talking about hipster Brooklyn. Liberals kind of piss you off? Hannah-Jones: I am only writing and speaking to liberals at this point. I'm trying to get people who say they believe in equality and integration but act in ways that maintain inequality and segregation to live their own values. The most segregated parts of the country are all in the progressive North. If you could just get white liberals to live their values  you could have a significant amount of integration.   [TGT]  : You know what group of people who would be really uncomfortable listening to  you  talk? The heads of progressive private schools in New York City  Boston  Washington. Hannah-Jones: But hereâs the thing. Weâre in a capitalist country and if you can pay for something  then so be it. What Iâm dealing with are public schools which are publicly funded for the public good. Every child should walk into a public school and get the same education. Those are the parents that Iâm speaking to. What we are finding are parents who say they believe in a common good but they want a public school that operates like a private schoolâyou can screen out the kids you donât want  you can hoard resources in the school  you can hoard all the best teachers  you can determine what curriculum youâre going to get. And if that means that two miles down the road  another publicly-funded school doesnât get any of that  then so be it. That  to me  is the height of hypocrisy.