An Honest Education (with Heather McGhee and Juliet Kuehnle)

On today’s episode, hosts Rachel Vindman, Jasmine Clark, and Amanda Weinstein discuss critical race theory and what our children are being taught in school about race and American history. They talk about the history they weren’t taught when they were in school—for example, about the Tulsa Race Massacre—and how we have to provide our kids with the truth about our history if we want to equip them to be good citizens and empathetic humans.

For another mom’s perspective, they chat with mental health counselor and mom of two Juliet Kuehnle. Juliet shares how she’s approached anti-racism with her daughters and what she’s learned as a psychologist about how we can have these difficult conversations.

After that, Amanda gets the opportunity to talk with New York Times best-selling author, Heather McGhee. Heather's new book is “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” Heather and Amanda discuss what all Americans have lost by treating history and public services as a zero-sum game... and they bond over their love of economics, barbecue, and John Legend.

Finally, our hosts celebrate doctors and nurses, their partners, and their dogs in this week’s “Toast To Joy.”

If you want to stop politicians from banning conversations about race in our schools, please sign and share this petition.

For a transcript of this episode, please email theswppod@redwine.blue.

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

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Transcript

The Suburban Women Problem - Episode 5

Amanda: Hi everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Weinstein. 

Jasmine: I’m Jasmine Clark. 

Rachel: I’m Rachel Vindman. 

Amanda: And this is The Suburban Women Problem. So on today's episode, we're going to talk about our kids' education and what we're teaching them about race and history in this country. Later on, we'll be speaking with Juliet Kuehnle, a psychologist in North Carolina, for another mom's perspective on how to talk to our kids about race and American history. And after that, I get the chance to interview the brilliant author, Heather McGhee. So be sure to stick around for that. 

Rachel: So before we jump into this topic, we want to start by being open and honest. Many of us, including myself, have a tendency to shut down when anyone talks about racism, because it feels very uncomfortable. 

Jasmine: I think about it kind of the way I think about how the disability community has really had to fight for certain things, inclusivity into society. There was a time where handicap ramps were not a thing. You know, if you couldn't climb those stairs, you just couldn't go so up there.

So take that and apply that to Black people who are in a place, in a society where, when they were brought here, they were not even really considered human. They were considered basically a machine meant to fuel our economy. And so we are dealing with having to retrofit society to include Black people. 

You know, you might say, “well, we've come a long way.” And yes, we have, I will not deny that we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. Just like any race, you don't just stop in the middle because you're you're making some progress. You've got to keep going and that's what we have to do as a society. 

And so I say all this to say that when we have conversations like this, we are not trying to indict any individual. What we are trying to say is that this is about an open, honest conversation about where we are as a society and where we really need to go. And also about not hiding those truths because they can make you feel uncomfortable. 

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, we can't get there without the information, without having the conversation. We need to know the history in order to go on that journey. We need our kids to know the history in order to go on that journey. Jasmine, you were talking about, you know, the history of slavery in this country and how this affects laws and systems even today. And so we need to know all of that history to have a good conversation and the information we need to progress and to move forward. 

So let's talk about critical race theory. It's been in the news a lot lately, but why now? Where is this outrage coming from? 

Jasmine: Well, let's be honest. It is coming from the need for the GOP to create boogeymen. They've got to have something to scare us. You know, they've been trying to scare us with all these different culture wars. They're trying to scare us suburban moms with, you know, oh, the trans kids are coming or, oh, the Black people are moving into your neighborhoods or, oh, the Hispanics are moving into here. They're trying to scare us with all these things. It's not working. So now here's the next thing. 

It was like, oh man, they're about to teach our children about race and systemic racism in school. And they're going to make your children, especially your white children, feel guilty for being white. It's just another boogeyman. They don't know what they're talking about. They just know it sounds scary. And because they know that other people don't know what it is, they get to create a definition for them. They make it scary enough that we’ll show up to school board meetings and fight and cry and hold up signs and, you know, fight against this thing that is not even being taught in our schools.

Rachel: The GOP throws out a bunch of stuff and sees what will stick. The Republicans are controlling the narrative on critical race theory. And then people hear things and they're like, “well, that doesn't really sound good.” Because they're explaining it exactly how they want! And no one is addressing it and countering it. So I think that's, that is a really dangerous thing. 

You know, I don't know if you guys, I heard the the president's speech last this week in Tulsa. And I have to say as an Oklahoma native—I was born and raised in Oklahoma, took Oklahoma history in high school and college—I never learned about the Tulsa Race Riots.

But one of the things the president said in his speech just really resonated with me and that was, “But just because history is silent, it doesn't mean that it didn't take place. And while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing. Only with truth can come healing and justice and repair. Only with truth, facing it.” So, and this goes back to what I was saying before. Only when we talk about this can we move forward. 

Amanda: I think so. I think you made a good point, like… we weren't scared about Cory Booker coming into our suburbs, right? Because we have experience with that, right? We're like, oh, I have experience with—“

Rachel: If he wants to come to mine, that’s okay!

Amanda: Yes! Come on in, Cory Booker! I think there’s a house for sale down the street! Uh, but right. We have experience with that, and this is why they don't want us to have the conversation. 

So we've seen this happen even in my little town of Hudson, Ohio. So we recently made some national news in Hudson, Ohio, and it was not good news for our town. During our Memorial Day events, Lieutenant Colonel Kemter was giving a speech. And he dared to include a discussion of the real history of Memorial Day, a history that includes people of color, freed slaves, playing an integral role in the holiday. The organizers admittedly cut his mic because they thought it shouldn't be part of the program. It shouldn't be part of our discussion. 

Now the American Legion has since responded swiftly to calls, including by my husband, a State Rep here in Ohio, asking for their resignations. They actually closed the branch and I applaud their swift response. But what we don't hear in the media is more of the context.

This is something, you know, that Heather Cox Richardson talks a lot about, right? And there's more context behind this event. Just days before this event, we had a city council member who was caught trying to push down a community conversation about race when police opened an investigation into some Hudson students making egregious racial and homophobic threats online about a week before that.

We had parents showing up at the board of education meeting to protest our Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives. And honestly, I think whether they'll admit to it or not, they didn't want to have the conversation because we'll stop being scared and we'll truly realize what these initiatives are about.

Jasmine: I think another good example that we've seen of this is the treatment of Nikole Hannah-Jones. After she published The 1619 Project, which reexamines American history through the lens of slavery and racial injustice—she actually won a Pulitzer prize for this project, it was such a good project. However, the University of North Carolina actually denied her tenure and it was in direct backlash to her 1619 Project. Basically, there were some conservative groups who didn't like it. And they did not want her to be rewarded for exposing one of America's ugly truths. This is another example of trying to hide the truth because information is power. And when she exposed something that they would rather people just not know, they found a way to try to punish her. 

But it honestly sends a message to people like myself, who is a Black academic. And I think about, you know, if I want to do something that might be extremely important, but a little controversial, or maybe a lot controversial… is it worth it? Is it worth my career? I really hope that justice is served in this situation, but again, it brings back that point. If they don't want you to know something, they will do any and everything to try to stifle it. And if that means denying someone tenure to send a message to others that “don't even try it,” if that means cutting off a mic to say, you know, “this isn't a part of what we want today to be about,” then if you don't know, then they get to tell you what it is. 

Rachel: I can think it goes back to again what the president said. “While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing." 

Amanda: So when we think about Black history, it's often relegated to Black history month. But it's American history. We need a curriculum that is inclusive and that talks about more of our history in a meaningful way, how it affects us today. So I remember history as memorizing dates of when every war was, and it didn't often include things like the Tulsa Race Massacre that you've mentioned, Rachel. That we weren't taught about those things. 

And I've been thinking about my reaction to the January 6th insurrection. And one thing that I love about Twitter is you get to interact with people you might not otherwise interact with. And my reaction was shock. And there were people, people of color, who said, “how can you be shocked? This is not the first time we've had insurrections and coups.” 

When you think about the coup that happened in Wilmington, North Carolina, where they completely overthrew that government with no repercussions, because they were unhappy with sharing the government with people of color… I did not quite connect the history of our country with that event in a way where I maybe would have reacted differently before the event. And I would've seen it coming and maybe we would've done more. Like, we know where this is headed because we know our American history. 

Rachel: I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying about my, my sort of evolution. As I said, I grew up in Oklahoma, never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre until a couple of years ago. You know, for someone who is married to a Jewish man, one of the things that I can really liken it to is a pogrom. It was a pogrom. For those of you who might not know, a pogrom is a situation where non-Jews would come in to a Jewish community and they would destroy everything. And this was a way of just, you know, saying, “We're in power. You're not. You only exist because we allow you to do so. But at any moment, we can come in, we can take this from you and you can not stop us. We will not face consequences.” And that's exactly what happened in Tulsa. 

Jasmine: Can you imagine where we would be as a society if more people actually knew this? But when you hide things like that—we have lots of examples of things that are a part of our history that still have an impact today. 

So I'm born and raised in Georgia, you know. And I learned not from school, but from my family about things like sundown towns. Forsyth County, Georgia… everyone knew that if you were Black, you do not drive through there after dark. I think about the fact that I went to school in a majority Black school district and they would bus us over to Stone Mountain Park, where there's this huge memorial to Stonewall Jackson and the Confederacy. We were taught in school that the Civil War was about states' rights and that the south was the good guys. Like, that's how they teach children about the Civil War in the South. And so when you talk about information, yes, we need to get information out there, but it needs to be good information. It needs to be factual information. It needs to tell the whole truth. 

Amanda: So if our schools aren't teaching this stuff to our kids, we need to make sure they're at least learning about it at home. So let's get another mom's perspective in here and talk to Juliet Kuehnle about talking about these difficult issues with our kids.

Juliet, welcome to the podcast! So you're a mental health counselor. You're an activist. You're also a mom to two little girls. I understand that you feel passionately about teaching your kids anti-racism and being honest about the role of race in American history. Could you tell us a little more about yourself and what drew you to the anti-racism work?

Juliet Kuehnle: Sure, thank you so much for having me. So my parents are, you know, what they call “yellow dog Democrats.” They have long been in the good fight, I think they took me to my first protest when I was three or four years old. And so between like all of those things, I feel like my values were instilled pretty early. 

But at the same time, I sat very much in my privilege. So I'm absolutely aware of how that has served me and been my reality. I think that really shifted when I had kids, when it shifted from just, “I'm not racist” to “no, no, no. I'm going to be anti-racist. I'm going to be actively race conscious.” And the thing is, is I know I still have blind spots from this inherent privilege. So it's not something you just decide to be and then check it off. It's a commitment to the constant work and recognizing where it shows up and constantly committing to doing better. 

Amanda: So some parents think if you just don't talk about race with your kids, right?—this idea of colorblindness, right?—if we just don't talk about being racist, if we don't teach our children to be racist, then they won't be racist. 

Juliet: Yeah. I mean, I think that's really outdated and obviously it hasn't quote, unquote worked. So we have this saying in therapy, we say “name it to tame it.” So if it's emotions, if you acknowledge the emotion, what it is, then you can cope with it.

So sweeping under the rug, tiptoeing around something, calling it something else, these things don't get to the root of or solve anything. You know, our kids aren't dumb. They obviously see differences, visual differences. And I think that's great. So we don't want them to then create a narrative that it's shameful or taboo because nobody's talking about it. So if we don't actively name things for them and help them understand it, and they're in a context where they're not then having to kind of create their own narrative around something, then we're continuing to just perpetuate these implicit biases. 

Jasmine: I think a lot of times people are like, "it's really uncomfortable to talk about racism” and I'm like, “imagine how uncomfortable it is to experience racism.” Like, you know, come on, give me something here. Like, you know, talking about it, it is rough. It's even rough talking about it as a person who experiences racism. But it's really harder experiencing it. It's really hard raising children in a society where I want to protect them all the time.

So as a psychologist, how does your work as a psychologist inform what you think about racism and just about some people's fears about teaching Black history in a factual way? 

Juliet: Well, one thing is that we can get easily distracted, which is why certain political tactics work to change the narrative. So we have to keep getting back to the main point and focus and we have to work to do that. And then I also, you know, I know that people often act—or don't act—out of fear. And this is a tough subject. But what we know in psychology is that leaning into hard conversations, into discomfort and vulnerability, is necessary for growth and change. So unearthing the facts is what we have to do to go through this and evolve once and for all. 

And what I also know about humans is that we do crave authenticity at a deep level, and we crave that vulnerability. So getting to that point is the only way we can move forward. And then I know from parenting that our kids can handle it. You know, when you have these age appropriate conversations, they get it. And they are becoming more compassionate, empathetic humans, which is what we want for all our kids. 

Jasmine: Thank you. This was amazing. Thank you so much for your insight. 

Juliet: Thank you so much for inviting me into this conversation. I really appreciate it.

Amanda: Thank you. And coming up after the break is my interview with Heather McGhee. She recently published a book, “The Sum Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” She was a treat to talk to, I'm so excited for everyone to hear my conversation with Heather. Coming up.

BREAK

Amanda: And today we have with us Heather McGhee. Thanks for being here and welcome to The Suburban Women Problem, Heather!

Heather McGhee: Hey, it's so good to be with you ladies!

Amanda: So Heather, you recently published a book, “The Sum Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” So much of the history you cover in the book, even as someone who studied economics, really surprised me. You talk a lot about economic policy, so my little economic, you know, economist heart was beating! I was like, “oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” So why did you take this specific lens of kind of economic policy to understand the history of racism in America?

Heather: So, you know, in many ways it was kind of the opposite, actually, Amanda. I spent 20 years trying to use research and advocacy to inform better economic policy, decision-making, by folks in power, by policy makers and business leaders. I’d bring them data about the concentration of wealth in the country and the rising student debt and declining and stagnant wages and lack of childcare and paid family leave, and just sort of… hope that they would make better policy decisions. And yet, so often it wasn't happening. 

And for me, it really was about trying to solve many of America's vexing economic problems. And it wasn't until I left what was, in many ways, my dream job, running an economic think tank focused on inequality and hit the road across the country that I discovered that it was actually much more than I'd ever really been able to see before. That racism in our politics and our policymaking was driving inequality for everyone. And therefore racism has a cost for everyone. 

Amanda: That is really profound because in economics, we have seen one of the biggest overarching trends in economics since about 1970 is inequality. And we hear economists talk about it, but I don't often hear about them talk about it within the lens of racism. I hear them talk about the financial crisis, for example, which I've also not heard talked in terms of any racial implications there. But you also talk about the financial crisis in a completely different way than I hear economists talk about it. 

Heather: Yeah. I had a really strange, just by accident of history, front row seat to the buildup to the financial crisis. I started working on issues of financial regulation back in 2002. And what we saw was that deregulated, you know, no-rules financial companies were starting to test out these exotic new mortgages on existing Black and brown homeowners. And so they were testing out these loans on the communities that were the least protected and the least respected. 

But the reason why I call that chapter “Ignoring the Canary” is that Black and brown homeowners were the canaries in the coal mine, right? That what happened with the early wave of foreclosures and loans that were toxic and unaffordable in neighborhoods that frankly policymakers just had all these racist stereotypes about, you know, that sort of persist to this day. It's like, "oh, well, you know, Black people are kind of bad with money. They're low income. They're not sophisticated.” Right, you know, all of this stuff. And it made it hard to see the scale of the crisis for what it was. But those of us who were on the ground who were advocating against the rise in predatory mortgage lending, we knew this was a ticking time bomb. And we knew that this combination of racism and greed was going to create just a juggernaut that would ultimately take down the entire economy. And that's the story I tell in that chapter. 

Amanda: Wow. And one of our biggest recessions that affected the world, really. So a lot of the stories you tell in this book are basically white communities kind of cutting off their nose to spite their face. I've heard you say that “zero sum thinking creates a cost for everyone.” And one of the examples that you talk about is the history of public pools. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about that? 

Heather: Yeah. So I really wrote “The Sum of Us” to answer the question… why can’t we have nice things in America? And by nice things, I don't mean like drive through espresso, you know, I mean, nice things like—

Amanda: Healthcare! 

Heather: Like healthcare! And childcare, and paid family leave and, you know, wages that can keep a working family out of poverty and, you know, a good well-funded school in every neighborhood. And it's this idea of public goods, of using our collective resources as a country to make sure that our people have a decent standard of living. And we don't have so much financial stress. Which we've lost sight of in this country. And I use the metaphor and the story of what happened to public pools in America to talk about where we went wrong.

So in the 1930s and 40s, the country went on a building boom of public goods and amenities: public libraries and roads and bridges and schools… and pools. And these are not, you know, little dinky community pools. This is, you know, thousand plus grand resort style swimming pools that could hold over a thousand swimmers at a time. And we used to have nearly 2000 in this country. 

And I talk about the pools because in many ways they were sort of the cherry on the top of a broader commitment to public goods and to a decent standard of living for the American people. It included things like social security for people who could no longer work, a minimum wage and maximum hour laws. And virtually all that I just described was racially exclusive. For whites only. And that included the pools. 

And when in the 1950s and 60s, the civil rights movement empowered Black families to finally be able to say, “hey, those are our tax dollars that built those public pools,” what ended up happening time and time again was across the country, cities and towns drained their public pools rather than integrate them. They literally drained out the water, backed up truckloads of dirt, paved it over with grass. In Montgomery, Alabama, one of the many places where this happened—although it wasn't just in the South, it also happened in Ohio and New Jersey and Washington state—you actually had the city of Montgomery close its entire Parks and Recreation department for a decade rather than integrate it. 

In 1956 and 1960, two thirds of white Americans believed that the government ought to guarantee a job and guarantee a minimum income to everyone in the country who couldn't find a job in the public sector or whose wages were too low. That is like, a radical left-wing idea in today's politics. But can you imagine what it would do for families who are struggling and people who are looking for decent jobs? And between 1960 and 1964, white support for that idea fell from nearly 70% in half to just about 35% and has stayed low ever since.

And so I thought, “well, what could have happened between ’60 and ’64 to dramatically change white Americans’ opinions about, you know, what the government should do to provide economic security?” Right away I realize of course it's the March on Washington, 1963, which included a job guarantee and a living wage, a universal living wage, as part of the demands.

So in a large part, we replaced a formula for broadly shared middle-class prosperity that had a racial asterisk—for whites only—with what I call “drained pool politics.” And that's what we've had over the last 50 years and in an economy where 1% of the population owns more wealth than the entire middle class, 40% of adult workers before the start of the pandemic were paid too little to meet their basic needs for things like housing and food… we’ve really replaced a “we're all in this together” with “you're on your own.” And racism in our politics and our policy-making has had a huge role to play in that. 

Amanda: Yeah. You see the trend of this hollowing out of the middle class. But you don't often hear about it from this racial lens and how it has really hurt all of us.

And I think about also, you know, with the paving of the pools and the getting rid of the parks department… so my own research and economics shows that women actually show stronger preferences for parks. And if you think about it, it makes sense because as moms we’d like to get out of the house occasionally! And take our kids somewhere! We would like to take them to parks. We would like to take them to pools. And so for women, this has huge implications for moms. That we are taking away these amenities that would really help us. And we just didn't see it through that lens. 

Heather: I feel like it's a fundamental question… If you think about all the things, all the big things that people need to run their families: healthcare, childcare, housing, transportation, family leave policy, you know, higher education affordability, we’ve sort of shouldered them over the last 50 years on to individual families. It's like you, out of your paycheck, have got to fund all the things that I just described. No other country who's as advanced as we are does it this way. They all recognize that the math simply doesn't add up. 

And so I asked myself, why do we have this anti-government narrative in our politics? Why is there this, you know, “no, families should do it on their own, you know? You're really free if you pay $20,000 a year in higher education tuition in college—“

Amanda: Yeah, I’m feeling really free right now with the two childcare tuitions I'm paying. Very freeing.

Heather: Right. And so where did this narrative come from? Where did this story come from? It didn't used to be the case, as I said, right? There used to be a sense that of course these big things we have to deal with together. And then, what does the often racialized political narratives about government, right, the idea that “government is for lazy people,” "the government is for people who can't do for themselves” and “if you're worth your salt, you know, you won't need government.” When, of course, government is what we as a people do together when we can't do it on our own. 

And that sort of core mistrust of collective action, that sense that the government is doing something wrong by trying to lay the foundation for broadly shared prosperity, is a relatively new phenomenon in American politics. And you can really trace its beginnings as a popular idea to the Civil Rights movement, when the government went from the enforcer of racial hierarchy, right, to— because I always like to remind people it's not, racism is so often it's not about individual ideas and beliefs. It's about government and business policies and practices that then communicate to the whole country our relative worth as people. When there's a sign on a wall that says “Whites Only” on a public pool, what does that communicate about something that is terribly wrong with Black children?

Amanda: Wow. So you kind of touched on this already a little bit, but so we just passed the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. An event that many of us weren't taught about in school, even in Oklahoma. So in addition to this being a horrendous event at the time, what you talk about and what we know now is that it's had devastating longterm economic impacts on this community. And so how do you think that we all suffer from not learning properly about the true history of our country? The Black history of our country? And how does that intersect with our kids not learning about these things? 

Heather: Well, I'm so glad you asked this question. Because African-American history is American history. Indigenous American history is American history. I could go on and on and on. We've been robbed, all of us, of an honest education in this country about who we are, how we got here, what powerful forces have done to shape our communities over our history. 

I'm not an historian. And yet in the process of writing “The Sum of Us” I had to share a little bit of history in each chapter just to explain why we are where we are today, because we don't know, right? You can't solve problems by not being honest about what has caused the problems. And that unfortunately is where we are today, where less than 10% of high school seniors can accurately name that slavery was a primary cause of the Civil War… I mean, that's just crazy. 

And so we've really been robbed of our own collective history as a country. And I think this is not a zero sum… this is not, you know, “it's bad for white students to learn about this and it's great for Black students to learn about this history.” This is all of our histories. 

And let me be very clear as to why it's so important, particularly for our young people who are already living in generations that have no racial majority. They’re already living in the future America is becoming, and they need to understand why the inequalities exist today. And the story that we were told in the absence of the real and accurate and honest history was basically, you know, there’s some people work harder than others. Some people, you know, go get more education than others, you know? 

Amanda: Yup. We have heard that at our recent board of education meetings. That is exactly the story that was told. 

Heather: Thank you. Exactly. So in the absence of the true history, about red lining, about segregation, about land theft, about bombing homes in Chicago where I grew up… if you don't know the history of how our schools are funded separately, if you don't know about the $23 billion funding gap between majority white and majority of color schools and how weird it is and how much of an outlier we are as a country to fund based on local property taxes. Particularly when you recognize that local property values have been rigged by this racist system of excluding Black families from home ownership. Right? If you don't know those things, if you don't know about the racist roots of opposition to the minimum wage and how, you know, racism is used to defeat labor unions. If you don't know all of this, then you are vulnerable to manipulations.

And that is really where there is an agenda behind this attack on honest education, which is what I call the attack on so-called critical race theory. Because critical race theory is, you know, a 40 year old, very academic kind of body of work and scholars that made the pretty basic intervention to say racism isn't just about interpersonal bad guys doing things to other people. It's about the way racism is in our politics, in our policymaking, the way it's structured in our laws. And in a country where for most of our history, it was explicitly written in our laws, it’s so silly to think that we should not teach our children those facts. 

And what's going on right now I think is really an attempt by a well-funded narrow corporate elite, you know, you've got these conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which is backed by a bunch of really radical right wing millionaires and billionaires, trying to rob our students of an honest education. 

And trying to distract the conversation in this country from a very popular agenda of the Democratic Party and the Biden/Harris administration, which would, you know, in the parlance of the book, “refill the pool of public goods for everyone.” We'd finally have paid leave in this country from the American Families Plan, universal childcare, we would cut child poverty in half. Every parent gets a check, a monthly check, to help support the cost of raising your family per kid. These are just massive massive helps and assistance for all families, Black, white, and brown. And yet what the narrow elite wants to do is divide us by race and keep people thinking that we are actually opposed to one another, as opposed to recognizing that the people who are holding back our progress or not our Black and brown and white neighbors, but rather a very wealthy political and economic elite that wants to keep rigging the rules in their own favor.

Amanda: So you've mentioned critical race theory, how it's been in the news a lot lately, and it seems like it is the latest thing to use to try and scare people, probably especially scare suburban women. And so how do you think we should go and talk with our neighbors and with our friends about critical race theory? To people who might be buying into this saying, “oh my gosh, critical race theory is being taught, and this is scary. I don't understand what it is, but I'm going to oppose it.” 

Heather: Yeah. I think this is so important. And anyone who cares about honesty and education should take this on because it is being sold by this kind of organized right-wing front as a white versus Black thing. Organize white parents to be threatened by African-American history.

Amanda: Yes, absolutely. What I've heard is, “they're teaching your white kids to hate themselves.” 

Heather: Yeah, and we need to listen to white kids who are saying, “we need this education.” You can't have the insurrection of January 6th, the protests across the country, and then not talk about the issues that created these events in schools. You have to. The kids are bringing it into the classroom and they want to know, and they want to have good informed conversations by teachers. And so this is robbing something of our children, to try to scare teachers away from having conversations about who our country is and who our people are. 

And I can say that as someone who is a racial justice advocate, we never teach children that they are bad people. In fact, critical race theory is not about bad people, bad judgments, bad thoughts and ideas—

Amanda: It’s not about that, people! It’s not even about good guys or bad guys!

Heather: Yes. It's really about the laws in black and white on the books, you know? So whether we're Black or white or Latino or Asian or Native or newcomer, we all want our kids to have an education that encourages them to dig deeper into who we are and where we came from and what we're capable of being.

But the same lawmakers who've blocked funding for our classrooms are now trying to turn us against our schools. They're spreading lies about the lessons on our history that our teachers give as part of an honest education. And so I would say that as parents, we have to communicate to one another that our children have to have the tools to honestly face and understand our past and present in order to create a better future.

And I think it's really important for people to speak out and say that, you know, “we believe in the first amendment, we believe in honest education, we don't want our teachers to have to do both sides about the Tulsa Race Massacre or the Holocaust or indigenous genocide. We don't want our teachers to feel like they're going to be sued by some right wing parent, because they taught about the school citizens and the lunch counter sit-ins.” Right? This is really important history that helps our young people understand themselves, their place in the world, and what they want to be a part of. 

Our history in this country is one of struggle and one of overcoming. And when you try to rob people of their own history, what you do is you leave them vulnerable to those same manipulations.

Amanda: And it absolutely chips away at this honest education that we're trying to provide our children. 

All right, Heather. So we're going to do some fun rapid fire questions now. 

Heather: Okay, great. 

Amanda: All right, let's do this. What was the wildest thing that happened to you on your book tour this year? 

Heather: The wildest thing that happened to me on my book tour was that I got to talk to John Legend.

Amanda: Oh! Ohioan!! 

Heather: He is an Ohioan! And so is my mom actually. Um, but no, no, no, no. My mom is not John Legend, okay, John Legend is John Legend. He read my book and he wanted to have a conversation with me about it. So we went on Instagram Live and talked about it and it was like, you know, I'm used to his incredible romantic music and the voice, and instead we're talking about economic policy and it was just dreamy. 

Amanda: Oh yes. So we know you're an expert on, well, a lot of things. For me, I think you're an expert on economics, law, racism, all of this stuff, but is there anything else that you're an expert on that might surprise us?

Heather: I am an expert on 1990s-era female-driven young adult fantasy novels. 

Amanda: I was not expecting that! 

Heather: I will never be as voracious reader as I was during that period. And that's when I became an expert in those kinds of books. 

Amanda: Do you have a song that you listen to before an interview or a TV appearance? Like, this is going to pump me up?

Heather: You know, one of my favorite pump up songs is—you know, back in the day when I used to walk onto a stage to give a speech—was the song by Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up!”

Amanda: Oh yeah. 

Heather: “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield, it's just so upbeat. And it's got that like great chorus and that's one of my favorites.

Amanda: Did you listen to it before you gave your Ted Talk? 

Heather: I did actually, in the makeup chair! That was the most nervous I've ever been to give any speech. They kind of make it seem so like such a big deal. There's such a high production value. You have to memorize it, also. 

Amanda: I was wondering that because it did not look like you memorized it, but it's so well done. So what celebrity or politician have you been the most star struck to me? I think you maybe already answered this. 

Heather: Yeah, probably John Legend. 

Amanda: I mean, it wouldn't be, that's fair. So I understand you traveled around the country a lot as you were doing research for your book. Did you discover any local foods that you loved?

Heather: There was a barbecue place in Mississippi that I went to that is called Beulah’s Barbecue. And I'll just never forget it. I'll just never forget it. I remember I took the first bite of the barbecue ribs and I like tears almost sprang to my eyes. I was like, what have I been eating this whole time?

Amanda: I get that. I have cities, I have— like there’s a gumbo place in Kentucky that I love, and in Yellow Springs Ohio, there's my favorite cafe. It’s the best thing. 

Well that is it! We’re done with our rapid fire questions. Thank you for joining us on The Suburban Women Problem. Where can people find you online? 

Heather: Thank you Suburban Women Problem! heathermcghee.com, thesumofusbook.com. I'm on Instagram at Heather C. McGhee. And yeah, probably just my website's the easiest place to find everything. Thesumofusbook.com. 

Amanda: That is awesome. Heather, thank you for joining us. This was delightful. I of course could sit here and talk to you and ask you questions forever. 

Heather: Thank you so much, Amanda. 

Amanda: Thank you.

BREAK

Jasmine: Welcome back to The Suburban Women Problem. Amanda, that conversation with Heather was amazing. 

Amanda: It was such an exciting conversation for me because we come from clearly, you know, different backgrounds, but to see her talking about some of the same issues that I deal with as an economist, I was just kind of economist geeking out the whole time.

Jasmine: Love it.

Amanda: So before we go, we like to leave you with what we call A Toast to Joy. This week, my Toast to Joy is to my partner, my husband, a state rep in Ohio, who was quick and loud and he was able to get the resolution that we needed and get justice for the events that happened in our town, cutting the mic off Lieutenant Colonel Kemter. My toast is to the boots on the ground work that he does to make things better for our state and for our community. 

Jasmine: I really do thank him for doing that. You know, as a state rep, sometimes I'm like, “what can I do to have an immediate impact?” And so I love that he just dug right in, you know? Shout out to him for that.

Rachel: My Toast to Joy this week is to… so our daughter is 10, and I had a very difficult pregnancy with her and just someone who's been on my mind a lot recently as she grows up is Dr. Bruce Cohen, who is the maternal fetal medicine specialist in Boston, Massachusetts, who I credit with keeping me sane during my pregnancy. He made me feel so cared for. He will probably never hear this, but he has just been on my heart and he is an amazing man. 

Amanda: So I feel bad saying this but I had probably the easiest pregnancies I've ever heard anyone say. However, the deliveries were not easy. And for me it was the nurses, the nurses. So one, I had a very quick, like the 10 minute burst you hear about, that was me. And it was this team of nurses calming me down, getting me through it. And even after my first was born, it was the nurse who was… I was exhausted, so she said, “can I help you out a little bit? Can I take the baby?” And I was like "yes, please, I just want to sleep!” 

And the nurses were so amazing. You know, each of my bursts, I just, I can't believe they did what they did. I don't even remember. some of the words I said, I don't think they were always the nicest. I don't remember! But yeah, the nurses were amazing. And so I hope they do, I hope some of them will hear and know that I think the nurses at Akron General were amazing, are amazing. I love them. 

Rachel: The work that they do every day, it's just incredible. I actually, I was on bed rest in the hospital for nine weeks. So I got to know some of the nurses very very well. 

Jasmine: Yeah, I teach nurses. I teach nurses at Emory and they are amazing. 

Rachel: Oh, nice!

Jasmine: I really teach pre nurses. So people who are planning on going into nursing, and then I also teach some that are going into advanced practice. And so I have met some amazing people that I know will make amazing nurses. And even though I'm not in the clinic with them, I don't know what happens after they leave my classroom, I’m pretty confident that they're going to be great people. 

So my Toast to Joy is actually going to be to a non-human… my dog Stella had the best weekend ever. And I don't know what it is about dog joy, but dog joy gives me joy. 

Amanda: It’s the best. 

Jasmine: Stella met a new friend, another doggy named Langston, and they had the best of times together. And on a previous podcast, I talked about how I got a really good picture of an authentic smile from me… well Stella is a pit bull, and one of the characteristics of pit bulls is they look like they're smiling sometimes. And so I snapped this wonderful picture of Stella and she's super happy. She’s just got this huge pit bull smile on her face. And in a world where I have a lot of things that can get me down during a day, you know, I grasp for things that can make me happy. So I'm toasting to my puppy today because she's amazing. 

Amanda: Oh, the doggies are amazing and they're no matter what kind of day you had, they're always so excited to see you. They're like, “oh my God, you're home. I love you so much!” 

Rachel: Dogs are just so happy. They just make you happy just to watch them. And our dogs also bring us tremendous, tremendous joy. 

Amanda: Thank you so much to everyone for joining us today. Before you go, we have an important action item for you. If you want to stop politicians from banning conversations about race in our schools, please sign and share our petition. You can find the link in our show notes and on Twitter @theSWPpod.

If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a rating and review. We'll see you again next week with another episode of The Suburban Women Problem.