The Snob on CNN's Smerconish Talking About Inequality and Nikole Hannah-Jones
I wonder what my former educator mother would have thought about all this debate over one woman's decisions?
I wonder what Mama would think?
As criticism of Nikole Hannah-Jones' story of school choice moved into week two, I started wondering what my mother, a former inner-city middle school teacher and education advocate, would have thought of this.
My mother, who died in 2018, was often unpredictable in how she saw things. Maybe she would have been very critical of Hannah-Jones, as she was tough on other parents and their choices at times. Maybe she would have empathetic and sided with Black parents having to make impossible decisions, as she had to make those same decisions for her children. Maybe she would have seen it from the child's POV, as she had dedicated her short teaching career and the bulk of adult life to helping children—from clipping scholarship info for the kids working at the neighborhood Walgreens to her own.
But maybe she would have simply sided with Black mothers and children, and would have wondered why we were having "home" conversations in public view.
Regardless, she would have been very into it.
We would have had hours-long crazy debates pretending to be conversations. She would have pulled out her Jawanzaa Kunjufu books and started quoting Onion Horton. It would have gotten hilariously weird at some point—as these things often did with her as she had the most amazingly colorful mind—but she would have enjoyed every minute of our robust debate.
Or arguments.
All her debates kind of turned into us arguing, as she was an Aries (IYKYK) and she really liked to fight.
But I already know how she would have responded to me going on CNN this Saturday to talk about Hannah-Jones' story on Michael Smerconish's show. Years ago, around 2009, the first time I was on CNN, I called my mom and asked her how she thought I did. My mother, who had phoned the world to tell it I was going to be on the cable news network, gushed, "YOU LOOKED SO PRETTY!" And when I asked her what she thought of the words coming out of my mouth, she said, "I don't remember what you said, but you were SO PRETTY!"
So, while I felt like I was doing adrenaline-fueled word salad, all she saw was the daughter she loved and her then-giant afro on the teevee.
Pretty sure she would have felt the same now.
A mother's love, man. It's pretty powerful. And boy-oh-boy, did that lady love me.