The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
Separate and Unequal: America's School Segregation Crisis
Educational segregation in America has reached crisis levels, with schools more segregated today than in the 1980s, despite Brown v. Board of Education supposedly ending this practice decades ago. We explore how systemic issues including funding disparities, zoning policies, and power structures maintain educational inequality across racial and economic lines.
• Shocking statistics reveal non-white school districts receive $23 billion less annually than white districts
• The podcast "Nice White Parents" demonstrates how gentrification can lead to school takeovers that further marginalize existing students
• Personal stories about navigating school choices in New York City highlight the stark differences between educational opportunities
• Security measures like metal detectors in urban schools create environments where students' nervous systems are constantly activated, making learning more difficult
• Lack of trade education in schools eliminates career paths for students who might excel outside traditional academic routes
• Successful models from communities in Alabama, Minneapolis, Maryland, and Connecticut show how local action can create meaningful change
• The importance of trauma-informed education approaches that recognize how adversity affects learning and behavior
• Dream Charter School's philosophy of "don't let your zip code define your destiny" provides a model for educational success regardless of neighborhood
For free compassionate inquiry therapy sessions in exchange for recording for training purposes, email us at gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com. Follow Cleveland's writing on Substack at The Unfinished Life for more insights and reflections.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland and this is Lindsay and this is another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know, lindsay, what are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker 2:Separate and unequal. The crisis of segregation in American schools.
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are we doing here? We normally just talk about mental health. Why are we switching up to talk about something different?
Speaker 2:Well, this is something I've been wanting to talk about for quite a while. Talk about something different. Well, this is something I've been wanting to talk about for quite a while. Not on the specifics of the school system, right, and the poor education that a lot of people receive in America, but what I observe going on in schools and what our experiences were and are as parents with the education system, in particular, in the area where we live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really troubling. A part of being a mental health counselor is we are supposed to advocate for change, and we're supposed to be advocates. Not only are we supposed to help folks, but part of our ethical, moral responsibility is to advocate for change. So not everything has to be specifically about mental health. With that being the case and I do think, as somebody who who is raised between the two of us, we have raised seven children in the New York City metropolitan area. They are black, white, puerto Rican, and I think this is something that impacts, you know, everyone, not just people of color, but we'll definitely jump into that but it impacts everyone in America about the unequal school systems that we have here, which are clearly unequal. But before we jump into that, let's talk a little bit about life. Lindsay, what is going on around here these days?
Speaker 2:We have a very full house this week.
Speaker 1:All, all of the children are here the two dogs, the three cats, I think. I think mj is gonna come over for a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think batty gold is gonna come over next door, I think yeah, it's very, very busy over here, um, but a full house nice it really is. It's nice you to spend a $250 at the barber yesterday.
Speaker 1:That was amazing, and what's great is people have their own jobs but don't want to pay for their own haircuts anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, as soon as they found out how much the haircut cost, wait, wait, cleve you pay how much?
Speaker 1:for my haircut I was like dude, a hundred dollars. Oh yeah, I can go someplace else.
Speaker 2:Except he won't, because he won't allow anyone else to touch that hair. So you know, and that I would actually say is your fault, because you've created a monster with what I call you the vein bastard.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing, though, he actually likes Tom Huckleberry, who used to be like wild man you know, a complete wild man with the hair, would you agree? Oh my God, the hair is so much better now since he moved home actually likes to get his hair cut, you know, he actually likes I took he gets shaved. Yeah, he gets a little facial. Yeah, I want to give a shout out to jack at a gentleman's barber spa in white plains. If you are in the white plains area, please check out gentlemen's barber spa, but jack over.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, this was our first time using jack. Normally we use sergio, um or ahmed uh, but sergio is ben's guy and ben was like I'm not giving up sergio. So so we we took tom huckleberry over to jack and jack. What was amazing? It made me laugh my ass off, because when I saw tom huckleberry get out of the chair, I saw that jack gave tom huckleberry the same exact haircut that jack has, which I was like. I was like this is hilarious. It's like he gave this kid the same exact haircut that Jack has, which I was like. I was like this is hilarious. It's like he gave this kid the same haircut, but it was. It looks good, it's, it's a. It really looks good.
Speaker 2:It does, and let's just take a minute to say that this kid right, who was really, really struggling, is actually holding down a job and he loves the job, which is a huge accomplishment for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, speaking of education, education one of the things that we're going through here is also with the queen mom is driving us crazy, because the queen mom was very specific several months ago I do not want to go to see Albany. I do not want to go see Geneseo.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be far from home. I need to come home every single weekend. And now we're in the last months of college decision. And now, suddenly, suddenly, the queen mom must visit every school because she has not made up her mind and she is gaslighting us. She is saying that she never said she wouldn't go and visit those schools which, by the way, we had booked tours at and had to cancel. Had to cancel because she was adamant that she was not going that far away. And now, all of a sudden, here we are every week now taking another trip for an accepted student's day, because suddenly she's interested in all these schools, even though she's putting it back on us and saying that she never said that's right.
Speaker 1:oh yeah, you know what that makes me think. I couldn't have gone to um the black sheep in and spawn the 27th also because that's the day that I'm speaking at the high school. So I'm also going on. On Thursday, march 27th, I will be speaking, uh, at a high school in Brooklyn about, uh, speaking of college, about alternatives to, to to college. Uh, for for folks, right, and that is very important to me. I listen, college is who are you doing that? With, um, the hope program? And with the hope program, they invited me out to come talk about my experiences.
Speaker 1:And even though I went to college, I'm a non-traditional student. I went in my forties, got my bachelor's in my late forties, got my master's at 51 and probably just, uh, probably just waiting on fielding in Santa Barbara fielding. I'm waiting on you to get back to me with some interviews and see if I end up doing my PhD there. But it's interesting because, as we get ready to talk about education, college isn't as much as we like to say, that college is a golden ticket for some people. College is not for everyone, and I can think about our fine gentleman at Stoica Associates. I'm just doing a bunch of commercials today. Uh, fine gentlemen at Stoica, associates who came and and and and remodeled our home for us. But Rich, chris and Anthony, those guys are successful. They do very well for themselves and none of them went to college, but they are experts in their field and there is a definite need for tradespeople in the world.
Speaker 2:Right, which one of the that's one of the problems I think that we have in New York City is I mean, we're raising our kids now in, you know, one of the poorest cities in the United States. Obviously, we have different circumstances than a lot of the people that live here. However, one of the things that I always say is that we don't give kids the opportunities in high school, here in the Bronx, to explore alternative paths, and so we're basically we're just eliminating, right, like a whole group of people from having a career path or something else to do when they leave high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is a good transition into our main topic, because one of the things that one of my favorite authors, Jason Pargin, talks about and Jason Pargin used to write under the pen name, David Wong, and he's written such books as I think his most his, his I don't think I know the name of his most recent book is I'm starting to worry about this big black box of doom, which is, which is a satire about the social media and the and the world. That white guy, originally from the Midwest and has a lot of conservative folks and family but is a low SES white person is that the education system here is designed to be segregated right. And that the reason why college has become so important is because when the electricians and the plumbers and the carpenters and the craftsmen started moving out to the suburbs and this is white folks also that the rich white folks were like no, no, no, no, no, you can't live here, we don't want you here. And that college has become such a prominent part of edge of the education system because it serves as a means to segregate people right. That being an election, I will tell you at my time at NBC universal, the 13 years that I was there.
Speaker 1:The people who made the most amount of money were not the on air people, they were not the producers. They made those people make a lot of money. But the people who I could tell you made the genuine the most amount of money were the, were the, were the craftspeople, the trades people, Were the trades people and were the. You know, even even though their fates are tied to shows, they made a consistent great deal of money. There was one time, uh, I can tell you specifically, there was a piece of wallpaper in my office that needed to get fixed and it needed to get fixed on a weekend. It was, and it was a tiny tear, $3,000 to fix, fix it. Two thousand dollars of that was the person's labor. And I remember another time where the lead carpenter, some producer, called in and wanted to hang a picture on the weekend and the guy says Cleve, Cleve, I don't want to, I don't want to do it, and the guy's insisting that he wanted to do it. Sixteen hundred dollars to paint hang a picture on the weekend.
Speaker 2:So do you think that when you, when you think about this, and then the way that we have the structure of learning right, because we don't teach trades anymore in high schools? When I went to high school and middle school, I had sewing, cooking, I had like architecture, woodworking, things like that. They don't do a lot of that anymore, and so do you think that that is a way to keep people down?
Speaker 1:Well, jason Pargin would tell you yes, right, because it is. What do you think? I believe so too. I do believe it is a short sighted way to keep people down, because now we live in an America that has a definite lack of craftspeople, right, you have a definite lack of people who do not, who do, who are not skilled. When we think, think about, let's listen to rich talk about his life and being told that he was dumb and he was stupid. And this guy comes in and he's and listen, I have a master's degree, right, and this is why I believe in gardner's eight intelligence.
Speaker 2:You couldn't have done the work that was done here.
Speaker 2:No, I couldn't have done any of this and so and we continue to kind of, you know, we have the stigma against people who don't have an education in this country, right, right, because we, what people consider an education is a college degree right, it's not an education in how to, like, rewire someone's plumbing or electric right, how to woodwork carpentry, how to, you know, demolish and create renovations and do installations right. And interestingly, I would say from my experience of dealing with people, is that we often don't treat those people so well either. No, we do not. I mean, I don't. I don't consider myself to treat people poorly. I try to be kind to everybody.
Speaker 1:But from a broader perspective, if you watch people and how they interact with what they would refer to as the quote unquote, help, right, you know one of the things that used to drive me crazy about my former employer and you know I and there's a lot of things that I did love about them was that this idea that my college educated bosses would come in and tell me that I should not listen to the electrician, that I should not listen to the carpenter, that I should not listen to the painter, because I, as a person with a master's degree like them and then most of the folks here didn't even have master's degree but I, as the college educated person, should be telling that person how to do their job.
Speaker 1:And it's like I'm not a carpenter, I failed shop. You know this degree that I have, and it goes back to Gardner's eight intelligences that everybody. I wouldn't say that people are dumb. I would say that people are smart at the things that they're smart at, and I was not smart at those things. Yet there is this idea in our country that if you do not have this piece of paper or if you do not go to school in this certain location and this is where we're going to jump into our topic that you are not worthy or you are not qualified.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I want to also touch you know briefly, before we move on on.
Speaker 2:You know some of the challenges in education and this is something I've been listening to the myth of normal I know you listened to it a while ago, but Gabor Mate says that the biggest problem in our country is that we do not have trauma, informed education, right, and so there is stress and trauma that impact, you know, very profoundly, children's behavior, right, how they learn, how they engage with other people, and the biggest problem is that we as a society lack the resources to understand these kinds of issues. And then we put focus on discipline and academic performance and so the moment that people, you know, act out of what they were told they had to do, or they don't get a good grade, they're automatically ostracized, they become the bad kid, right, and so then it also kind of manifests into this trauma and these mental health issues of people not really even seeing themselves worthy Right Right Of anything else, and they start to internalize that and that's a huge issue that we have in, especially in the city.
Speaker 1:And Jack Canfield success principles. He also, he, he also touches on that point Right that we are taught as we prioritize achievement over well-being Right.
Speaker 1:Right and that you are taught, and I have somebody that I'm working with that actually said that this is a problem in their lives, that they were taught failure is wrong and that you must succeed, succeed, succeed, and that it's all tied to academic success and certain types of success was. Jack Canfield says no, you should be teaching, not people, that failure is wrong, but that victory or winning is good and that failure is part of it. But our education system teaches over and over again. There's a good example and it ties back to what you were saying, gabor, with the myth of normal that Jack Canfield talks about in the success principles that there was a young man in Denmark or wherever it was in Europe that was actually told that he was a dumb.
Speaker 1:That was actually told you are stupid, that in his school that he went to sir, you were stupid, you were dumb, you are a dunce. There's something mentally wrong with you. You are not qualified for school and you should. You should go, you should just drop out and do this. Guy takes a test several years later His IQ was one hundred and seventy, where the guy got into Mensa without even trying, without even knowing. And so the point is, it's not that. It's not that this person was stupid or wrong or whatever. It's that the school system in the place that he was at was set up in a way for him not to succeed.
Speaker 2:Right, well, because we have these societal issues where, like inequality, poverty, systemic racism, these things impact people's health and development, right, right. And so what we do is that we exclude Right Rather than promoting healing and growth and growth and development, right, right. And so what we do is that we exclude right rather than promoting healing and growth and growth and community. And you know, with that being said, let's talk a minute about, you know, the middle one here who went to, who refused to go to private school, right? And so, yes, we are fortunate that we could provide private school tuition for the kids. He absolutely did not want to go to a private school or a Catholic school for high school, he absolutely did not, and he wanted to go to public school. And that was so hard for me because I was very worried about him. But you know, we plowed through and he very, you know, and we were very fortunate that he got chosen in the lottery, right, his school didn't have a lot of kids, but you know, there are schools out there that try to make a difference. And he went to Dream, right, dream Charter, yeah, dream Charter. And Dream Charter has a whole philosophy of not allowing your zip code to. You know, define your destiny, the.
Speaker 2:They focus on that healing and growth and they don't exclude and they believe every child and every student who graduates there can go on to college or a career path. And you know what a really remarkable model. Because they meet with the parents, they do the financial right. They had 100% college acceptance rate and almost, I think, over $2 million, almost $3 million in college scholarships for that one graduating class of 50 kids and they now follow them through college right this one here and he doesn't need it because he's lucky that he has a supportive family. But they assign every college student that graduated that high school with a mentor who meets with them regularly to make sure that they are OK and if anything is going on, those mentors will go to the campus and they will help the student. But they want success and they will do everything in their power to educate parents and include parents in the process but to ensure the success of every student that graduates from that school. And that's a really, really great model and all schools should follow that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, we're going to jump into this topic, because part of the things this, this, this, this particular episode was inspired by a few things on on Lindsay's end. It was inspired by a um, uh, a podcast that we listened to several years ago about four or five years ago called Nice White Parents. It's on the New York Times and it's about. It's about these well-meaning parents in the New York City public school system who go into a school and go into a school in Gowanus and Gowanus projects and take it over, and I'll let Lindsay really get into that. I'll let Lindsay really talk about that.
Speaker 1:And then also, for me, there's this particular moment in time where I feel like all my liberal friends are clutching their pearls because they're very upset about Donald Trump and they're very upset about the end of the Department of Education and Linda McMahon saying that this will be a final journey. Yet all of these people are the same people that do not necessarily want kids of color or poor white kids in their schools. And so and that was the irony of nice white parents I want to say I'm going to quote a statistic to you, Lindsay, and I want to get your thoughts on it and then you can definitely jump in. According to the UCLA Civil Rights Project, in 2019, US schools are more segregated today in our quote unquote woke culture than they were in the 1980s. Does this surprise you?
Speaker 2:That's no, that's a lot. I was like blown away by it?
Speaker 1:I was looking at it. That does surprise you. Yeah, I was Well, but it does that's a lot. I was like blown away by it. I was looking at it, that does surprise you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was Well, but it does, but it doesn't because I think more because of where we live. So we have like an exposure to a humongous population of people, right? So I go into schools and I see all of these these things happening. No, it's yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. We don't have the same expectations.
Speaker 1:Right. So here's some further statistics. Sixty percent of black and Latino students attend high poverty schools, but 70 percent of white students attend majority white schools. In some studies, in some cities school segregation is back to 1968 levels. I could tell you that's true in New York City.
Speaker 2:Well, they try to they by they, I should say. The system keeps people down, and you and I talked about this. The first go round with high school applications and I'm sure you did it with your kids is it's very, very hard to get your child out of the Bronx and into a school in another borough and the schools in the Bronx are not good high quality education schools, for whatever reason, and probably because of what I've talked about earlier, is that now, by the time you get to high school right, there's so much exclusion, there's, you know, no room for you know, any kind of healing and growth and community that now kids come into high school and they're already not up to where they should be academically right. They're bringing along behavioral problems with them and the you know impacts of trauma at home. So, yeah, I think that you know, I think that it's designed to keep people in their low income communities.
Speaker 1:Jason Pargin would agree with you right. So if segregation was supposed to be solved in 1954 with Brown versus Board of Education, how did we get back here?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, you know, I don't know. I wish I did know. But I think that I think it's also that we just constantly put people in office right who are toxic and they think that I think people think that they're doing right. Oh, you could go to school in your community.
Speaker 1:Well, let's think back to nice white parents, right? Oh yeah, that oof, and I think that would help us solve part of the problems. And, lindsay, I know you're fascinated by it. You've told many of our friends about it, so give our audience an idea of what that podcast is about and basically what happened in this situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that podcast blew my mind. Then, when they hit the middle school mark, there were no options for them, and so it's called Nice White Parents, because a whole group of white parents who had moved into gentrified Brooklyn, into a neighborhood that they probably you know, started to take over, pushing out the people who you know could no longer afford to live there. And then they all banded together to send their children to a middle school in the community, but it was like a predominantly like. I think it was like a black Latino. There was a lot of Muslim or Arabic students in the school.
Speaker 2:So they took this school with essentially no white children and then they brought like they brought their ideas and their programs there and they created basically because they had money. They're like we're going to come here and we're going to bring our kids here and we are going to let them get educated here so that we don't have to pay for private school. But then what they did was ice out everyone else. So they would raise money and have fundraisers, but the families who lived in the community and have used that school for years couldn't afford to even attend and then their children were not included right In all of the ways that that money was spent for extracurricular activities and other things. So I mean that that really was. That was really like eyeopening for me, like I remember listening to that and just being like I can't believe that this was even allowed and you know, the administration allowed for it to go on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But the interesting thing is, jason Pargeant will once again agree with you and tell you that this is more of a class thing than it is a racist thing. Right, this is? I'll tell you, my theory of how we've gotten back here is because we live in a society and a culture that folks think they're woke, they think they're liberal, they think that they are diverse. Yet here's a quote from nice white parents in New York times where a white parent says this we want diversity, but not if it means our kids lose out.
Speaker 2:Right, and the thing is is how come you can't have that diversity and, you know, increase the options for inclusivity.
Speaker 1:Right. Instead of excluding, include those kids, because what you're York is certainly set up in a way that you stay within your zone. Schools, right. Here's a quote from a student in Atlanta they closed our schools and sent us to a better one, but we're still black. Here's a quote from a mother in the Bronx why do we have to fight for basics like heat in textbooks?
Speaker 1:One of our favorite shows is Abbott Elementary, and I think Abbott Elementary really gives this idea, even though it's a comedy, gives this idea of what it is like to struggle in the education system in an inner city. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Let's give it some historical context, though, right, absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Let's give it some historical context, though, right. But you know, one of the things that nice white parents both enlightened us, uh to, and anyone who listens to the show, is that, despite this idea and if you watch these, if you watch a lot of programming, if you watch cable news or it shows people like cnn and msnbc you will believe that the north is, that you'll be believed that cities like new York, chicago, los Angeles, but they would have really diverse school systems, yes, but they actually, they absolutely do not.
Speaker 2:Well, they do have a diverse population of people that go to the schools, but what they do is each school is segregated, right? Oh, if you live in this neighborhood and you have money, ok, you can come here, exactly.
Speaker 1:What do they call the one white kid on on on an Abbott? What do they call it? I don't remember. They call him white kid, like hey, you white kid. Because these are literally how the schools are set up. According to the Urban Institute, 80 percent of Chicago's segregated schools today still trace their boundaries to the 1930s. If you think about what happened in Boston white flight caused 18,000 students to leave the public school system. Let's think about that. In the Bronx, lindsay. Where are all the kids in the Bronx? Where are all the white from when does? Where does our daughter go?
Speaker 2:Private school- school, but, interestingly, outdoor to go Private school, but interestingly, yes, private school is her private school actually is not predominantly white, and I will say that that's one thing that our kids have had is the experience to attend schools with many different races, cultures, ethnicities right, I mean the middle ones. High school had a prayer room, remember, for Ramadan and for, you know, muslim students to go and pray when they had to and you know, and so it's just like they included them. They didn't say, no, you can't do that here. I mean, do you know another school that has that?
Speaker 1:No, right, no. And the interesting point is, as brought out in Nice White Parents is that the South resisted integration loudly. There was Jim Crow, there were segregations, right, while the North did it quietly, and that's one of the things that's really spoken about there. There's quotes from then. At the time, mayor de Blasio, there was like a whole situation in Staten Island. I believe that parents wanted that, the, that, the that the city council wanted to diversify the schools out there and the parents out there went nuts and de blasio's like well, and here's de blasio, who's married to a black woman, who has interracial children, like we do, um, and it's like yeah, it also has money and his children had opportunity, because that's what we associate opportunity with the ability to fund the opportunity and de blasio.
Speaker 1:well, there's really nothing I can do about it and that's, and that was really amazing. I want to continue. Why do places? Why do you think it is Lindsay, from your point of view as a, as a, as a student of the of of humanity? Why do you think places like New York and San Francisco claim to be diverse or say that they're diverse when they really have the proven the most segregated schools in America?
Speaker 2:Well, because I don't think. When people think about the diversity, I don't think that they're taking into account the actual school. I think they take into account the population of the city or of the community. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's. Here's some interesting statistics about both New York and San Francisco, specifically our borough of the Bronx. 90% of Bronx schools are Black and Latino. However, bronx per pupil spending is $2,500 less is $2,500 less than Manhattan, than what is in district two, district 23 schools. Why do you suppose that is so? So the borough that is the most densely populated, one of the most densely populated, where 90 of the schools are black and latino, and this is a liberal city with a liberal city council, with a liberal mayor. Yet the Bronx, which has more students than Manhattan, gets $2,500 less per pupil.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Why do you suppose that is?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I don't know where all the money comes from, but I do know that in the bronx too, you're talking about a lot more government resources that have to go out to families, so there is probably also less money for per pupil spending. Um, you know, because we have the most low income housing we probably are the borough mean, we're like one of the poorest places to live in America. So you know there's a lot of other spending that's going on here and then we don't have the higher income levels of, say, manhattan Right or parts of Brooklyn that bring in more money that way.
Speaker 1:And here's the interesting thing. So let's flip switch gears to San Francisco for a second, which is also a city in crisis because their public school system Now, this is also an equally diverse city right, their public schools only have 11 percent white people 11 percent Interesting which means that most of the white folks are in private school private school and, in one of the school districts, actually had to change their admissions to a lottery because the schools were only accepting wealthy white and Asian families. That's awful, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean talk about excluding. Do you remember what I asked you the other day and it's not related to education, but I said to you how do you feel as a black man, right, who's successful in, like you know, in what you you do and that, and how hard is it for you to see that? You know you don't see so many black people in your profession that are of the achieve the same things that you've achieved.
Speaker 1:It is. It is difficult for me at times, you know. So I'm going to I'm going to answer that question by going back and relating to stories from some, from some, from some black professional folks. One of them is somebody who I've worked with for quite some time who said that it is very difficult for them to feel like the only smart black person in the room. Right, and it's not saying that other black people are ignorant, but just being feeling alone and feeling isolated and feeling like that.
Speaker 2:That because you are different.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's like, yes, people can, you know, be inclusive and they, you know, they can acknowledge and you know what you've done and they can see that. However, you still look different from the other people in the room, Right.
Speaker 1:Right, and it goes back to even what my brother and sister-in-law said when we went to Delaware, that one of the things that they don't like about it, about their part of Delaware and I thought they were being silly when they said this is they were like there's no quality, uh, black people out here for us to associate with. And I was like, well, what are you talking about? And they were like you'll, it's hard, right, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's definitely hard to to see folks that don't believe in themselves because the system has taught them not to believe in themselves, right. But to hear the same system be like, well, well, this guy is wrong because he's just evil, but then, but then you're not helping me out either, right?
Speaker 1:I worked with a young man some time ago that actually told me that he struggled with being successful because he's afraid that it's going to alienate him from his culture and his community, and I was like, well, what are you talking about? I was like what does that mean, you know? And I remember once I worked with a young lady um, good kid, she was a coworker that actually told me that in high school she regretted how she used to behave in high school because she actually acted stupider than she was so that she could fit in.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people do that right, and not in regards to like having to act like they're intelligent or stupid, but I think a lot of people don't live authentically because they are afraid of the way that it will be received. Right, Right, and so that's, and that's what's interesting about that is, I mean, that's like a whole other you know episode, but I think that that's very common, right? When you don't behave in a way that's authentic to you, you don't ever really fit in, because the people that you do fit in with aren't even really seeing who you are anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, let's jump. Let's just jump into our next section as we start to get ready to wrap this up, and this goes back into some of what you were talking about uh, of what you were talking about earlier, and this is systemic drivers, funding, zoning and power. Um, this is going to go back to a quote that you took from dream Academy, which is it's not just about who lives where, but policies keep segregation in place. What is one of the things? What's the is a wonderful saying from Dream. I said Dream Academy, but Dream Charter School.
Speaker 2:Don't let your zip code, define your destiny right, like you don't don't forget where you came from, but know that that's. You can be more than that and you can have more than you've had. And you know, I mean they are really fortunate because they work hard to get funding, because they have a lot of private donors, because it's a charter school, right, but it is so well run and they give kids opportunities. You know, we, we were, I mean they had overnight trips, they had all these things that you wouldn't have in a regular public school setting in the city, yeah, and I think one of the most enlightening things about nice white parents was when they quoted the parents.
Speaker 1:It was like it's not that we want our children to go to school with white people we actually absolutely don't need that but what we want is the same access to education that white folks have. Here's the interesting thing According to the Stanford CPA of 2021, the New York school system, when it implemented choice programming right. When it implemented this choice system where you get to choose where you go to school at right, we're going to set it up so that you know you know you get to choose the zone that you're in it actually increased school segregation in the city of New York by 35%. Remember when we took the college drop-in over to Lehman? Tell the folks about that experience.
Speaker 2:Oh my Lord, lehman High School and it was the honors program. So, and that's not even our zone school, our zone school is Truman, which is this massive, massive school, and Lehman is not too small either. But at the time Lehman High School had, when he was exploring all these options for non-private school, one of them was Lehman High School has an honors program, and so we went to visit it and I remember you dropped me off with him because then you had to park and you parked like a mile away because parking is terrible, because it's the Bronx and parking is terrible in the Bronx.
Speaker 2:And then when you finally got there, I had already met with somebody. And then I said, oh, he's coming, we'll go back and get him. And when I got to the front door, like you had your, your, all your things in the plastic bin and your belt off, your shoes off. You know everything, you know. And then you went through the metal detector and the woman was like, okay, are you ready for the tour? And you were like, well, I'm just finishing getting ready to board the plane, but then I can go ahead and come on the tour with you. And then you were like I'm never sending this kid to a school where he needs to go through a metal detector, but here you know, when we went down to the honors program, how many kids were in it about six, and they were all white.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but here's the amazing thing about that. And, as a mental health perspective, what do you think it teaches kids right when you have to go through a metal detector, when you have to have arms?
Speaker 2:there was more, it would put their nervous system into overdrive that they are not safe there. They are not safe there. Things are happening and we need to be aware of them. So you are not going to be safe here, but we're going to try our best.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's many schools in America, both you know, unfortunately due to school shootings that are both you know, in urban environments and in suburban environments. But these are things that but you mostly have to deal with in urban schools. Where my kids went to school in Queens, the Academy for careers in film and television there was no metal detectors because it sets you up for, as you said, imagine your nervous system for the rest of the day that you actually have to go to a school with armed guards.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean that's horrible.
Speaker 1:Imagine if you had to check into work every day and get wanded down. What would your mindset be?
Speaker 2:You wouldn't feel safe. You wouldn't feel safe, right, I mean that's you know. That's the bottom line. So it's like, I think, when you're in that situation, also, how do you even focus on your learning and your education when your mind is always preoccupied that something could be going on?
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, right. Just to quote just a little bit more in disparities is nationwide, the majority of non-white school districts receive $23 billion less annually than white districts. Right, these are things that folks really need to be speaking out about. Right, we're worried about all these other things. We're worried about all these other distractions, these smoke and mirrors like what is Donald Trump and Elon doing yesterday? What are they doing tomorrow? No, you, as parents, need to be concerned about what the politicians in place locally on your school level, what are they actually doing to your children now? Right, I I've worked with folks in politics and one of the things that drives them crazy is, if you ever see the movie Mr Smith goes to Washington, many of these folks that I've I've worked with say that it's a scam, that it's a smoke and mirrors.
Speaker 1:Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Many of these folks that I've worked with say that it's a scam, that it's smoke and mirrors. Mr Smith Goes to Washington is a movie about where Jimmy Stewart's character is a guy named Mr Smith, and he goes to Washington and is set in the 1940s, and then he realizes there's no Republicans, there's no Democrats, there's just rich people here getting paid that no one here has the common interest or the public good at heart. Here has the common interest or the public good at heart. And when you read statistics like this, that the majority of non-white schools get $23 billion less than white students, that Pennsylvania's poorest school districts? Right, and this is not. And remember, let's think about Pennsylvania, right, pennsylvania is a majority white state, but Pennsylvania's poorest school districts in Pennsylvania, someplace that we've visited frequently spend three thousand dollars less per student than they do on wealthy ones very interesting, nashville, kind of depressing. Depressing right, nashville has what is quote unquote nicknamed starbucks zoning, which is very similar to new York, which keeps kids in their districts and away from attending.
Speaker 2:And let's talk about crazy too, because Nashville now is as expensive as New York, oh yeah, but where do people work and what do they do there to support themselves? Right? So I imagine there that's got to be even harder, because you know, we here have a lot of the low income housing and we have opportunities for people. But you know, you go to a city like that and because and I'm sure it's because of the recent boom in popularity there- yeah, Well, let's move on to our next segment, which is what.
Speaker 1:What can we do? Right, we're going to do our next two segments and and think about because, Lindsay and I really this year we want to talk about solutions and not complaints, and what can we do?
Speaker 2:I don't really like complaining. I don't Well, I am. You know, I started my meditation, my mindfulness meditation teacher certification program, and it's a very long program and I've talked about it here before. But I really think that what we need to do is to go into communities and to help people heal. We need to look at things from a trauma informed lens. We need to stop judging people because generational trauma is real. Right, and I think I don't know the quote is. I'm not a Bible reader but I I read the quote and I read it to you once um that Gabor Matis sins of the father are like six, six generations or something, right, and so all of this stuff is, it's passed down.
Speaker 2:And so you know, and genetically, when he talks about intergenerational trauma, you're literally composed, your body is made up of the body of two other people, right? The DNA, the inner workings, and so you know, you're taking on some of that trauma with it. And so you know, we can't expect people to be different or to believe in themselves, or to choose a path and change a pattern and a cycle that's been around.
Speaker 1:For you know, there are a lot of folks in these, in these systems that are both black, white, you know Hispanic, that you know most of them are poor. That's the one thing that we all have in common, right, Forget skin color, right, the game and here's the game the game is is that the media and the government wants you to be focused on these issues that keep us separated, when the one thing that keeps us all in common is that we're all fudging broke, right? Yeah, we're all tight on money. We all are. We are all cogs in this machine and we all need to realize recognize our individual trauma doesn't make us should. Our individual traumas, which is which is the crazy thing which separate us, should be the things that unite us together, right, and when you're looking at these stories on the news that are trying to get you activated over this thing and there's always finger pointing sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 2:It's always finger pointing, right, and I can't stand that because it's like it's like the pot calling the kettle black. It's like I'm pointing a finger at you and telling you what's wrong with yourself, but I'm not looking at myself to see what's actually going on within me, right, and I think I did that right. It's a segue for a second. In a session this week I was seeing a couple and they've been not getting along, and she said something to him and I said to her I don't know what you're doing in your own personal therapy, but what you need to be doing is getting to the root of why this is an issue that's consistently coming up when you're sitting next to someone who is, you know, enamored with you and is committed to you, right, and so it's like we're constantly like passing a judgment and, instead of looking at what's going on inside of us, like what is wrong. Why am I feeling this way? What am I feeling? What is it bringing up for me? But you know, that's that judgment thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the idea that the media and the government want to give you is that you need them to save you. You need us, you need to listen to our message, you need to hear what we're saying because we can save you. But, as one parent said at a rally in Brooklyn, you know that child isn't coming here because they feel like pissing me off.
Speaker 2:The child is behaving like that as a result of something else that's going on in their lives, and they're bringing it here.
Speaker 1:So community resistance means that we all need to recognize our trauma. We all need to realize that we all deserve the same level of an education. We don't need anybody to save us, but we don't also need to sit back and wait for other people. We, as as the Bible says in Philippians 2, 12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, we, what we also do with, especially in New York City I can't speak to other school systems is that we have this, especially in New York City I can't speak to other school systems is that we have this we put children that are in special ed classes. Instead of giving them a chance and teaching them how to do things, we are having the exact same academic expectations of them as students in general ed, so like they want them to achieve these developmental goals for all of the typically developing children of their age, and that's just not possible for everyone, and so instead, we don't give them opportunities to, you know, to find a career or something that would work for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Listen, I don't propose to know what the answer is, but when I get my friends who are up in arms that the Department of Education is going to go away and Linda McMahon announces, as the Secretary of Education, that she's putting the Department of Education on one final mission, and people are up in arms like what are we going to do?
Speaker 1:I tell you this, when Bronx students have to walk out of a high school because there's no heat in the school, the Department of Education is not working, and that is a story that you can see repeated over and over and over again. Hey, it's a joke on Abbott Elementary about the lack of resources. But before you get up in arms about well, what are we going to do when there's no DOE? Ask yourself, is the DOE even working the way it's supposed to work right now? I'm, as a black parent and from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, ask yourself is the DOE even working the way it's supposed to work right now? I'm, as a black parent and from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where, where teachers, where teachers and and and Linz, you could speak to this where teachers have to pay for their own supplies to, to for the classroom, I'm going to tell you that the DOE does not work, and I'm going to tell you that the system is not working right.
Speaker 2:Well, it's definitely not working. I mean, if it was working, then we wouldn't, you know, be in the position that we're in here.
Speaker 1:Right, Right. So let's talk about things that work. So things that work are what we talked about, which are empathetic responses, community, community, communities getting together, people realizing that we all have to work. You know so say, for instance, there was legal action in Alabama. There was a lawsuit that forced ninety seven million dollars in new school funding. Parents got together in Minneapolis to put together a tax incentive program for more diverse schools. Parents in Maryland added four billion dollars, got together and created the Maryland's Curran Commission, which added $4 billion to low income schools. And in Connecticut. Connecticut offers links to affording affordable housing to school access, Right. So these are places that are really putting things into work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still reviewing them, Sorry. I find that very interesting.
Speaker 1:You're like the fact man? Yeah, I'm the fact. Well, this is what we got to come in with facts. I want to say this and then I'll let you definitely cause we. We've been going on for about 40 minutes here.
Speaker 1:I want to say this, at least for my, as my perspective on this, as a black person who grew up in the inner school system and watched it change when I went to PS 59 in Brooklyn in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was a place where I learned about the value of education. I was not taught social justice. I was not taught diversity, equity, inclusion. I was taught that a mind was a terrible thing to waste and I was taught that this country, which stole its land from the Native Americans, which enslaved black people, that I was taught that I had to go out and I had to get it for myself. The way. I lost that and thanks to you, I found it again. But that is what I was taught.
Speaker 1:My cousin, David, who grew up in Gowanus houses and I talk about him quite frequently learned that as a young man and says that the most important lesson that he wished he would have had going back to school in the late 1980s was not about social justice and we, as Black people, have to go out and protest and riot because we need change.
Speaker 1:It was like no, here's a job, here's some money, here's an education. Go out and demand your place in culture, not because you're black, but because you have enough equity and you have enough money, because this is what really makes the world go around is money is you have enough money and education and resources that you can go ahead and demand your seat at the table. My cousin, David, is not college educated he's a millionaire but he learned. He learned on the job during his time how to fix houses and how to do real estate and had someone who was a white person who took him under his wing and mentored him and showed him this is how businesses run yeah, and that's something that we lack and that is something that we definitely lack.
Speaker 1:Integration isn't charity. It's about the proper redistribution of power, right, and it's not even socialist. It's about giving everybody a fair chance. Okay, I got a little passionate about that, I'm sorry, but no, no, I'm listening to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, but everybody deserves a fair chance, right, and we have to stop judging people because of where they come from. Right it's. Someone said to me recently um, her daughter had broken up with somebody, or the guy had broken up with her daughter and she was like, oh well, you know. And then she said something like well, he's adopted, but he's in a nice family now. I said, yeah, well, that doesn't take away the wounds of abandonment and rejection and the unknowing of where you came from. Right, you can be raised by perfectly wonderful people who do a great job raising you, but the problem is is that you still have your own internal struggles.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly as we conclude it. I want to say this and this is something that I wrote down that I cause I have a bad memory, so I do have to write things down from time to time. When I was in undergrad and studying sociology, the sociology book brought up this point about our continued segregated culture and segregated society and segregated school systems and racism. That there are enough people in America today to make it diverse, that segregation isn't an accident, it's a choice. When you go to a school and that school is all black, or that school is all Asian, or that school is all white, there are enough people here in America, especially if you are in an urban area, especially if you're in New York or San Francisco or Dallas, texas, that there are enough and there's enough integrated places, that you should not go to a place and it be all black or all white or all one or anything. Right, of course, there are certain neighborhoods that are going to be that, but this continued segregation that we have in our country is a choice.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Everything is choice. I always say that and that you know I think I've said that to you before is that you know we learn behavior and then we make a choice to emulate what we have been taught.
Speaker 1:Right, jack Canfield says this and I'll close on this, at least for me, and I'll let Lindsay do a closing word. If you got time to complain about it, you have time to change it. So, if there's, if, if you see an unfairness in the school system where your child is, or if you are a person that has the luxury of having a kid that goes to a school system and you're fighting against Donald Trump and Elon Musk, you know and you're fighting against all these things that you find, you know, you know that are, that are upsetting. You ask yourself are you willing and this is a great episode of through line on dare to dissent, uh, uh, episode of the podcast called through line, called dare to dissent, is folks in power only want change up to a certain point, right? So if you're not happy about anything that these guys are doing, are you happy with some of the things they're doing? Right?
Speaker 1:Are you happy with the segregated school that your kid goes to? Right? Because if you are happy with it, then you don't. Then you just need to shut up or you need to do what? Uh, I believe it was the police chief of uh of of is in Texas where there was some shootings and some protests. So get off the picket line and get on the hiring line. If you are not happy about the current situation which I'm not happy about, lindsay's not happy about, but we are advocating change is get up, become a part of the system that you want to change.
Speaker 2:So you can change it. Work on yourself, right. It's like you could get sucked into it and you can complain, and great, right? I mean, we're in the position that we're in right now for the next four years. There's absolutely nobody can change that. So, instead, work on yourself and do what you can do Right and in your own community, instead of worrying about how you're going to change the world on this grand level Yep, change yourself.
Speaker 1:Yep Persistence. Jack Canfield says change starts small, but change starts every day.
Speaker 2:Persistence is what makes it happen. I mean you were semi listening to that workshop. I was in this morning and it's like you know you can vibrate from these places of like, fear and shame and guilt, these really low vibe places. Or you could like take action and you can accept yourself and you could be willing to say, hey, this is who I am, take it or leave it, but like I'm going to run with it.
Speaker 1:I can't say it better than that. And, with that being said, this has been another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know. This has been Cleveland and. Lindsay, and before I go, what are we going to talk about next week? You think?
Speaker 2:I had just had a couple of ideas, so I'll run them by you in a few minutes. But also I want to say too that I'm offering free sessions in exchange for recording for my training. So anybody out there wants to do some compassionate inquiry practice, yeah, email us. Deep dive into your inner stuff, so to speak. How can they get in touch with us? Get to know the devil at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Hey, there's also a direct link on the on the podcast too, if you want some free. Uh, one more time, lind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, free, compassionate inquiry sessions. So you know, in the in the um, in a mode of therapy that you know I learned from Gabor Mate during that year long training. So now I'm working towards my full certification and you know it's been great. I've actually had quite a few people reach out to me for the sessions and the. The feedback that I've gotten is like how much better, like how much more grounded they feel. They get a lot of emotional turmoil, it stirs a lot of stuff up, but how much more grounded that they feel when they get in touch with their actual somatic experience in the body and connect it with the emotion and often brings up childhood memories and that's really helpful in healing. Oh yes, before I forget, yes, experience in the body and connect it with the emotion and often brings up childhood memories and that's really helpful in healing.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, before I forget, yes, and along with that, if you want to, if you want to find out more, you can also follow me on Substack at the Unfinished Life, cleveland Oaks, at Substack. I just started a Substack where you can find my musings. Lindsay's going to start putting up some some vegan recipes up there and some some tidbits and and and. Then you can also find our podcast. So that is clean linux substack or the un, or if you google the unfinished life, you can find my musings, my dissertations, my notes, um on, on on life, um, and that being said, if you like, if you like what you heard, don't even follow. Don't just follow us because you can get a free CI session or you can get some free articles, um, on my website, but follow us because you're trying to change your life. And if you like what you've heard, please like, subscribe. Uh, tell a friend, tell some families, because the devil don't want you to know the things that you don't know Until the next time.
