Transcript

Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758

From This American Life · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 3 min · 10,618 words · 62 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758", an episode of This American Life published March 6, 2025 (1 h 3 min, about 10,618 words). It mentions 9 people, works and ideas, including Dr. James Whitfield, Dr. Ken Barry, Jerry Craft, Donald Trump, Katy Texas.

What this episode is about

The main topic discusses the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in various sectors, attributing an array of disasters to marginalized people's employment and reductions in DEI programs by major corporations. It explores the political climate following Donald Trump's return to office, highlighting a significant cultural shift regarding race and systemic issues in America since the summer of 2020.

Key takeaways

  • Blaming DEI for disasters is like blaming umbrellas for rain; it's misdirection at its finest.
  • The ironic twist: as DEI efforts retreat, systemic inequities double down, yet the narrative flips fast.
  • From Black squares to CRT bans, America's racial discourse oscillates like a pendulum on caffeine.
  • Dr. Whitfield's pastoral email became a target, proving that 'progress' can be just as controversial as the status quo.
  • In a world against 'woke' efforts, the irony remains: awareness isn't indoctrination; it's a call for improvement.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Dr. James Whitfield, Donald Trump, Dr. Ken Barry, Ahmad Aubrey
  2. – 40:00: Jerry Craft, Dr. Ken Barry, American Library Association, New York Times
  3. – 50:00: Jerry Craft
  4. – 1:00:00: Jerry Craft, Katy Texas
  5. – 1:03:05: Dr. Ken Barry

Notable quotes from "Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758"

  • From WBZ Chicago it's This American Life I'm Emanuel Barry in for Ira Glass in the last year Dei programs have been blamed for an astonishingly varied set of disasters the Los Angeles wildfires the Baltimore bridge collapse Boeing.
    about Dr. Ken Barry · at
  • Google Toyota McDonald's and Walmart all of them have rolled back Dei efforts these companies are really just following president Trump's lead he signed an executive order on…
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Community I'd started to roll my eyes at all the MLK and Baldwin quotes in a school district outside Dallas Texas Dr James Whitfield had just been promoted to high school…
    about Dr. James Whitfield · at
  • Change the black squares are gone from Instagram the random reparations money from Friends gone we went from anti-racist books crowding the bestsellers list to Banning kids…
    about New York Times · at
  • This backlash here's Hana I learned about this particular band book from Deborah Caldwell Stone she's a director of the American Library association's office for intellectual…
    about American Library Association · at
  • Novel yes new kid is a book my children read it's about a 12-year-old black boy who goes to a new school Jerry was scheduled to give a author presentation to the kids in Katie…
    about Jerry Craft · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Dr. James Whitfield — Person · Primary subject (featured story) · 3 mentions · first at
    A Texas high school principal whose 2020 email about George Floyd-era racial reckoning later became evidence used against him amid the CRT/DEI backlash, leading to his contract non-renewal.
  • Dr. Ken Barry — Person · Host · 3 mentions · first at
    Hosts the rerun episode and frames the contemporary DEI backlash, connecting it to the earlier reporting on CRT pushback and consequences for Black educators and authors.
  • Jerry Craft — Person · Referenced author (featured in Act Two) · 10 mentions · first at
    Author of the graphic novel 'New Kid', which was falsely labeled CRT and temporarily pulled in a Texas school district—used as a case study of book-banning and backlash against Black narratives.
  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Cited as driving federal and corporate rollbacks of DEI via executive action; also referenced in a claimed example of DEI being blamed for the Secret Service failure around an assassination attempt.
  • Ahmad Aubrey — Person · Referenced victim (contextual example) · 1 mention · first at
    Named in Dr. Whitfield’s 2020 email as part of the set of killings that prompted public discussion of racism; provides context for why the email was written.
    Not sleep and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and I said I have to craft something his email started by talking about the killings of George Floyd Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna…
  • Briana Taylor — Person · Referenced victim (contextual example) · 1 mention · first at
    Named in Dr. Whitfield’s 2020 email as part of the events that catalyzed institutional responses to racism; supports the episode’s timeline of 2020 to 2021 backlash.
    Not sleep and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and I said I have to craft something his email started by talking about the killings of George Floyd Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna…

Companies & orgs

  • American Library Association — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at
    Discussed in the context of tracking book bans and censorship efforts across the country.

Places & events

  • Katy Texas — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    A city in Texas where a school district banned Jerry Craft's book 'New Kid' and canceled his author visit.
    Novel yes new kid is a book my children read it's about a 12-year-old black boy who goes to a new school Jerry was scheduled to give a author presentation to the kids in Katie…

Media & podcasts

  • New York Times — Media · Referenced media · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a source of bestseller lists that included anti-racist books post-George Floyd.

Full transcript with timestamps

from WBZ Chicago it's This American Life I'm Emanuel Barry in for Ira Glass in the last year Dei programs have been blamed for an astonishingly varied set of disasters the Los Angeles wildfires the Baltimore bridge collapse Boeing Jets falling apart the Secret Service failures leading to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and memorably the midair collision between a helicopter and a passenger plane in Washington DC last month all of that obviously was the fault of diversity equity and inclusion in other words marginalized people having Jobs means bad things happen I'm a black person I'm doing my job right now and so of course today's episode may very well fall apart because I'm hosting let me read you a list Disney GM Google Toyota McDonald's and Walmart all of them have rolled back Dei efforts these companies are really just following president Trump's lead he signed an executive order on January

20th ending all federal Dei initiatives to comply research agencies have scrubbed words from their work like women disability bias black and gender as well as socioeconomic and systemic 3 years ago we did an episode about the push back to critical race Theory which is really just Dei in a different font and we thought we'd play it again today because it tried to describe a turning point the beginning of the backlash that's playing out with such force in the first few weeks of Donald Trump's return to office not just diversity programs being wiped out of existence but being blamed absurdly for anything bad that happens in America the story that started the episode began before the backlash in the summer of 2020 that was kind of you know Peak woke America if you remember the murder of George Floyd had forced the country into another racial Awakening that summer everyone was sending out emails and tweets about race and racism

in America statements of unity from corporations one shoe tweeted we are not asking you to buy our shoes we are asking you to walk in someone else's remember when everyone on Instagram posted black squares for a day to show solidarity with the black community I'd started to roll my eyes at all the MLK and Baldwin quotes in a school district outside Dallas Texas Dr James Whitfield had just been promoted to high school principal the school's first black principal and he was watching everyone send out these emails not just corporate Brands but also his peers other Educators and administrators I been up pretty much all night could not sleep and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and I said I have to craft something his email started by talking about the killings of George Floyd Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna Taylor and how these events have brought forth The Familiar enemy of racism in America quote for so

long these atrocities have occurred and we've simply moved on with our daily lives now it appears as though we are collectively using our voice to denounce systemic racism and the inequities that people of color face on a daily basis in our country he goes on to write from a personal perspective of a black man who grew up in Texas he writes I will be 42 years old next month and never in my life have I experienced this level of support when it comes to issues of race I cannot begin to tell you how encouraging it has been to have so many of my white brothers and sisters Buck the status quo by calling texting unashamedly saying that black lives do indeed matter he continued I'm here with you to do whatever we need to do to disrupt systemic racism uh and eradicate it Whitfield ends his email the way he ends many of his emails and messages by telling people he loves them dearly which is kind of who he is approachable

warm a beloved figure a cardigan wearing dad people appreciated the email parents teachers and students wrote to say thank you some said they were ready to learn more one parent mentioned how refreshing it was to see a school leader send out this kind of letter a year passed whitfield's first year as principal and it's a tough one because you know the pandemic but he made it through and then he arrived at the summer of 2021 it is a very different landscape from the summer of 2020 in fact the script has flipped public conversations have moved from let's all try and understand and talk about systemic racism to let's never mention systemic racism this is especially true in Texas where Dr Whitfield is in Texas the conversation is suddenly all about banning critical race Theory critical race Theory CRT you've probably heard about it it's a way to chart how racism is ingrained in the American legal system and other

institutions but at this moment CRT has become kind of a boogeyman a quick shorthand to shut down anything acknowledging racism or even Blackness Texas passed a law in 2021 Banning CRT in schools and during the school year Dr Whitfield heard that some people were grumbling about him on social media saying he was a race Warrior the online grumblings became public at a Schoolboard meeting in July when a resident points to whitfield's email his email where he basically says it seems like we're ready to talk about race as a country he points to that email as proof that he is indoctrinating students with critical race Theory tonight I would like to express my concerns not only of myself but of many in our community about the implementation of critical race theory in our District specifically the views and goals of the principal of cville Heritage High School James Whitfield I was first made aware of Mr whitfield's

extreme views on race when a concerned friend of mine shared with me a letter he sent to parents and students in the summer of 2020 to be clear drfi is not teaching CRT he didn't propose educational reforms in his email he wasn't reshaping the curriculum he did support an existing program at the school that tried to get kids into college who wouldn't traditionally go he got Flack for that but the program predated him people complained about an approving mention of the Southern Poverty Law Center but also that he quoted Gil Scott Heron in an email saying the revolution will not be televised and of course that email from 2020 where like everyone else in 2020 he denounces systemic racism later in this letter he goes further all members of our Mr Clark yes we really prefer that you don't criticize particular employee of the district okay if you have any issues we how about Sir S at the time it seemed absurd that

this would actually happen that Dr Whitfield would be fired a handful of people at a board meeting demanding a respected and newly hired principal be fired for promoting an academic theory he wasn't promoting that seemed hard to imagine but over the next few months that is what happened in August the the board placed Dr Whitfield on paid administrative leave but didn't give a reason why he talked to the media about it in September Dr Whitfield defended himself at a board meeting one of the items on the agenda was should the district renew whitfield's contract for the next year Whitfield showed up for the public comments and like everyone else he got one minute to speak well I'm Dr James Whitfield Dr Ryan Board of Trustees uh I first want to express my gratitude for all the love support and encouragement from the community especially our students um who have regretfully um been criticized for their

speaking up in this matter I stand before you today no different than I was when I came in in 1819 the 2018 2019 school year when he was first hired by the district I'm an advocate for all kids I believe every student regardless of race religion sexual orientation whatever bucket you want to put them in I believe they all have access to a they should have access to excellent Equitable education yes I said those words unfortunately my Unapologetic stance for those things has brought us here tonight which is disheartening the attacks from people outside is one thing but the outright silence and direct actions taken towards me by gstd leadership team GCC leadership team sorry trying to get this in or was absolutely heartbreaking I can assure you I have not changed I'm still the same man today is when you hired me in 1819 you promoted me twice in three years so I asked you what has changed since July 26 thank you Dr

Ry please sir thank you Dr the board's response they vote not to renew his contract I reached out to the district and they said they were not going to talk about this but in public statements they made earlier they said the decision was not based on people calling for Dr Whitfield to be fired they list a bunch of other reasons stuff like insubordination a Facebook post he wrote defending himself was not okay with them against professional conduct he talked to the media instead of filing formal complaints with the school as they read this list at the meeting you could hear students and parents who came to support Whitfield scoff at the items being read the fifth reason for the recommendation Dr Whitfield has diminished his Effectiveness by dividing large sections of the community by continuing to raise please stay quiet the response went on for so long she never got to finish the statement pleas be quiet it said he was

dividing large sections of the community by quote continuing to raise issues of critical race Theory Dr Whitfield lost his job what changed over the last year as Whitfield said not him that email didn't change the black squares are gone from Instagram the random reparations money from Friends gone we went from anti-racist books crowding the bestsellers list to Banning kids books about Rosa Parks for Dr Whitfield the consequence of getting caught in this backlash is he's no longer in the one place he really wants to be when I spoke with him in early November he told me he was still dropping his kid off at elementary school the high school is across the street oh I I mean I I I look over there every I can't just not look right my wife is just like well just try to try to look the other way and I can't um it's um you know as I'm driving by you can see you know down the main one of the main hallways right there's these

big windows and you can see right down the hallway and so as I'm walking by I'm envisioning the different classrooms and the teachers that I would check on every morning and you know it's three stories and so by the time the Morning by the time the first Bell had rung I was already 10,000 steps right cuz I'm running around this place checking in on teachers and so I think about that every morning like um and so yeah it's um it it's really it's really hard to pass by you know a place that you love you know and know that there's staff members that you love in there there's students that you love in there and that's you know that's where you're supposed to be and and but like it's but you're not even you're not allowed to be in there right like it's um it's like what kind of person is not allowed to be in there you know it's um it's disheartening the line of what's acceptable to say about race and racism

in America it moved it's a though we were having one argument and then the terms changed and that shift has left many black people exposed and vulnerable and living with those consequences this backlash it's not surprising this is what America does reconstruction then Jim Crow the Civil Rights Movement to the War on Drugs Obama to Trump so no it's not surprising that there is Backlash but what I am surprised by is the way people have been caught up and Tangled in it the choices they've made to either further twist themselves along the line of what's acceptable or move away from it the way black people have had to reconsider what to say and the Fallout that comes with those choices our show today two stories of people trying to figure out what to say or if they should say anything in this moment of backlash stay with us it's This American Life Act One incident the place that this backlash is

playing out most dramatically is in schools in particular Schoolboard meetings sometimes parents are angry about something as small as the email Dr Whitfield wrote or a specific book they don't like or an effort to diversify a library's collection sometimes it's a new resolution to promote equity in the school and a lot of these parents repeat the same talking points in these meetings across the country they say microaggressions are not real what about Reverse Racism and somehow Martin Luther King Jr comes up a lot but what these examples boil down to is we shouldn't be talking about racism because it's not a thing anymore uh first thing I want to say and it's a fact that Travers City is not a racist City and the US definitely not a racist Nation this is from Traver City Michigan this thing about this racism we have been marching away from racism by Leaps and Bounds for decades upon decades I keep wondering what is it

like to be a kid in one of these towns for kids of color especially when some adults are saying racism is a problem and other adults are saying it's not one at all for instance the meeting you just heard from Travers City what's so remarkable able about this particular meeting is that what these parents are partially responding to is a clearly racist incident in their schools I've been talking to a kid who was targeted in that incident a 16-year-old black biracial girl named NAA about what happened to her and her story is so much more personal and immediate than what you get from any of these meetings a quick warning this story might not be appropriate for kids here it is act one a year ago Navea was a sophomore High School who didn't think about her Blackness too much yes she lives in a mostly White Town 90% white and yes she's often the only person of color in a given room including her family she's

adopted they're white but her journals were not filled with tragic black girl in white Town cliches she was writing fiction fantasy young adult romance um I love fiction writing more than anything I could not write poetry or non-fiction um and then I'm also really interested in Psychology m um I've taken that class for this is I'm on my second year taking it now um I find it really interesting when you say psychology what is it about psychology that like you're interested in I love learning about like why people act the way they do in certain situations like the brain is cool but I'm more onto like the behavioral aspect of psychology NOA is a self-proclaimed overthinker and she does this thing when you talk with her that makes her feel both mature and young at the same time is that when she doesn't know something she says she doesn't know it with such confidence that you feel assured that

someday she will know that thing a year ago Navea would have described her high school and her experience there as typical I mean like there are groups here and there but it's not like the oh you can't sit with us you're not that type of person it's not mean girl situation no it's not it's not like that at all na had a lot of friends she wo in and out of a bunch of different groups at school and then she had her inner Circle one of her closest friends in that Circle someone she talked to daily I'll call Katie we met in seventh grade and we went to the same school for uh seventh and eighth grade and so we were really close and then ninth grade came along and I moved schools but we still kept in contact and we still like talked all the time during the pandemic they would sit on FaceTime together and hang out Katie was a person who could talk Navea down when she was stressed especially about school they were also

goofballs together they' go to the mall just to try on outrageous outfits and crack each other up the racist thing that happened to NAA the thing that led to those heated Schoolboard meetings that happened in the spring of 2021 and it started with a text from Katie and just said that she was in this really like messed up group chat with her friends um it was late at night and I was tired so I didn't really like I was like oh okay if it's really that bad you should leave I'm going to go to bed Navea wasn't really sure what Katie was talking about so she brushed it off she woke up the next morning to more messages from Katie about what happened in the group chat she texted me and she was like Hey like you were in it and I was like oh I was in it like what what's it about and then she told me she was just like oh they're like bad stuff they're like selling like people and I was like oh the group chat

was called slave trade with two Purple Devil emojis it's about half a dozen mostly white students listenting their black classmates for sale posting their pictures and throwing out bids as if they're in an auction like a slave auction apparently Navea was one of the people in the chat who was quote unquote put up for sale my first reaction was how much did I go for and who did I go to um full honesty there and she said that I went to her for free the chat is essentially a private text thread that after some time disappears a feature of the snap chat app some students tell the school district about the chat the school calls nave's mom and the parents of other students and it's while her mom's on the phone with the school that it all starts to sink in and at that point I was like oh like I was sold like I don't know how bad that is but I assume it's not that not the best and so then I asked my friend to give me

screenshots and she did this is what they say first screenshot one student what up [ __ ] new group chat for making fun of black people in reply very nice another screenshot All Blacks should die let's have another Holocaust yay someone cheers I can curse says another picture of a black kid homo goes for 50 man sus he comes as a bonus he's free someone else adds man so gay I'll kill him for Jesus another screenshot picture of an another black student -10 for autism someone says 50% off sale picture of two black teenagers someone says they can run but they can't hide 100 each Double the Trouble they like picking cotton someone makes an offer I'll take them for 150 as the pair another screenshot picture of NAA she's in a red crop top and jeans and a hat posing near a tree written underneath starting bid 100 EU someone comments another EU followed by another and then just then and there like

everything like hit I was disgusted to the gut like it was just like oh my gosh like I joked with these students before like I I couldn't believe that they would think of typing something that they thought like it would be okay after like everything with black lives matter this last year it was just like wow okay showed me the type of person they were it's almost like Na's inside the darker not funny version of that Eddie Murphy skit maybe you've seen it the one where he goes undercover as a white man and discovers all the things white people do when there aren't black people in the room she had a new window into who her classmates were in private in these screenshots it was the spring of 2021 luckily she was in remote school she wouldn't have to face them until her junior year started in the fall

Na's mom Jayla saw the screenshots and the words all blacks should die and worried for NAA safety she emailed all the school board members went back and forth with school administrators she felt like no one was taking it seriously she called the police the police investigated the group chat a few weeks later they told Jayla that there were no chargeable offenses jayla's confused my said that doesn't make any sense because there was talks of killing all black kids and started another Holocaust to me that was a direct indirect threat um of something that could potentially happen and he just disregarded it as um you know kids being kids and talk and smack the school gets back to Jayla and N about how they will handle the Snapchat incident ultimately they say they will follow the district's policy for discipline but they couldn't say specifically what that meant NAA was worried it seemed like the

whole thing was just going to be swept under the rug and she wanted people to know what happened she hadn't done anything to be a part of the Snapchat except be black should she speak up but she worried over that too if I say something will people think I'm overreacting but if I don't say anything will anyone else even know about this in the end Navea made the decision to speak she talked to the Press about what happened instead of Disappearing the story of mostly white high schoolers auctioning off their black classmates in a secret slave auction it got a lot of attention at first Novea felt good talking about it she got a lot of support people reached out she felt a sense of relief but just as quickly as is happening in many parts of America talking about racism in Traver City led to backlash NAA speaking up set off other bigger conversations about racism in the community which led to that heated

school board meeting where some adults insisted Travers City is not a racist place and that any discussion of racism causes division but something that was more important to NAA was the backlash she got from her peers some kids started to get tired of seeing NAA on the news and to NAA seemed almost irritated she noticed a gradual change even among some of her friends they've always been nice I've always hung out with them a lot and I thought that we like kind of kind of had the same Viewpoint and opinions on a lot of things and so then when this whole thing happened and they started to say oh why are people still talking about it why is it such a big deal that really showed me like oh we disagree on such a big topic here like racism like where did they stand and should I let something like this determine my friendship with someone or not this question where did the people around me stand it was a question that kept coming

up again and again and again as the summer passed and the school year approached in the fall she went back to school in person for the first time since the incident na is a junior she looked around and wondered who are my friends who can I trust who thinks it's okay I was sold in a slave trade NAA thinks to herself I can be friends with anybody one of the kids who participated in the Snapchat slave trade I'll call him Luke they were texting right after the incident and again just before school started the text said like oh my gosh I'm so sorry blah blah blah blah um and then I've had other students come up to me and be like he's really sorry he is scared of you now he is good yeah he's scared of me now the second time he sent me apology he was like oh I want to be friends with you again and I was like okay like I'm cool with being friends with anybody they texted a little but it wasn't the same Luke a chatter box and a

jokeer NOA says they were old friends they've known each other since middle school but she couldn't talk to Luke about what happened it seemed like he just wanted to move past it without ever addressing it and then it just it just got weird because it felt like I mean there was something we couldn't discuss between each other and it was a thick line between us that it was just like kind of awkward and so I just I just stopped talking to him Luke was the first friend NAA was forced to make a decision about maybe she couldn't be friends with everyone as the weeks passed she started ignoring him like if she sees him in the Halls she look at her phone walk to the other side staying away from Luke meant she distanced herself from other friends like her one friend I'll call Leah she's like hey like I know how wrong like what he did but I am friends with him and I've told her like hey like I'm not going to be

the one to tell you who you can and cannot be friends with like if you want to be friends with him you can be friends with him and I've just been like hey if you but if you are friendss with him you have to understand and consider the fact that like I'm not going to be around as much like I'm not going to hang out with him when you're hanging out with I'm not going to hang out with him at all in general I think it's just hard for her to like I guess let him go so NOA tries to navigate this new social landscape on her own but it's not simple take this one time a couple months ago Novea was meeting Leah at a football game she got to the stands and Luke was there Navea had no idea he would be there I'm I'm not going to be a baby about this I can be mature and I don't have to speak to him um I'm not going to make a big deal out of this so then I was just like okay like I want to watch the game so

I'll stay the game started Leah called a player trash for making a bad play Then Luke who's behind NAA with his buddies defends the player mocks the girl who shouted calling her mean telling her he'd never say something so mean it rung in Na's ears then I just like I stopped and I like turned around and I was like really and then he looked at me and he his mouth just like dropped open cuz and then his friend started like n n you don't need to bring that up like come on no no thank you like he's already been through enough Navea didn't want to cause trouble for Luke she wished him well she just couldn't pretend that nothing happened and she couldn't stop questioning a lot of her relationships even her relation ship with Katie it was never clear to NAA if Katie had participated in the chat they were friends Katie is the one who told her about the chat it didn't make sense that she would have joined in but Katie had

said she'd bought Navea for free that detail stuck with Navea then she started to hear from other people that Katie had said stuff was that true the screenshots Katie sent NAA didn't have the full conversation and the screenshot she does have kitty says nothing was it possible there was something in the missing parts of the chat Navea wondered did she laugh at me did she place any bids no she probably stayed quiet didn't say anything she's the reason I even know what happened Navea was scared to ask her so she didn't they continued to be friends but the uncertainty weighed on NAA um as much as I'd like to think she wasn't the type of person to do this all of these people who were in the group chat were their friend were her friends she hung out with them every day she was surrounded by them all the time she facetimed them she joked with them all the time and they made jokes like these all the time the the guy who started it

that was his personality he was just a rude racist person um and so if she's surrounding herself with such rude racist people like that eventually and she's going to adapt that and and adopt that kind of behavior um I mean I learned it in Psychology so sorry yeah I contacted Katie through her mom I wanted them to know that Navea and Katie's friendship would come up in this story she told me they were not interested in talking and were moving past this incident Navea started to withdraw from Katie when Katie confronted her about why she was ignoring her the conversation Navea had been avoiding happened and I was just like hey like can you just straight up be honest with me right now did you say something about me have you participated in this group chat that and then we got into a bit of an argument um she called me rude and low for ever suggesting a thing um and that I was just like a bad friend for

even like thinking that and um and then I was just like okay if you she told me that she wasn't involved in it I don't know what to think about it and so I just was like Hey Okay I'm going to distance myself from you and that was it NAA hasn't talked to her since the Snapchat slave trade was almost 9 months ago because there was a school investigation and a police investigation and a title 9 investigation lots of adults School administrators police know exactly what was said in those messages but NAA doesn't it really bugs her how odd to have an otherwise ordinary right of passage for any high schooler what did my friend say and do behind my back actually have a documented answer Navea says she asked for the full conversation from the school but they never gave it to her and told her Katie shouldn't have shared it they told her if she wanted to see more she could file a Freedom of Information Act request or

a foer request so she did I did too and then Navea waited I asked her you know it could say some really hurtful stuff right it may really hurt me I I think that if I see it I can handle it and I will handle it and I just it just be give me closure not only like for me but like closure like if Katie participated or not because I'm still questioning that was it the right decision to just cut Katie off or was I just paranoid you know what else was I mean I you know and so just seeing if Katie participated or not and then seeing what else was said about me those two things will just give me like the most closure ever my for requests came in first it close to 500 pages printed out emails after emails police reports disciplinary hearing forms but it's heavily redacted which is honestly pretty normal for aoya I brought it to Na's house and she her mom and I sat at the kitchen table trying to sort through it all there's so

much information Behind These black squares well I just wow really I just like cross out their names but show me what they said the screenshots NAA was hoping to see fully blacked out there were little bits of information here and there in the report but it was hard to decipher there was some new information in there for one thing this SnapChat wasn't the first time that a group of kids sold their black peers in a slave auction in the foia the kid who started the slave TR in Traver City so they saw it on Tik Tok there was another one in Texas second the foyo made it clear that there were more screenshots than the ones NAA had seen all of them are blacked out I could see the frustration and disappointment on Na's face as she flipped through Page after page it's it's really frustrating to look at these just like tons of black pages and just boxes that are completely then again I just want to know what they said like I

don't realize I don't understand how why that's so difficult to just like hand it over to me I was I was in this group chat I was a Target and so I feel like as someone who is in the group chat and talked about in the group chat I should be given the right to see what else was said about me cuz you know NAA saw something in the Foya that gave her pause the names are blacked out but she could see in the report that someone in the chat didn't participate she kept seeing that over again blacked out name did not participate 50 pages later blacked out name did not participate was that Katie it just makes me question like maybe Katie was telling me the truth and here I was just brushing it off because of how strongly I was focused on finding out if she was in it or not so I guess if anything it just makes me question myself more and my judgments more the next day NAA sent me a text she made the choice to believe that the

blacked out name the person who did not participate was Katie reading the Foya made DEA think about their relationship about who she could trust something she'd been struggling with before this incident she had no reason to think that Katie wasn't an honest person she said she reached out to Katie to apologize and Katie had responded NAA did not just want to know what was said about her in the chat she wanted everyone to know she wanted to talk about about it but the message she felt like she kept getting from her school the police her friends from the Schoolboard meeting in her town from the 500 page blacked out Foya was we don't want to talk about this we don't want to talk about racism it's the same message that has been on repeat everywhere in this moment of backlash and as a kid if that's the message you're getting bury the racism what do you do with that about an hour after I left their

house House nave's mom sent me a picture Navea in her room sitting on her bed surrounded by the Foya which she'd arranged in many little stacks of paper like a detective sorting and sifting through the Clues still puzzling still trying to find something to help her make sense of it all since the story aired a few years ago Navea has started college she's studying psychology still trying to figure out how people work coming up a person who does not want to know anything about what's being said behind their back thoughts in a minute from Chicago public radio when our program continues it's This American Life I'm Emanuel Barry in for Ira Glass today our show talking while black this episode originally ran in 2022 we're rerunning it at this moment when anti- Dei measures are sweeping the country in the last 5 years we've gone from companies tweeting out black lives matter all these diversity initiatives to now where

it feels like even just saying something is black is controversial states are passing laws to limit conversations about racism black people are losing their jobs for talking about race too much I keep returning to this question over the last few months in this backlash what are you allowed to say like as a black person like what about black lives or the black experience is actually okay to talk about this next story gets at this question we've arrived at act two of our program act two the farce awakens one place where you can see this dizzying Whiplash is books by black people and about black people after the murder of George Floyd sales of Black Books skyrocketed e x kendi stamped from the beginning the new gy Crow so you want to talk about race we're all of a sudden bestsellers for a window of time people really wanted to hear what black authors had to say and then they dramatically did not want to hear

anymore not only did s slow but their now efforts to ban many of these books that were so celebrated producer Hana joffy Walt spoke with one author who found his book band and whose professional Arc is sort of a mirror for this backlash here's Hana I learned about this particular band book from Deborah Caldwell Stone she's a director of the American Library association's office for intellectual Freedom her job is to track efforts to censor and ban books and she was telling me she's never seen anything like this fall before in her decades on the job just the number of books being challenged removed from school library shelves many books about lgbtq people she says those have been contested for years but more recently Tony Morrison Dr ibram X KY the hate you give a novel about the aftermath of police brutality and in Texas there was a mother who halted a author presentation by Jerry craft by claiming falsely that new kid

represented critical race Theory which of course like comic book The Graphic novel yes new kid new kid is a book my children read it's about a 12-year-old black boy who goes to a new school Jerry was scheduled to give uh a author presentation to the kids in Katie Texas and they lined up this big event all the kids were anticipating meeting Jerry via zoom and one mother stopped the whole thing by claiming that it was critical race Theory wow Jerry craft has been invited to speak to thousands of schools over the years to do author presentations like the one in Katie Texas because new kid was widely acclaimed it won a ton of awards it was a number one New York Times bestseller translated into a dozen languages new kid is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel about a boy Jordan Who Wants to Be an artist and go to art school but his parents put him in a fancy private school Jordan is one of only a few black

kids a lot of the kids are wealthy the campus is vast and you watch Jordan this funny Earnest kid navigate a new environment there's culture shock there's new friendships it's part Fish Out of Water story and part just kid in Middle School figuring out crushes in the cafeteria and things like should he do sports or the musical Jerry craft told me when he put n kid out there the response was amazing everything it was all like a great big hug from the world people wrote him to say my kid wants to be an artist now my kid loved your book or hey you know my kid has never been a reader before and he read your book three times like that's what I'm used to mhm when it's like love love and admiration right so now it's like hey can you comment uh here in the BBC I'm like no like what what is this this is not his thing controversy Jerry was a kid who loved to draw who became an adult who kept drawing he spends most

of his time in a room by himself making pictures when he published New Kid in 2019 Jerry had been writing comics for decades this was the book he'd always wanted to write the book he wished he'd had as a kid with the black character who seemed just regular Jerry says he remembers going to the library as a kid and it was always the general books and the Black Books the general books are wants to live better and our books just wants to live you know your books his father's King our books his father is gone you know lives in a Magical Kingdom lives in the hood all the books with black protagonists were history or misery you know no kid like me ever made it to the end of a book there there was no dad there was nothing you know the kids always lived on the south side of somewhere that was just really horrible you know and it was gangs or slavery or civil rights or police brutality and I'm like can I just see a kid who the

biggest problem of the day is whether he wants to play Xbox or Playstation and that's why I do what I do I make those books that I wish I had that's the thing about new kid being banned so many of the other black authors with banned books are writing explicitly about racism or history books about how slavery has Shaped America police brutality how to be an anti-racist but new kid this is not a history book it's not about police violence or slavery or civil rights it's a story about finding your place in middle school there are racial slights in a sort of daily way way classmates and teachers make assumptions about where Jordan's from that he's a great athlete they say ignorant things try to touch a black friend's hair administrators continue to call a long-standing black teacher coach even though he's never coached anything Jordan often finds the stuff funny he laughs about it with another black

classmate sometimes he finds it confusing or annoying but it's not tragic these are just things that happen on the way alongside lots of other experiences with his white classmates and teachers including good experiences honestly the most dramatic thing that happens in this story is that Jordan loses his Sketchbook what is there to object to when I talked to Jerry I didn't know the specifics of the objections in Texas and I kind of expected Jerry to fill me in but he knew even less than me he read enough of one article to understand that a white parent had complained about his book was calling it critical race Theory a term Jerry had to then Google and he closed the article without finishing it he had work to do but friends and strangers kept messaging him how crazy your book banned so one person sent me the actual School Board link that I guess they filmed the school board and I just refused to watch that because you

know like when I'm sitting for 16 hours a day drawing like humorous stuff for kids I have to protect my own brain and my own psyche because I don't want you know my next book kids to be like wow Mr KRA used to be funny now he's so depressing you know so I have to be in a really good mental space for that um so I did you knew I mean it sounds like you knew that that was something that you weren't going to want to watch yeah I did not want to go down that rabbit hole how what did you imagine was down that rabbit hole that was scary to you um the complaint that I saw was that um I'm teaching kids critical race Theory so the college course that mentions things such as institutional racism and all these really heavy deep things that they are studying and picking apart in college I was now uh break that down for fourth and fifth graders apparently so oh sorry that's not supposed to happen oh is that for me is that is that Katie

Texas like we want equal opportunity talking about we have to give an opposing Viewpoint that's how I do my interviews I just like in the middle I get a call from the opposing side and then the two of you do get out right there you go I did not stage a call with the mom who complained about Jerry Craft's books but I did talk to her and I watched her testimony at the Katy school board meetings the ones Jerry craft would not watch her name is Bonnie Anderson she has three kids in the schools she's very involved in local school politics she's part of a lawsuit against the school district's mask mandate and she ran for Schoolboard last spring but lost Bonnie told me she first encountered Jerry's book when she got a flyer in her kids backpack announcing the author visit so she got the books new kid and the follow-up book Class Act and read them both herself I don't know if you have you read these books yeah my kids read

them okay okay I don't even know where to start um so the first thing that I noticed is all of the microaggressions um that the author is depicting microaggressions meaning the everyday thoughtless stuff white people in the book say around black kids Bonnie worried how reading those depictions might make white kids feel the district told me there was another parent too who apparently filed the complaint that new kid includes vulgarity but they would not provide that person's name Bonnie though was very public she cared enough about this to create a petition demanding the district cancel Jerry Craft's event it got 400 signatures to Bonnie the book has a clear agenda Jerry set out to convince people systemic racism is real and show how privileged and awful white people are he's dressing it up with funny or dramatic moments that to her seem totally over the top like the scene where the dad gets pulled over by the

cops and is super nervous she says you really think that happens or the white mom who worries her kid's black friend might take offense if she serves watermelon for a snack come on she says a lot of our conversation was Bonnie questioning parts of the book and me saying I think that's based on Jerry's own life do you really think that Jerry cof went to an all Jewish school which he did and and you really think was given KFC gift certificates cuz he says these are things he went through wait it's not a Jewish school he did he went to a mostly Jewish school he went to fieldston which is not a Jewish school but are I mean I don't you're saying you don't believe that that actually happened to him regardless let's just pretend that all the things he wrote about being called an Oreo all those things actually happened um regardless let's just pretend for a second that all those things happen happened or let's take his

word all those things happened it doesn't matter wait why doesn't that matter because you don't harm future generations of children because you went through a bad experience you don't poison the minds of my children even if it happened you do not poison the minds of other kids and make them feel like they have to make concessions for being white this is an idea that is repeated in a lot of the efforts to ban books the idea that these books will psychologically harm children usually white children when you say it poisons the minds of your kids what's the thing that you're worried is going to happen to your kids reading these books so these these books teach children the pre-ordained conclusion that white children have wealth status and race privilege while children of cover color must suffer the racist ignorance of these privileged families you remember from the books that the the white mom does nothing but play yoga all

day and um the the the white boy feels neglected and they live in a mansion and they drive in the Range Rover it's a Mercedes but sure for Bonnie these characterizations would be damaging to her kids if they read the books which they haven't new kid is a book that is entirely focused on the perspective of a black boy the things he sees and experiences there are white characters some of them are mean some of them are Jordan's best friends one of them talks to everyone through sock puppets but they're peripheral the story is about Jordan so I would assume like with any well- told story kids reading this book would identify with the main character since he's the protagonist of the story I want to say something here I feel obliged to say but also feels a little embarrassing for all of us that I have to say it at all this book Jerry Craft's book new kid is not critical race Theory Jerry craft did

not create a fictional 12-year-old black boy Jordan Banks to promote a complex legal theory about systemic racism and although it is a work of fiction most of what Bonnie objects to in these books did actually happen like how much of this is just your direct life experience there's a lot of it I was the light-skinned African-American kid born in Harlem grew up in Washington Heights the house where Jordan Banks lives is a brownstone that is literally the house where I was born and spent the first 25 years of my life my mom and dad did not want me to go to art school but you like Jordan Banks wanted to go to Art schol I wanted to go to art school so they sent me to a school in Riverdale and here they send Jordan Banks to a school called Riverdale Academy Day School or rad for short Jordan Banks felt out of place Jerry craft felt out of place Jordan Banks's classmates all inexplicably were pink but called it

salmon same with Jerry craft that uh the whole um Vineyard Vines thing uh that was like The Unofficial uniform so I changed it in new kid to grap Vine Groves it's like wow you kids sure wear a lot of pink here like no it's not pink and salmon and all the things Jordan Banks observes or experiences a white mom who worries about serving watermelon a nerve-wracking interaction with a cop white classmates touching your hair assuming you like basketball they have happened to Jerry or Jerry's kids being called the wrong name you know hey Deandre I'm not DeAndre I'm Drew like that's the other one uhhuh right that's the other one mhm that's what's so interesting to me about this book in particular being kind of drawn into this CRT battle that's supposedly about history but your book is not a history book this is like literally just you writing down the story of your life right yeah it literally is like B on

what I actually see there's nothing that I haven't lived myself with one exception those KFC gift certificates Jerry says he made that up one other thing Jerry pointed out that really happened to him the last chapter of new kid it's called the farce awakens it's when Jordan loses his Sketchbook the one he carries everywhere he's super stressed because it has all his thoughts and drawings from that year sort of like a visual diary it turns out his teacher Miss is holding his Sketchbook when he comes into the classroom she's read it and she reads and she's like Jordan you know why are you so angry it's like I'm not angry you know and like and the teacher's upset about what's in the notebook right because he will complain about being called the wrong name or you know just different things like that or people touching his friend's hair and so she's like Jordan you're special you know like you're here and he's like yeah

but miss R like would you take a job at a school in my neighborhood so you can be special and she like kind of gets on him he's like so let me get this right it's okay for this stuff to happen to me it's just not okay for me to talk about it and that sums up this whole thing that's going on now oh right they're Things based on my life and based on my kids lives does it feel like a grown-up version of of what happens to Jerry banks in your novel I love how you said Jerry Banks because that that is right Jordan Jord no you're right it is Jerry Banks we are one and the same no it's it's exactly the same yeah it is you know Miss R found Jordan's Sketchbook and said that it's a pmic and that it's angry and this woman found my book and says it's a pmic and it's angry and um yeah I went back to that last chapter recently and what stood out reading it this time knowing it had been banned is that even 12-year-old Jordan

Banks knows that his account of his own life will not be acceptable to his white teacher and is better kept in the safety of his journal he knows his teacher won't be able to read it without feeling personally attacked he knows that what has happened to him will not matter as much as how it makes her feel to read about it he already knows that even if it's all real she'd rather he keep it to himself eight states have recently passed legislation restricting the teaching of racism and bias in public schools Texas is one of them nearly 20 more states have introduced or plan to introduce similar legislation these laws almost never list specific books you can't teach they talk about feelings they prohibit teaching any lessons that might make students feel quote discomfort guilt or anguish because of their race after Bonnie's petition and the complaint about new kid including vulgarity the district responded

launched an investigation and said it was using the new Texas law to evaluate the book it also pulled Jerry's books from the library and called off his author visit in Pennsylvania a group of parents got the school board to ban a list of diverse books including a children's book about Rosa Parks they worried the books could be used to make white children feel guilty a group of white moms in Tennessee have demanded a book of about Martin Luther King Jr and the March on Washington be removed from the curriculum they also objected to a chapter book called The Story of Ruby Bridges because it makes it seem like white people are bad these are parents who claim reading books about black experiences or black history or just a black kid going to middle school will harm their children and their desire to protect their kids from discomfort is now enshrined in the law the the investigation into new kid

lasted 10 days at which point the district announced their findings no inappropriate material children would be allowed to read this book in Katy Texas and Jerry's event with the kids was rescheduled it went fine kids ask the same questions they always do what inspired you is there going to be a movie but that same day the Katy Schoolboard had a meeting parents showed up to complain that the event was allowed to go forward that race theory was infiltrating the schools and they demanded a full audit of the whole Library which just recently they woning us there was one mom who got up to defend new kid and to say what the book means to her family I've never spoken before so this is about the Jerry craft book sure you all know about that her name is Courtney she's a black woman standing before a line of board members who all appear to be white here's what she had to say even though the books

will be placed on shelves again I am concerned to what led to them being removed can you count on your hand and tell me how many people of color you've ever had at your home if you're having trouble or just can't remember a day or time please tell me what do you possibly know about what's wrong with a book you've never lived have you ever went to work for two years and have someone call you Britney every morning I have because my name is Courtney you know the correlation if you've read the book new kid by Jerry craft did you read it have you ever served this great country in the Washington DC inauguration of 2000 Korea 2001 Iraq 2003 Afghanistan 2015 Fort Hood 2016 only to have your 15-year-old twin son call you in the middle of a workday saying he doesn't like his PTO high school and learned that the doctor visits of anxiety and stomach pains for the last 12 months were only due to a white teen calling

your son the n-word for the last year of 2018 well I have if you read the book you'd understand the correlation once again of the Oreo joke how dare you 444 signatures remove what little representation my culture has to show its reality and literature form on the modern day shelves I don't applaud you for placing the books back on the shells my only hope is that you not allow the unknown and false narratives to sway your judgment on needed representation of us all representation does matter please don't thank me for my service I do it because I love it many friends in battles have died and bled for it as for kisd do what you should and need to do to uphold the standards of fairness Justice and representation for this school district so I can thank you for yours thank you thank you the next speaker is Emily Lewis Mr President you seem to have a problem with our in so many corners of the country

right now parents usually white parents are showing up to meetings just like this to express Their Fear to say they don't want their children harmed or feeling uncomfortable Courtney is talking about harm that is already happening and Jerry craft is already uncomfortable he wrote a whole book about feeling uncomfortable he told me you just learned to deal with it he never had any laws protecting him from discomfort or School boards worried about his discomfort what he had was the ability to write it down down to talk about it Hana jofy Walt is one of the producers of our show right see coming again a trying to argue with him he talking Marxism critical the I'm getting say Nam George Floy B Taylor and all the church could do our program was produced today by Robin Simeon and me Emanuel Barry and edited by Hana jofy Walt the people who put together today's show include Bim adav Susan Burton Ben Calhoun Zoe Chase

Dana chivis Sean Cole Michael K Andrea Lopez crusado Damen Grace Seth Lin Mary Marge Locker Tobin low Lena missis Michelle Navaro Stone NS son Katherine Rondo Elise beel Laura sesy Christopher Swala Matt Tierney Julie Whitaker Chloe Wier and Diane wo our managing editor is s abduraman and our senior editor is David custom bomb help on today's rerun from Angela Gervasi special thanks today to new Leonard Media of Traver City Mark L Wilson Nicole Hannah Jones Orlando dial Eve Ewing Rob Kerr Sophia hussen s forson Andrea Grace Muna dami Lola a woi Zoo ju couter Ami Cham Michelle Toby and Giana malt since we first ran this show Dr Whitfield the principal from Texas has accepted a new position as superintendent of a small Public Charter School in the Dallas Fort Worth area our website thisamericanlife.org This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PX the public radio exchange to become a this American life

partner which get you bonus content ad free listening and hundreds of our favorite episodes episodes of the show right in your podcast feed go to thisamericanlife.org Partners that link is also in the show notes thanks as always to our boss Ira Glass you know he's instituted this new rule in the office he gets to take one bite of anyone's lunch and when I told him that was insane he got pretty upset I don't understand how why that's so difficult to just like hand it over to me I'm Emanuel brry see I didn't break the show irog glass will be back next week more stories of This American Life they pushing mentality I'm setting leaving the island I'm feeling like I am myself I'm feeling like hoer Mr Corell be well if I good works glorify I God in heaven lift them High the true church WIll arise while the insti

next week on the podcast with this American live not long ago Zach's father called to warn him that the country's power grid was about to be wiped out I know it sounds like conspiracy theory but he believes a lot of conspiracy theories Z has trouble getting him to see the facts and then they figured out a way to settle their arguments once and for all see ey to ey that's next week on the podcast on your local public radio station oh

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758"?

Emanuel Barry (Host), Dr. James Whitfield (Guest), Navea (NAA) (Guest), Jerry Craft (Guest), Bonnie Anderson (Guest).

What is "Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758" about?

The main topic discusses the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in various sectors, attributing an array of disasters to marginalized people's employment and reductions in DEI programs by major corporations. It explores the political climate following Donald Trump's return to office, highlighting a significant cultural shift regarding race and systemic issues in…

What is mentioned in this This American Life episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Dr. James Whitfield, Dr. Ken Barry, Jerry Craft, Donald Trump, Katy Texas, American Library Association. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Talking While Black | This American Life | Episode 758"?

The episode runs 1 h 3 min; the transcript is about 10,618 words in 62 timestamped sections.

More from This American Life

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.