The Systematic Miseducation of America with Dr. Noliwe Rooks

Black History Year

PushBlack

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on public education in America—and asking if it was ever really meant for us in the first place. Dr. Noliwe Rooks, Brown University professor, author of "Cutting School" and founder of the term "segronomics," joins us to break down how Black communities have always fought for learning—even when the system fought back harder. From the broken promises of Brown v. Board to why Donald Trump's Department of Education might not be worth saving, this conversation challenges everything you thought you knew about education, liberation, and the law. To learn more, be sure to check out Dr. Noliwe's newest book, "Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children." — This podcast is brought to you by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com. Most folks do 5 or 10 bucks a month, but truly, anything helps. Thanks for supporting the work. With production support from Leslie Taylor-Grover and Brooke Brown, Black History Year is produced by Cydney Smith, Darren Wallace, and Len Webb, who also edits the show. Lilly Workneh is our Executive Producer and Black History Year's host is Darren Wallace. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The scars from battles won can sometimes hurt more than the scars from battles lost.
0:06.8	We won Brown v. B. Bored, but there's still a wound.
0:27.4	In the Trump era, talk of gutter and the Department of Education has gotten especially loud,
0:34.9	and it's not just political theater. With the rash of that institution, where does that leave the very idea of public education?
0:39.7	What does it mean for black students whose access to schools has always been a battlefront? Could it be that we're better off without it? And if so, what would it mean to
0:45.0	really put education back into our community's hands? I'm Deere from Push Black and you're
0:50.1	locked into Black History Year. Today, we're pulling into black history year.
1:03.0	Today, we're pulling back the layers of America's educational system to see how black communities built their own legacies of learning when the nation's promises fell short.
1:06.0	Because as our guests will show us, fighting for black education is about way more than reading and arithmetic.
1:12.3	She's got the historical deep cuts that debunk some of the most common myths around education.
1:17.6	Because despite what some say, legal victories like Brown versus Board of Education didn't
1:22.4	magically open school doors. And when legal measures failed, the massive resistance that formed in its wake
1:28.6	changed the country. It raises a few questions. What's going on? And what are we going to do?
1:36.3	Well, today's guest has some answers and believes black history could be the key to crack in the
1:41.1	code. Dr. Nolui Rooks is chair and professor of Africana Studies at Brown University,
1:47.2	where she examines the interplay of race, gender, popular culture, and political life in America.
1:52.5	She's the author of several groundbreaking books, including cutting school, privatization, segregation,
1:57.7	and end of public education, which coined the term segrronomics to describe the profiteering behind unequal schooling.
2:04.6	Get ready because Dr. No Liway is not holding back.
2:08.6	Because the stakes are high, y'all, if entire institutions can be dismantled on a whim,
2:12.6	and if curriculum decisions are yanked out of community hands, we risk undoing generations of progress.
2:19.3	Here's how we can stop it.
	...

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