Ep. 358 The Purpose of Schools with Eve L. Ewing

Summary

Podcast Summary: Ep. 358 The Purpose of Schools with Eve L. Ewing

Introduction

In Episode 358 of The Stacks, host Traci Thomas welcomes acclaimed writer, scholar, and educator Eve L. Ewing to discuss her impactful book, Original Sins: The Miseducation of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. The conversation delves deep into the historical and contemporary purposes of the American education system, its role in perpetuating racial inequalities, and pathways toward transformative change.

Book Overview: Original Sins

Eve L. Ewing’s Original Sins critically examines the American education system's foundational intent to sustain racial hierarchies. Ewing articulates how schools were historically designed to normalize the dehumanization of Black and Native children, ensuring their continued subjugation and the accumulation of power by white institutions.

“This book is about basically how in order to create a country that is based on indigenous genocide and the enslavement of African peoples, the United States created a system of schooling that normalizes the idea that black and native kids are not kids, that they don't deserve love... and care, that we're not regular humans like everybody else.” (05:00)

Historical Context: Purposes of Schools

Ewing traces the diverging purposes of education for different racial groups. For white children, schools aimed to cultivate democratic citizens and assimilate immigrants into a homogenized American culture. In stark contrast, education for Black and Native children was geared toward suppression, teaching them subservience, and erasing their cultural identities.

“At the beginning of what we would now understand to be the public school system, so much of it was about creating this strong democracy by teaching white children to be good citizens... for black kids, so much of the history, the early history of American education has been in quelling black young people.” (08:12)

Current Moment: Battle Over Narratives

Ewing posits that the United States is at a critical juncture where two opposing visions of education are vying for dominance. On one side are educators and community members striving to use schools as platforms for empowerment and critical discourse. On the other is the rise of authoritarianism, which seeks to use education to enforce conformity and suppress dissent.

“We are really at a crossroads. There are two competing narratives of what school is and what it can be and what it can do... Those two things cannot coexist.” (08:46)

Impact on Black and Native Children

The conversation highlights how historical education policies have inflicted long-lasting trauma and systemic disadvantages on Black and Native communities. Ewing discusses specific examples, such as abolitionist Lydia Child’s textbooks that discouraged vengeance against former slave masters and the policies of Richard Henry Pratt that led to the creation of residential schools for Native children.

“For Native young people, so much of the history has been about the idea of complete and utter disappearance... Native people continue to be living right... but the idea that this disappearance was fated to happen is necessary to normalize people's comfort with... stolen land.” (23:12)

Resistance and Solutions

Eve L. Ewing emphasizes the importance of community-driven education as a form of resistance against oppressive schooling systems. She advocates for political education, study groups, and grassroots initiatives that empower communities to redefine and reclaim the purpose of education. Practical steps include organizing local learning circles, creating zines, and building supportive networks to foster collective action.

“Take out a piece of paper... write down what are the things that it's really important to you that learners in your community know... what are the really important non-negotiable things and what can you do today, tomorrow, next week to spread that knowledge.” (48:28)

Writing Process and Accessibility

Ewing shares insights into her writing process, highlighting her commitment to clarity and accessibility. Drawing from her background as a middle school teacher, she aimed to make complex historical and sociological concepts understandable to a broad audience. This approach ensures that Original Sins serves as both an educational tool and a call to action.

“The book is so well organized that it was so clear to me where you were going and what was happening... the book has a lot of receipts because I really wanted to make it clear, like, this is not my opinion. This is not like vibes.” (06:30)

Recommended Readings

Ewing recommends several books that complement the themes of Original Sins, encouraging readers to further explore the intersections of race, education, and systemic oppression:

1. "Fatal Invention" by Dorothy Roberts – Explores the historical relationship between race and science, particularly how eugenicist ideas have shaped societal perceptions of race.
2. "The History of White People" by Nell Irvin Painter – Examines the social construction of whiteness and its implications throughout American history.
3. "Native American DNA" by Kim Tallbear – Discusses the complexities of Native American identity and the issues surrounding the concept of blood quantum.
4. "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer – Integrates indigenous knowledge with scientific perspectives, challenging traditional notions of intelligence and knowledge.

“Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass... she brings indigenous worldviews into challenging how we think about how we should engage with the natural world, with each other, and what kind of knowledge is worth knowing.” (67:05)

Conclusion

Traci Thomas passionately endorses Original Sins, urging educators, parents, and community members to engage with the book to better understand and address the deep-seated racial inequities within the American education system. The episode concludes with an invitation to join The Stacks Book Club and participate in ongoing dialogues to foster meaningful change.

“Please read this book, people. I really just... if you're feeling intimidated, don't, because, you know, I'm the stupidest person in the room, and I got it, so you're gonna get it, too.” (55:58)

Notable Quotes

• Eve L. Ewing on the purpose of schools: “Having an educated citizenry... is deeply dangerous to authoritarian regimes.” (01:05)
• Traci Thomas on the book’s accessibility: “I found the book to be so well organized... It's not your mother's history book.” (05:45)
• Eve L. Ewing on resisting oppressive education systems: “The power to take your dreams and turn them into reality and to do that in co-construction and co-conspiracy with other people.” (12:30)
• Eve L. Ewing on community learning: “We cannot concede that fight. And you do not have to wait... you can be a teacher.” (48:55)

Recommendations for Further Engagement

Listeners are encouraged to join The Stacks community through Patreon and subscribe to the newsletter Unstacked on Substack for additional content and discussions. February's Book Club Pick is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, with Ira Madison III set to lead the discussion on February 26th.

Final Thoughts

Eve L. Ewing’s Original Sins serves as a crucial examination of how the American education system has been complicit in perpetuating racial injustices. Through informed dialogue and community engagement, The Stacks aims to inspire listeners to reimagine and transform educational practices for a more equitable future.

Transcript

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[Eve L. Ewing]

Right with Ollie Even compared to when we grew up, you walk into the bookstore and you look at the YA section or the middle grade section, right? And you just see all of these covers and stories and narratives. You know, we could go 12, 13 years in school without seeing any of these type of stories, right? And now there are so many teachers, educators, authors, community members that are using all these things to try to make young people feel loved, celebrated, and empowered in schools. And that is at odds with the ascendancy of authoritarianism and fascism in our country. Like those two things cannot coexist, Having an educated citizenry is deeply dangerous to authoritarian regimes.

[Tracy Thomas]

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, and today I am thrilled to welcome to the podcast Eve L. Ewing. Eve is a writer, scholar, cultural organizer, and teacher whose work examines race, history and education in America. Her latest book, Original Sins the Miseducation of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, traces the history of the American education system, revealing how it was designed to sustain racial inequality and how those injustices persist today. I have read this book and I absolutely love it, and as you'll hear today, I want to press it into the hands of every teacher, parent, administrator, student, and human being who has ever had to deal with education here in America. Don't forget our February book Club Pick is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Ira Madison III will be back on Wednesday, February 26th to discuss the book with us. Be sure to read along and tune in. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks can be found in the link in the show Notes. If you love this podcast, if you want inside access to it, you must go to patreon.com the stacks and join the Stacks Pack, which is our incredible community. You get a bunch of perks. You can also subscribe to my newsletter@tracy thomas.substack.com I'm still catching up on shout outs on the show for new members of the Stacks Pack. So here are a whole bunch of people who joined the Stacks Pack and I am so grateful to you. Sarah Chula, Tiffany Clark, Martha Gordon, Fatma Farage, Sam Blanco, Barbara Lee, Rebecca Troker, Caitlin Wood, Drew Susie, Kiana Smith, Cindy Guadinho, Stephanie Sullivan, Deb Fournier, Rebecca Morrison, Anne Winter, and Naomi Pretty. Thank you all so much for joining and everyone else, join the Sex Pack. Subscribe to the newsletter okay, now it's time for my conversation with Eve L. Ewing.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Foreign.

[Tracy Thomas]

Everybody. Today's a really special day for me. I'm very excited because I'm joined by a person who has never been on the show but has been invoked on the show by all of our favorite people. I am consistently told that she is my favorite writer's favorite writer. So I am thrilled to welcome to the podcast Eve Ewing. Eve, welcome to the Stacks.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yay. Thank you so much for having me. I really, like, moved and humbled that all those people said those things.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yes. It's like, it's like Hanif. It's Clint, it's Nate Marshall. It's. It's like everybody I talk to, they're like, oh yeah, Eve's. Eve's better than me at everything. It's embarrassing to know.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Not true. All the people. All the people you said definitely can hit a better layup than me. So that's already. Already. That's not true. But, but I. But I received the compliment. I appreciate it.

[Tracy Thomas]

That's funny. Well, you have a book. You're not just everyone's favorite person just because you also have a book that we're going to talk about. It's called Original Sins, the Miseducation of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. Will you just, in about 30 seconds, which I know is like impossible, sort of give the people a sense of what's in this book.

[Eve L. Ewing]

So you know, this book is about basically how in order to create a country that is based on indigenous genocide and the enslavement of African peoples, the United States created a system of schooling that normalizes the idea that black and native kids are not kids, that they don't deserve love, that we as peoples don't deserve love, and care, that we're not regular humans like everybody else. And so therefore, when we're asking over and over, why don't schools work? Why don't schools work? The book argues that they kind of are working, that they're doing more or less what they were designed to do. Yeah, that's the 32nd version of, like, 300 years.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. I mean, so I told you this offline, but I'm going to say it so that people who are feeling what I was feeling, I was very intimidated.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Sounds terrible.

[Tracy Thomas]

Well, no, I mean, I'm so interested in it. I just know that you're real smart. And I was like, this is going to be, like, really hard and dense, and I'm not going to be able to, like, understand what she's talking about. I found the book to be so well organized that it was so clear to me where you were going and what was happening. Even if I did. I mean, I read it slowly. Like, it's not a book you can just, like, do in a night. Like, it's definitely, like. It took me, like, six or seven days to sort of go through it, and I took so many notes. It's my most annotated book of the year so far. But I. I found it really accessible. And I think that for anybody at home who's a little bit intimidated because it's. It is a history book, I would say, sure, sure. For the most part, it is not. It's not your mother's history book.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Well, I. I really appreciate that. And honestly, part of it is that, you know, my background is. I started out my professional life as a middle school teacher and so really believe strongly that if you understand something well enough, you don't really understand it until you can explain it clearly to anybody else. And what I also love about having been a middle school teacher, specifically is that middle school students have, like, a subtly chaotic energy that I also share. And one of the ways in which that chaos manifests is, like, just asking you super random questions at, like, the most inopportune, random times. And for me, part of being a teacher means, like, it's. It's my official job to answer those questions. Like, I'm like. I was like, an official question, answer, answerer. And so, you know, I really. It really means a lot to me with, you know, this type of subject, that it really would not have been worth anything if I just wrote it as inside baseball. You know, I really wanted to write it in a way that people would be able to remember these stories and learn from them. So thanks. That's great to hear that it worked for you.

[Tracy Thomas]

It's so funny because as I was reading it, I, you know, I was taking notes, and I was, like, writing down questions like, okay, I want to ask her about this. And then I'd go a few more pages, and I'd be like, oh, she answered it. Never mind.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Great.

[Tracy Thomas]

So you definitely did that. And I also took a note that was like, eve is teaching us things.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Because it did. Thank you.

[Tracy Thomas]

Especially starting in the introduction. I was like, I see you're laying this out. It's just really clear. All that being said, I want to talk about the purpose of schools. That's where you start the book. You ask your reader, you say, you ask this question all the time, what is the purpose of schools? And, you know, you sort of answer the question with the whole book, but oftentimes the response that people give is like, so people can learn things and uplift themselves and get into college or.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Learn about the world.

[Tracy Thomas]

A good job.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

But what I want to ask you is what. I'm sorry, let me go back for a second. In the book, you talk about a time when Sputnik is launched and how the sort of purpose of schools in that political moment was like, we got to be doing stem. We got to be getting things into space.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Like, yeah, we got to beat the Russians.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. The communists now a vehicle for space travel. What do you see as, like, the current moment purpose of schools as opposed to the broader purpose of the history of the purpose of schools.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, wow. Yeah. I think part of why I begin with the Sputnik example is because, you know, depending on your age, a lot of us have, like, boomer, Cold War parents. And, you know, I remember hearing them talk about, like, you know, getting under your desk and things like that in school. And I think that that was one of my earliest understandings of, like. Oh, my experience is not a universal experience. And I think that's where a lot of us get tripped up in our conversations about schooling is like, you spend your life having your one experience, and you kind of think that that's what school is, you know, and then you maybe find out that that's not what it is for everybody, but maybe. Maybe you don't. So I think that right now we are really at a crossroads. I think that we are in a place where there are. There's a battle over two competing narratives of what school is and what it can be and what it can do. I think that there are so many amazing educators, many of whom are listening to this PODC podcast right now, I'm sure, who really see school as a place to invite young people into conversations about some really tough realities about this. This country, right? And they say, all right, there. There are a lot of wrongs and harms that have been done. There are a lot of things that are unjust that continue to be unjust. And it's important to me as an educator that I teach you about that and that you understand your place in it, that you understand that you are loved, that you are important, that you are celebrated. Right? You black kid, you queer kid, you disabled kid, you Muslim kid, you trans kid. And so many of the authors that you've had on your podcast and that I'm looking at your amazing shelf, Right? Right. Like, I have. I have no. I have no, like, resting shelf face. Like, I'm always just, like, turning my head sideways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so. But, you know, like, even compared to when we grew up, you walk into the bookstore and you look at the YA section or the middle grade section, right? And you just see all of these covers and stories and narratives that, like, if we had gone, you know, we could go 12, 13 years in school without seeing any of these type of stories, right? And now there are so many teachers, educators, authors, community members that are, you know, using the Internet, using social networks, using all these things to try to make young people feel loved, celebrated, and empowered in schools. And that is at odds with the ascendancy of authoritarianism and fascism in our country. Like, those two things cannot coexist. Everybody from Carter G. Woodson to W.E.B. du Bois, right? Like, years of political thought has made it clear to us, as well as, like, obvious historical evidence that having an educated citizenry. And by that, I don't just mean educated like in facts, but, like, educated in their own abilities, their own sense of self, is deeply dangerous to authoritarian regimes. And so that's the other vision of what schools are for right now, right? Is that schools are a place to be the front line, the first order of business in silencing dissent, in sowing the seeds of fear, in making people feel like they can't speak out, like they can't speak up. Right? And. And we are really at a Pivotal moment in history when, you know, and I don't think it's as simple as are we going to go one way or the other way. Right. Every time that there's oppression, there's always resilience and subversion. And every time that things seem to be going well, there are always people that are being harmed at the margins. Right. So it's not as simple as, like, who's going to win this war. Both things are happening all across this country every day at the same time. But, yeah, I think. I think we're really at a moment where that question of what are schools for? Is, like, has become one of the defining questions of American culture in the last, you know, several years and certainly now, like, on a day to day basis, you know.

[Tracy Thomas]

Right. I mean, so I have young kids. I have kids in TK currently. I have twins and tk so I'm just getting to, like, school.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Dip your toe into school. Right.

[Tracy Thomas]

And I think, like, you know, they are in their second semester.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Right.

[Tracy Thomas]

Like, they started under the Biden administration, and now here they are coming in, it's Trump time. And obviously this book is, like I said before, it's history. So none of this stuff that we're seeing now is new in spirit. It might be new in execution or whatever. It might be new in how. What the conversation is about specifically. But the ideas, the punishment, the sort of grooming children who are black and indigenous for certain spaces, all of that is par for the course. My question to you is, how does your thinking about what you've written change now?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, wow. You know, it's so funny how timing works, because the last kind of, like, historically oriented book I wrote is a book called 1919, and it's about the red summer. And it came out in 2019. And there it is. It's in the little blue zone.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah, it's a little tiny in the blue zone.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Little slim, blue book. And, you know, that book came out in 2019, and 2020 came along, and it's about, you know, racialized violence and rioting and which, by the way, I like, I just want to say I don't think of rioting as being a bad word or like a. I don't, you know, I don't think of riot as, like, a disparaging word necessarily. And so, you know, I worked on that book and then it came out and people were like, how did you know? Like, how did you know it would be so timely? And here we are again, where this book is, the one that it's my Fifth solo authored book. And the counting gets a little complicated with, like, you know, I've co authored books and I write comic books and stuff like that, but this is the book that took me the longest to write. And it's just bananas that it's coming out at this particular moment. And I think it really has pushed me to look, look with specificity at, like, what are the things that do have historical threads? And then what are the things that are alarmingly distinct? I won't say unique, but distinct. Right. And I think that there are both. And I think that honestly, to answer your question, I feel like I'm looking at the book right now for instructions on how to resist and subvert people who will use schools to harm. And I think that when I wrote it, I was really more focused on documenting, explaining how we got here, explaining these oppressive systems, explaining how pervasive they were. And, you know, I'm a really big believer, inspired by some of my most influential thinkers who've been very influential in my life. One is a scholar named Eve Tuck. Another Eve, not that many of us, but. But Eve Tuck, she's a scholar. She's an indigenous scholar who writes about the importance of documenting desire and not just damage. And basically saying, like, a lot of times people in academia, they come in our communities and they say, oh, I'm going to tell everybody how bad it is, you know, and then they're going to be, like, moved to do something. And instead what we get is the same documentation over and over of how our communities are broken and, and full of deficits. And that. That's only part of the story, right? So that's really. That's always been important to me. Another one of my mentors is a writer named Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot, who was my advisor in graduate school. And she always talks about the importance of the search for goodness, that, you know, no matter how bad something is, there's always something good. How do we find goodness? And so that's always been at the back of my mind. But I still think, nevertheless, in writing the book, I was really trying to lay out. I was trying to make a case. I was trying to make an unimpeachable case, right? And I was trying to make a case that was, you know, the book has a lot of receipts because I really. I know that the things that I'm saying are gonna be incendiary or surprising or upsetting for some people. And I really wanted to make it clear, like, this is not my opinion. This is not like vibes, right? Like this is like, you know, these dudes, like, said these things, they. These awful things in print. And I feel like that's especially important right now, where a lot of these things are being treated like they're subject to contestation or debate, and they're just not. So I think that the beginning of the writing process, I was really hyper focused on that. And now that we're in this moment, I'm going back and looking for the parts of the book that are about resistance, resilience, subversion. And what I keep reminding myself is that, you know, there are a lot of ways right now in which we feel disempowered, very disempowered as regular people. And there are a lot of things that we don't have control over, right? I cannot do what Elon Musk did and, like, bust into the Treasury Department and, like, steal people's socials. Like, I can't. I can't do that, right? But my imagination is as good or better. I. You know, I. I would humbly venture to say better, right? Like my ability, our ability to imagine, to create, that's where we're equals or betters of these folks. And that has to be what we draw upon, you know, And I don't mean that in a, like a wishy washy, touchy feely way, although I am very into. Feels, I'm very, very into my fee. Fees. But, you know, I begin my education classes every year telling my students about Frederick Douglass. And I talk about the fact that Frederick Douglass was raised in an environment where the entire social, political, economic fabric of the world told him that he was worth nothing, you know, and that he was an object and a piece of property. And if you read his autobiography, the way he taught himself to write was that he was hanging around these shipyards in Baltimore, and he saw the shipwrights, you know, labeling different parts of lumber with four letters, you know, and so he learned four letters just by doing that. Like, just by observation. And then he would stop random white children that were just, like, running errands in Baltimore and be like, hey, I can write just as good as you. And they'd be like, no, you can't. You know, and he'd be like, yeah, I can. You know, watch this. And he would write like a S or an L, and he'd be like, beat that. You know, and they'd be like, okay, all right, I know a letter, too. And he literally taught himself the Alphabet that way. And that's what I mean when I say imagination. I mean the Power to take your dreams and turn them into reality and to do that in co construction and co conspiracy with other people. That is how I'm looking towards this book now. And I'm grateful that we have all these historic and ancestral patterns and teachers of how to do that.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. When did you start working on it?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Well, in the beginning of time. No, I. In an informal way. So I started teaching. I started teaching 19 years ago, and I started teaching colleges and universities and teaching like education 101 type courses about a decade ago. And so when I started doing that and I sat down to put together my syllabi, I immediately was like, okay, in order to understand American schools, you have to understand black history and Native history. Like, those things are not a footnote. They're not a sidebar. I'm like, actually, you don't. You don't get schools if you don't get this. That was very clear to me. And so I set about trying to find the book that would, you know, be a great textbook, that would be a great assignment for my students. And I couldn't. And so, you know, every year I was pulling together different excerpts and asking colleagues, like, you know, has something come out that really, like, ties together these conversations? And so I will say that, like, in my mind, I started writing the book then. And in my old syllabi, the first couple of weeks of my classes are headed on this. On the syllabi, they're headed original Sins. So it'd be like Original Sins Week 1, Original Sins Week 2. And I would say, all right, now once we've gotten that, we can move other stuff, but, like, we can't talk about charter schools or housing segregation, any of that until you understand, you know, native kids being kidnapped and black people in freedom schools and all these type of things. So. But in terms of, like, writing writing, like sitting down, opening up a new blank document and feeling the overwhelming nausea of a blank document, and then like, being like, I'm gonna throw up, and then not throwing up, and then persevering. That was five years ago. So it took me five years to write this book.

[Tracy Thomas]

When you started it, the blank document, was it called Original Sins or did it take you time to circle back to the title?

[Eve L. Ewing]

No, that was like, that was the proposal. And I think, like, it's interesting because, as you know, writing is a process. Everybody's different. But I will say this book, I worked really hard on the proposal, and my agent really pushed me a lot to revise and revise and revise, and it's like, pretty close. I basically did what I said I was going to do, which is often not the case, but it's really because of the, you know, being a, being a teacher, being a professor. I've taught versions of this content over and over. And so I knew, like, okay, in this chapter, I want to talk about this thing. In this chapter, I want to talk about this thing. And it's really a privilege because, you know, where we started the conversation where you said that there's a lot of clarity and organization and structure to the book. It's. Honestly, I just have to thank my students and the many years that I've had opportunities to say, you know, to see what stories hit and resonate, to see what points are unclear and clear, you know, and so, yeah, that's, that's also part of the process as well. And I feel grateful for this, like, symbiotic relationship. It's the version of, you know, poets, you know, we like to go out and do like, you know, like, kind of like run poems that are unpublished and see how people respond to them. And so this is the teaching is kind of like the version of that for this nonfiction book.

[Tracy Thomas]

Oh, my gosh, I love that analogy. For people who don't know, you know, we're not going to spoil the book because it's history. So.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, the spoiler is racism. That's the.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah, the spoilers. Racism. But I don't, I don't know that people really understand what is in the book when you say, like, what happened to black and indigenous children and, and that's separate. What happened to black children. And also because it's two separate things. But can you sort of like, like quickly give people a sense of what, what you're referencing in this book when we're talking about, like, what's in the book? Because I feel like we're sort of being like, what's in the. Dancing around really laid it out. Yeah.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah. I mean, honestly, part of what's exciting for me about it being out is that Tracy, by the time I got to the end of the book, you know, you're rereading it, I was like, everybody knows all this stuff already. Like, no one is gonna. Like, everyone knows. And I had to ask, you know, my editor, like, do you know, she's like, no, I didn't know any of these things. I'm like, you. You just get so much in your own head.

[Tracy Thomas]

And so I only knew a tiny tin because my sister in law is an ethnic studies professor. Oh, hey, dissertation is on black and indigenous children in schools post reconstruction. Oh, girl. Some of this stuff was like. I was like, okay, like, I remember Sarah talking about this or that. But, like, the majority of it, that is not sort of broad history was new information, for sure. Yeah.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Well, so I'll give you a couple of examples. So the. The book is divided into a few different parts, and in the beginning, I just talk about, as you said, like, what are the purposes of schools? What have they been historically? And I talk about the fact that schools for white kids, schools for black kids, and schools for native kids served very different purposes. So at the beginning of what we would now understand to be the public school system, so much of it was about creating this strong democracy by teaching white children to be good citizens, to be prepared to participate as leaders in a democratic society, and in creating a kind of synthesized American culture. As, you know, lots of immigrants were coming from Eastern and southern Europe. And I think that's my editor's favorite part of the book, because she talks about it a lot. But in that part, I talk about how even things that we take for granted, like kindergarten, like recess, like school lunch, like the Pledge of Allegiance, right? That these are things where specific people wrote down, like, we need to teach kids these things to teach them xyz. Right? Like, we need to teach kids how to play these types of games at recess on the playground so that they will forget that they are Jewish or Italian and become American. Like, real examples, right? Like these are things that people said we need to keep them. Yeah. Like we need to serve. One of my favorite examples is like, we need to serve kids bland, unseasoned school lunch food so that they go home and they teach their immigrant parents to stop using all these sinful garlic. Garlic, even all these spices. You know what I mean? And it's because those efforts, they began with adults, and adults were like, no, thanks, right? And they're like, okay, who's captured in an institutional setting who doesn't have autonomy to decide what they eat? Kids. Right? And meanwhile, though, for black kids, really, so much of the history, the early history of American education has been in quelling black young people and also black adults who were. Who were freed people. Their sense of autonomy or desire for revenge or violence or rising up in any way after emancipation, right? And so I prepared a quote that I wanted to read. So when you love a prepared quote, you know, I have notes. So, you know, one of the people I write about quite a bit is this abolitionist, Lydia Child. And Lydia Child, you know, she's often very much praised as an abolitionist. You know, she was, like, on the fight, you know, fighting on the side of the slave and things like that. And, you know, that's all great, but one of the things that she did was she wrote all these textbooks for freed people. And in these textbooks, books, her biggest emphasis was like, under no circumstances should you ever take vengeance against your masters, right? Like, that was like, the most important lesson. And this is a quote, she says, if your former masters and mistresses are in trouble, show them every kindness in your power, whether they have treated you kindly or not. If black women were sexually assaulted, she said, quote, teach them that freed women not only have the legal power to protect themselves from such degradation, but also that they have pride of character. If in fits of passion, they abuse your children as they formerly did, never revenge it by any injury to them or their property, right? So this isn't a textbook. It's like, hey, we're teaching you to read. But in order for this country to work, even if your former slave masters hit your kids, beat your kids, don't, you know, forgive them, right? Like, don't raise your hand against them. And that was important because obviously there are many places where black people outnumbered, right? The. The former slaveholding class. And there was this fear of violent upris. And then in the meantime, for Native young people, so much of the history has been about the idea of complete and utter disappearance. Because in order for the US Colonial project to continue, right, in order for us to have a nation that sits on stolen land, there has to be this myth that Native people are gone and were always doomed to disappear, right? Like that. That was their fate. And we see writing on this going back to Thomas Jefferson, but we even see it in the contemporary context. And how many times in school do you hear people say things like, well, the Native Americans did this. They did it this way, and they used to do things that way, right? And your kids, all they learn about is, like, how Native people lived in the 18th century, right? And this very kind of static notion of what indigeneity means, as though that disappearance is. Is a. Is a done deal, right? It's a sad story. And in fact, obviously, Native people continue to be living right? And continue to be living vibrant, normal, walking, talking, walking people. But the idea that this disappearance was fated to happen is necessary to normalize people's comfort with walking, talking, living, breathing, you know, working, playing on stolen land that was, you know, tilled with stolen bodies. And so that's what I mean. And, you know, as you said there are a lot of examples. And. But it was important for me that the book not be really dense or just like, like, really painful to read. Because I. I want people. I want people to be able to walk away. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's like, you know, I love. I love reading. I love books, I love fiction, I love poetry, and I want people to be able to walk away and use this information. Yeah. So, yeah, those are some. Some of the many, many, many examples.

[Tracy Thomas]

I have follow ups for each example.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Sure.

[Tracy Thomas]

Or for follow ups for each thing. So I'll start with Native American people. I was taught that there were no more Native Americans.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Like, there was, like, as, like a hundred percent. Like, it became like a blood quantum, like, casual blood quantum conversation.

[Eve L. Ewing]

And can I ask what. What state were you raised in?

[Tracy Thomas]

California.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah. Okay, so California is really interesting. In, in, in. And did you ever do a mission project?

[Tracy Thomas]

Of course.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Okay.

[Tracy Thomas]

I was talking about this last week, this weekend with a friend.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah. So we're gonna explain. Do you want to explain to your listeners that are not from California what your mission project was?

[Tracy Thomas]

California. California. This is fourth grade, so please correct me, but in fourth grade, you have to learn about the mission system, which was all these, like, church places that were where people went. I don't even remember what we learned. I remember we had to build a mission.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, you had to build a mission. Exactly.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yes. So either we did it. Some people did it as a homework assignment. We did it in class, in Mr. Butson's class. Shout out to Hillcrest Elementary School with, like, sugar cube cubes.

[Eve L. Ewing]

I was gonna say, were there toothpicks? Were there popsicles?

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay. Sugar. Toothpicks and sugar cubes. Yeah. And I think we visited one in, like, near Sacramento, because we also did, like, a little, like, gold rush pan. You know, you kind of.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Tracy Thomas]

All together. You got to get all the history. But my. I grew up in near San Francisco, so mission is a big thing. Still. Still exists is still. We still call it the mission. That's the neighborhood is the mission.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Right, right. Okay. So this is great. I mean, I'm a very Midwestern Midwesterner, so I didn't know about this until adulthood, and it kind of blows my mind. And so, you know, the missions were colonial outposts. Right. I mean, they are. They were. They served both a religious and social, but also very much like a military, colonial function. And so this project that. The reason I asked you, even though I, like, did not grow up in California, but I felt Confident. I bet Tracy did this project, right, is because it's ubiquitous. And if you think about it, what it's asking kids to do is to take on the mindset of the colonizer in a way that is, like, fun and, like, approachable, right? And there's not an equivalent version of, like, embodying the Persona of an indigenous person, not in a, like, creepy, appropriative way, but in a way that makes Native history the center, right? The origin point, the normal point, right, Instead of the deviant point. And there's no, you know, to use the parlance of our times, right? Like making Native people the main character, right? And so this makes the missionaries the main character. And you are. You're along with them on the ride. You're along with them on the adventure. And there's some. Actually, there's some really interesting textbook analysis that's been done by different scholars of social studies to talk about how this violence is studied. One of my colleagues, Harper Keenan, he wrote this amazing paper that actually analyzes California textbooks and talks about how many times violence against, you know, colonial settlers is mentioned versus how many times the inverse is mentioned and basically says, like, in real life, the colonizers were way more violent, just like, again, factually. But that's not reflected in the textbook. So that's what I mean with this kind of, like, normalizing of a disappearance narrative is that when you are 9 and 10, you are taught that. That this is. That this is passed, that this is done right? And that the heroes here are the colonizers, because that's who you are. You know, that's who we are. We want to. We want to embody that perspective. There's not an equivalent thing about, like, resistance, you know, and indigenous resistance. And so, you know, and I. What I want people here to think about is something I've said for years is like, especially again, like, writing 1919 and having so many people say, I never knew about the Red Summer. I would have people come to my talks and say, like, I never learned about Emmett T. And what I always say to people is, like, who is invested in your not knowing, right? And admitting that we don't know something can be a source of great shame for people, I think, especially now in the social media. In the social media world, where, like, everybody was born having read every book and, like, came out the womb, like, you know, clutching the wretched of the earth, and has never been wrong ever. And so it's really easy to kind of castigate people for not knowing. And instead, like, I said. I think it's really important to ask ask who creates systems of knowledge and who benefits from the from that you know and who who benefits from your not knowing who benefits from the from the sugar cube mission, you know.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, wait. Let's take a quick break and then I'm going to talk about those two other points. If you like what you're hearing this week on the Stacks, I encourage you to check out the Stacks Pack on Patreon and my newsletter Unstacked over on Substack. Both of these places offer monthly bonus content including bonus episodes and are a great way to support the work of this black woman run independent podcast. Quite frankly, could not make the show without you. For those wondering, the Stacks Pack on Patreon is focused on a literary community. We have a discord, we do monthly book club meetups and we host a year long reading challenge called the Mega Challenge. If you're looking to meet and mingle with other book lovers, patreon.com the Stacks is the place for you over on Unstacked. I'm sharing my hot takes and bad attitude twice a week with posts and many podcasts about pop culture, book news and I'm giving you insights into my reading life with many reviews, rankings and the books I'm looking forward to reading. This is a place for folks who just want more bookish content. And what's great about Substack is there are both free and paid options. Go to tracythomas.substack.com to subscribe, head to Patreon Substack or both and show this podcast some love. For just $5 a month you get a bunch of bookish extras and you get to know you're helping to make the Stacks possible. When I first started using Shopify, I didn't know how much of a difference it would make. Setting up a store felt like a very daunting task and figuring out how to it and manage payments and track inventory and all of that felt so overwhelming. But Shopify made it simple. With Shopify, everything you need is in one place. Designing your shop is easy even if you don't have any tech skills. You can customize it to match your brand, connect it to social media and start selling to customers wherever they are. And the best part? Shopify handles all the complicated stuff like payments, shipping and taxes so you can focus on what you love. Love building your business and connecting with your customers. It really is a game changer. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com the stacks all lowercase go to shopify.com the stacks to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com thestacks.

[D]

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[Tracy Thomas]

Okay, we're back. I want to talk about the. What happened to black people in education? Because as you said, sort of like the main goal was to be like, don't rise up. Like, be good little black people.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Right? Be chill.

[Tracy Thomas]

But how did it, how come it worked? Like, what were they doing in school? Like, why was this woman's thoughts, like, why were they so effective? Why were black people interested in listening or, or following that? Especially because, like, I think about black people now. Like, I think about my elders and like, my father was born in 1935 and when you say, said you never learned about Emmett Till, like, he taught me about Emmett Till. Right? And yes, all of us learn.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Black people learn about Emmett Till as little kids at home. As children.

[Tracy Thomas]

Like, like at like 7, right? I was like, feels like a lot. He's like this picture from the. I'm like, you know what? Feels like a lot for me. But here we are. But you know, I'm thinking like the tradition of oral storytelling and the ways that black people, you know, continue our, our resistance and continue our storytelling doesn't seem to like, like, fit in my mind with this idea that, like, these people, these teachers, these like good white, good white lady teachers air quotes could have actually. How, how could, how did it work? How did they do it?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, I mean, so I think that there's a number of things. Number one, again, like, there are always there, there are always people that are resisting. There are always people that are fighting back. They're always, you know, and so, but I think that one thing to remember is right, like, like we Lost so many black educators after Brown v. Board, which is a whole other history that I encourage people to check out. Right. And we have a preponderance in our teaching force of mostly young, mostly white, mostly women educators. And that unto itself is not, you know, like, your racial or gender identity is not predeterminative of how you treat kids. Right. I will say I know some really, really radical, insurgent white educators, and I've known some, like, deeply anti black, unkind, harmful black educators for sure. Right. And so all of us have the ability to kind of internalize white supremacy, to tell ourselves that, you know, these type of kids need this type of control, they need to be treated this type of way. I think that a lot of black people carry trauma that that tells us that the best way to survive and the best way to ensure that the young people that we care about survive is by giving them a little taste of that violent repression on our own so that they're prepared to be subservient out in the world and then live. Right. But I also think it's important, and another thing is that, like, children are vulnerable, right? Children are children. And that's why this type of system is so evil, because it takes some of our most vulnerable and some of our most impressionable people and takes advantage of that vulnerability. You know, I write about a native young person who was taken away from their family and taught by Richard Henry Pratt, who's like a really awful person who, you know, basically invented what became residential schools, which, you know, led to the wholesale kidnapping of indigenous children. But one of the things I write about is a letter that was written by a young person basically, you know, thanking him and saying, you know, when I started out, I didn't know anything, and I was so uncivilized. And now I want to thank you for giving me civilization. And, you know, we see that across many different people of color. But I think, like, from my sociology hat, I think it's also just important to look at this structurally and to think about when we look at the teaching force, what are some of our assumptions about what education looks like, what intelligence looks like, what preparation looks like that locks people from our communities who do love our kids out of this profession. Right. And that includes everything from people's histories of being incarcerated. Right. It's really hard, if you've been incarcerated or had contact with the criminal legal system, to get a job in education or sometimes even to volunteer in schools, you know, and we can think about standardized testing. Right? And we can think about how Little we pay teachers and who has the ability to take on this incredibly low paying job. Job. So there are also a lot of structural things that really keep, you know, radical educators out of the classroom and educators that really love and care about young people out of the classroom. And I also think like when I. Something I can't emphasize enough for people is how much, at least in my. Just speaking from my own personal experience, when you are a public school teacher, there is so much state run hierarchy and surveillance that is really hard to navigate in ways that I think are hard to completely understand unless you are inside of it. And it is like other state run government jobs in that regard. Right. Where there are really formal rules and I think it, and, and like really material consequences that you can face for breaking those rules. So I think that all of those things contribute. And I, I also think that every year I meet and talk to hundreds of people all across this country who tell me this is what I grew up seeing. And I always knew that there was something off about it, but that they didn't have the language or the affirmation. White kids who said, hey, I never did my homework and I had an undiagnosed learning disability, but people just covered for me because I was a quote unquote good kid and I just got good grades. Black kids who said, hey, I got to be in this gifted and talented class, but I was the only black kid there and I knew that these other kids were just as smart and just as good as me. And so I feel like there's always these moments of discomfort of knowing something is not quite right. But one of the privileges that I have is that, you know, I have a job where it's my time and space to like spell it out, you know.

[Tracy Thomas]

Right.

[Eve L. Ewing]

So I think that my hope is that a lot of people will read this book and be like, oh, this is new to me. But I also hope that people will just find receipts and affirmation for things that perhaps they've always known in their gut to be true.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah, my follow up question about the assimilation of like the non white immigrants, which many of them we would call white now.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Right. They became white.

[Tracy Thomas]

They became white. Why? Why did they want to assume. Why did the, the true white people, the real whites, why do they want to assimilate these non white white whites? Why and not assimilate black people or native people? Like why did they draw that distinction? Because couldn't they have used the same playbook.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Either way, on that group of non white now considered whites Yeah, I think.

[Eve L. Ewing]

That there are a couple of things. One is there's kind of this funny history, even on waves of white immigrants, where, like, at the time when they first arrive in the United States, people were like, boo, tomatoes. Like, these are not, you know, and like, like, you know, you, you. I quote Benjamin Franklin complaining, like, oh, there's too many Germans in Pennsylvania. Like, soon we're all gonna have to learn German. It's not even gonna be recognizable. And then like, you know, 20, 30 years later, they're like, the Germans were the good immigrants. It's these, like, Slavs that are, you know, terrible. And, and so some of it is that. But I, I think that honestly there's a special distinction and part of why I call this book Original Sins is that this country, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know and that other people don't say, but I'll just say it again, right? Like, this country is built on native people's land being stolen. Native people being systematically killed, driven away from their homes, and mistreated in every possible conceivable way in order to sustain and legitimize that land theft. And black people being kidnapped, held here as property, and our children being kidnapped and held as property with forced labor and utter and total objectification. Right. And that is the material, social, economic, political basis of the United States. There is no United States as we know it without those two things happening. And that includes not just like, you know, people who go on Henry Louis Gates show and find out that they had slaveholding ancestors. Right. That includes insurance companies, universities. Right. Like all of these institutions that the.

[Tracy Thomas]

Morill Acts or whatever.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, yeah. The moral. That was moral.

[Tracy Thomas]

That was fascinating.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, I love that part. And it's ironic hearing you say it out loud because it's like, it's not moral. M O R A L. Right. But yeah, the, the moral act. So if people. But, but no, I'm saying, like, it's a bad pun, right? It's like, right.

[Tracy Thomas]

I thought it was morale because I never would have been, like, it's moral.

[Eve L. Ewing]

That it's moral.

[Tracy Thomas]

Too much of a pun. Yeah, got it.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah. So, like, so for people who've heard of what, what they call land grant universities, and there's this been this amazing, you know, journalistic effort to identify them as being what they call land grab universities. Right? Universities that were given land for the free or for very, very, very cheap, that was stolen by the federal government from native people. And so that's where we are. Like, that is the reality of this country. And I think.

[Tracy Thomas]

And it's your favorite. It's your favorite colleges and universities. I mean, it's the UC system. It's. It's not like, oh, some small college you've never heard of. No, it's.

[Eve L. Ewing]

No, it's like Princeton, Dartmouth. Yeah. Yes. Right, Right. And so, and I say that to be clear, Princeton and Dartmouth and all these other universities, like, benefiting from enslaved people's labor. Right there.

[Tracy Thomas]

Right.

[Eve L. Ewing]

There were. There were enslaved people that belonged to campuses. Right. Not just people on campus, but, like, you are enslaved, and your job is to do whatever work and tasks people come up with, you come up with for you, take whatever beatings students or faculty are like. And so these two histories in particular, if we face them or if I think that, like, across history, there's an understanding that to give full legitimacy and inclusion in the American project to these two groups of people specifically is damning in a unique way. Right. It's incommensurate with history. And I think part of it is because it's like, you know, then are you going to have to give the land back? Right. Then are you going to have to give people reparations? And so I think that that's. I think that that is what is distinct from, you know, other groups that were coming at different times across the United States. And to be clear, like. Like, the US Is a global imperialist project in a way that continues very much into the present. And all of these different groups, we can trace these histories of extraction and exploitation. But I think for me, that's the answer to your question is like, you can't really include people or say that they have legitimacy in this nation because to do so undermines the premise of the nation itself.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. I'm gonna ask you the question that I think you'll probably get the most on your book tour.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Great.

[Tracy Thomas]

Good choice. Which is, how do you see. So sorry, we do all this history, we get to the last section, and you sort of are giving us solutions. This is where you flex your great imagination.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Thank you.

[Tracy Thomas]

Fantastic end to this book. And I just. I know because I felt this, which is like, how do you see people supporting the work of changing the education system of what schools can be in an immediate and practical way for parents, for teachers, for maybe students who are in school systems?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, definitely students.

[Tracy Thomas]

And also young people and other folks who are not in school settings in any of those ways, but, you know, care about other people. Like, what are we to do now? Urgently.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, I urgently like becoming More urgent by the day, it seems.

[Tracy Thomas]

Well, I say urgently as opposed to like sort of these big ideas of like. Oh, yeah, you know, like, as opposed to like. Yeah, right. Like it's like when you talk about like prison abolition, there's a lot of things that need to be done structurally, but there are also things that can be done urgently, directly, effectively that are useful today, tomorrow, next week, at the next meeting. So I'm sort of thinking about practical things.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Absolutely. Well, I think one thing is political education and study groups. You know, you people might notice that throughout this conversation I do this annoying thing where I often, when other people would just say schools, I say things like systems of schooling or schooling systems. Right. And part of the reason I do that is a little bit the same way, like people in abolition space, we don't just say like police, we say like systems of policing. Right. Because it's not just about like the person. And I think, think in this world it's really important to remember that schools and education are not the same thing. And so education can happen anywhere, led by anybody. And I think that political education, teaching one another affirmatively, the things that you feel are important for your community to understand is really important. And right now there is such an all out assault on the people who run these state sanctioned spaces of schooling in ways that leave us feeling exhausted and like, there's nothing we can do. Right. And there are things on a macro level, legislative level, like, yes, vote for your school board, run for your school board, write your congressperson, like, pay attention to what your kids are learning at a district level, at a state level. We cannot concede that fight. And at the same time, you do not have to wait as a person who loves or cares for people in your community to make a change in what gets taught. Right. Because you can be a teacher, right? Like we can teach each other. One of my favorite historical models of this is, you know, Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, Janie Jenkins. You know, these are folks that ran freedom schools in South Carolina in the 1950s and 60s. And Esau Jenkins, he started out teaching black people as he drove them on a bus from where they lived in the Sea Islands to their work as like domestic laborers, you know, physical laborers, trade laborers. He drove them on this, this like commuter bus every day. And he would on the bus, teach them, them what they needed to learn in order to pass the literacy exam, in order to be able to vote. Right. Septima Clark was a teacher in these same, in the same Sea Islands. And she would say things like, she was a cosmetologist. That was her background. And she, you know, had done secretarial work. But she said to people who could not read, who could not write, you know, what are the things that you want to learn? And people said things like, I want to be able to know if I was paid a fair wage or not. You know, like, I want to be able to count how much work that I did. And so, so I think that we have to fight for these official school spaces. But today, right now, urgently, I encourage people to, okay, not to get super teachery or professory, but you knew that was what you're signing up for. You love it, we love it.

[Tracy Thomas]

Do it.

[Eve L. Ewing]

So here's a prompt. Okay, here's a prompt. Take out a piece of paper, take out something to take notes on and just write down, what are the things that it's really important to you that learners in your community know? And I say learners intentionally, like, those could be young people. Those could be your own children, those could be elders in your community, Those could be leaders, those. It could be whoever, right? What are the, what are a few things that it's really important to you that people know? And that could be like, it's really important to me that people know this local history of where we live, right? The history of this neighborhood. I'm thinking a lot about the fires in California and thinking that, you know, folks in Altadena, like, it's really important that young people know what that community was like before the fires, right? Who might never be able to see that with their own eyes. It's really important to me that young people know about trans histories and futures, right? That people have examples of, right? Like things that, whether or not there are things that you're worried about, they're going to get taught in school or not. Like, set that aside. Just like in your heart, what are the important non negotiable things and what can you do today, tomorrow, next week, next month to spread that knowledge? And that can be making a zine and distributing it. It could be doing a webinar, right? And who can you do it with? How can you do that work in community and collectivity? What are the things that you want to learn more about? Right? And how can you do that in community and collectivity? There was one year where I was like, I really don't know enough about black history outside of the United States, right? And I, I just, I want to learn more about Haiti. I want to like, and, and I ask people, like, who wants to learn more About Haiti with me, right? And what can I. What can we listen to? What can we read? A couple of years ago, I decided that, you know, black legacies, Black women's legacies of quilting, and quilting as a way of, you know, showing care, doing resistance work, archival work, that I really want to learn more about quilting. And I emailed, like, 10 black women, and I was like, who's gonna quilt with me? And Charlene Carruthers, who's an amazing organizer and activist, was like, I'll quilt with the you. And, you know, we went and signed up and learned how to quilt together. And. But the thing is, is that just meant that we spent, like, three hours together once a week, which meant that we got much closer, which meant that when I came back from Palestine and wanted to talk to people about what I learned and what I experienced, I talked to Charlene. Right? And so there are ways in which, when we build these networks of being and leading the education that we know that we need, we are not only sustaining ourselves. We're not only making sure that that knowledge, that history gets proliferated, but we're also strengthening our relationships with other people, which in turn strengthens our political capacity to fight, you know? And so. So that's. That's what I encourage people to do. And I. I want to say, like, the affirmative dreaming part is really important. It's really important that we don't just sit around and say, you know, what do we hate? Hate? Because let me tell you, Moms for Liberty and these other people, they invented a specter of things that mostly didn't exist, but really what they did was they sat around and they said, what do I want my kids school to be? Like, Right, Right. And they worked really hard to create schools and school boards in the image of their imagination. And they are not better, smarter, more creative than us. Absolutely not. They're not better, smarter, more creative. They don't have better role models. They don't have better canvas slides. They don't have better flyers. Like, they don't cook better food. Right? Like, I guarantee any meeting you come to that me or any of my friends is leading, the food's gonna be better. The, you know, icebreaker is gonna be better. Right? Like, so. So, like, we need to start there. And. And that's something that any of us can do. And it also, you know, is a place where any of us can enter in different. In different ways. It can be a political circle that meets at a library. It can be something that you make online, right? It can be, it can be so many different things. So, so that's, that's where I would encourage people to start.

[Tracy Thomas]

I don't want to say this in a way that feels like cheap or corny, but I do want to say in true sincerity, I think you guys need to read this book. Like if you are a teacher. I don't, I'm not trying to like pitch people on the book.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Sure.

[Tracy Thomas]

But I, I do mean this, and it's not because I'm just talking to you, but I do feel like, like educators, if you have like in school book club subs, this is the kind of book not only because you're going to learn some of the history that maybe you don't even know as an educator or whatever, but also that last section on sort of the imagination and dreaming on what these things can look like. I think it. Even if your fellow teachers or educators or whatever hate it, like, I think you should be talking about it. Like, this is one of those books I just feel like we could be talking about. And I say that also thinking ahead of like future seasons of this show. We can't do it this year because it's too new. But like, I think this is something we will do on book club one day because I think it needs to be discussed. And I think like, there are so many people who will benefit from those kind of conversations. But I do. I've been thinking a lot about like reading challenging texts in community more. And not just reading like fun texts in community.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Tracy Thomas]

Because like, that's fun too. Right? And there's things to talk about, but it's a lot easier to read fun books than it is to read challenging, like books that really make you think and question. And I think like I, as you were talking, I was like, maybe I can like start a book club at my kids school and make other parents.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Tracy. That would make me so happy. That'd make me so happy.

[Tracy Thomas]

But then I'm thinking, like, then I have to do a book club with these people every month. Like, I just want to read this one with them. And then I want to be like, oh, I don't feel good. Gotta go.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Okay, bye. Well, okay, so a number of. I want to say a couple of things in response to that one is that like, first of all, thank you very much. I really appreciate. Second of all, it's true that reading things that are challenging is challenging, but it's also way easier when we do it in community. Right. And it's also more meaningful when we do it in community. And so there are going to be things in this book where. And I say this like, I'm actually. It's funny doing this interview with you right now because right now I'm in the middle of teaching a class I teach in the college level called Race in American Public Schools. And so, you know, my college students, some of them grew up in public schools their whole life. Some of them were never schooled in the United States. Some of them went to elite private schools. Some of them went through metal detectors every single day. Some of them, you know, learned three languages and had, like, trips abroad in second grade. Like, they have all these different experiences. And I guarantee you that what I've learned in having these conversations in diverse groups of people for many years is that their connections are going to be your connections, right? And so. Right. Somebody in Florida who reads this book and is like, huh, Mission schools. That's crazy. California, cool. Never heard of that, right? Is going to have a different response than someone in California who's like, oh, snap, my kids got this assignment last week, right? Like, what can we do as parents and community members to not only, you know, write that teacher a letter and criticize them, but also, like, can we propose something else? Is there a different historic site? Is there a speaker we could bring in? Is there a novel we could read? Is there a film we could watch? Right? Like, and I think that that is where it gets really powerful, because there is no one size fits all. This is not a country that, unlike our, you know, many of our peers across the globe, has a centralized education system. And so what change looks like in your community is something that you have to figure out in community. And I also want to say that because we've been talking so much about, like, the history parts of this book, which are most of the book, all of those things have connections to the present, right? And so. So I hope that people will sit down and be like, oh, wow, I really see. You know, I'll give you one example. Like, there's this very famous speech by Henry Pratt, who I mentioned earlier, Richard Henry Pratt, who was, you know, this military leader, and he's the person who came up with this famous speech where he said, kill, kill the Indian, save the man. Right? Which is just an awful, violent thing that then gets normalized and replicated in our schools. And I remember multiple years I did these trainings and workshops with teachers where I would have them, you know, read speech to themselves. And then I would say, how many of you have read this before? How Many of you heard of it, right? Basically, no hands go up. And then I would say, how many of you feel like this philosophy is still in your schools today? Right? And every hand would go up because people would say this attitude of, you know, these kids, their families, their neighborhoods, you know, they don't know. And they don't have, you know, basically assets or worth or wealth in the places that they come from. They have to come to school so we can teach them how to be civil and good members of the society is pervasive, right? And so those are the contemporary connections. When I was a middle school teacher, so many people would come up to me and say, boy, it must be really hard because the parents just don't care, you know? And I was like, well, I'm not sure where you got that idea. I'm pretty sure parents care about their kids, you know, oh, you teach on the south side that much, you're a saint. I'd be like, nope, definitely a normal person. Regular person. Regular, human. So those are the connections that I hope people will make, and those connections are going to be different for everybody. And so that's why that community learning is so crucial.

[Tracy Thomas]

This is not about the book, but this is maybe the most important thing I'm going to ask you.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm about how you like to write. How many hours a day, how often? Music or no home or out in the world, Snacks, beverages, rituals, talk about it.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Okay. I. How do you like to write? I don't like to write. Writing is hard.

[Tracy Thomas]

Me neither. Writing is the worst part of my life.

[Eve L. Ewing]

But my ideal, Like. Like. Like, no holds barred, all resources, all possibilities. Like, perfect writing day, which is very rare. But this is what it looks like. Here it goes. It's like this. I wake up and the night before, I have laid out everything that I need to transition from a bed to a writing implement. Like. Like. No, Like, I want to. I want to roll over and be in a comfortable chair with the window open, like, the manuscript queued up. Everything's ready to go. Go. I have a delicious, energizing, but not sleepifying breakfast situation at hand. Like, I have a little overnight oats jar or, you know, a little protein bite, something that's not gonna make me take a nap. And a delightful tea, a hot beverage of some sort.

[Tracy Thomas]

What kind of tea?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, man, I'm a Gemini. So, like, answers to any question you ask me, like, oh, there are 50. Okay, so let's say matcha. Matcha. Matcha. Okay. A matcha with oat milk and a Little lavender, little lavender vibes. And I would like to write for four hours. That is my ideal writing time. I cannot write for longer than that, and I can do shorter than that if I need to. But that's, like, my perfect time. When the writing is done, I then would love to go for a run, eat a more hearty, like, heavier lunch, and then read, read or, like, take a walk in nature. Like, do something else. So, yeah, I like to. I like to write really intensely. I. I will agree to write with other people only to, like, be a good social friend. But actually, I prefer a very monastic writing experience. I like to just sit and get the ideas down and be done. That's my perfect day.

[Tracy Thomas]

You did mention a breakfast and a lunch, but this is what I was trying to get to. In your book on page 97. Oh, we talk about. About prep, test prep and what teachers give their students before they have their test. These, like, standardized tests. And some people do all sorts of things.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Peppermint. Peppermint.

[Tracy Thomas]

Peppermint. Oh, yes. Peppermint was the one that was, like, made up, but, like.

[Eve L. Ewing]

And I want to say official. Any teachers that are listening to this, if you have ever been, if you've ever given your kids peppermint before a standardized test, I want you to comment on the Stacks pod post so that people know that this is not a thing that I made up because it sounds bananas.

[Tracy Thomas]

Give us the, like, little mint emoji.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah, give us a little mint emoji and tag me.

[Tracy Thomas]

But you said that your favorite was clementines and granola bars. And why I bring this to the stacks to the people is people who listen to the show, they will know clementines is a trigger for me. Because your friend, Clint Smith, native of New Orleans, when asked his favorite reading snack or writing, maybe it was reading, I can't remember was reading or writing, he said clementines. Because clementines are like candy. And I just want to know if Clint put you up to this.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Give those kids some candy, Eve. Read those. I can't give kids. So Clint. I want to say shout out to Clint because he was, like, actually by my side co writing large sections of this book. Like, I wrote a lot of this book, like, with him, like, in a room with him. Him.

[Tracy Thomas]

And you were just eating clementine.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yes, we were. We're just. No, both of us. You know, we both like to run and we're both like, whatever. But honestly, like, I'm so proud of Clint because most of his food takes are just actual, like, trash. Like, he has the Worst food takes of anybody in the world, objectively. And he. He. This man, if he could live off a Hot Pocket in a chicken wing for the rest of his life, he would, before he's healthy.

[Tracy Thomas]

Clementine.

[Eve L. Ewing]

No, but he's made a lot of changes. It's because we want him to live long and prosper. He has made a lot of changes, and so I'm very, very proud of him. But, yeah, we've sat at a table and shared a clementine or two while reading and writing. Sharing Clementine. You gotta offer it to the homies. I know. You gotta offer it to the homies. You gotta do it. Hey, clementines have become clementine.

[Tracy Thomas]

They have become like, a running joke on the show. Because the way Clint was like, I love a clementine. It's like candy.

[Eve L. Ewing]

They're like candy.

[Tracy Thomas]

I should have put more baritone in, but, you know. But when I saw that in the book, I immediately took a note and was like, clementines. I know they're friends. What is this?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, man. No, just imagine me, Clint, Liz, Acevedo, Safiya, ahilo, like, sitting in a room, splitting some clementines, sipping some tiny wedge. Tiny wedge? Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

That's your ration. What's the word you could never spell correctly on the first try?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Ooh, boy. Embarrassing. Ironically enough. Ironically enough.

[Tracy Thomas]

When you're. When you were teaching in, like, middle school and stuff, did you have to write on the board? And were you stressed out about misspelling?

[Eve L. Ewing]

No, because I try to model for my young people and for all students that it's okay to not know things, to ask for help, and to look something up if you're not sure. So I always do that because I.

[Tracy Thomas]

Could never be a teacher because it would be too many. They'd be. They just never would not be able to take me seriously. They'd be like, did you go to school?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Like, it's more just the typos. Like, a lot of times I, like, take live notes as students are talking, and it's projected on the screen, and I'm like, I'm a very fast typist and a pretty accurate typist.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Mostly because I was raised by a single mom, and so she would just, like, bring me to work all the time. And so when I was 4, I would just sit and type on a computer, on an Ms. DOS computer. And fun fact. I was writing, like, hey, dude, fan fiction. I was like, the first thing.

[Tracy Thomas]

We love this. Please publish those. Give me that.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Well, they're all two sentences long because I was in kindergarten, but okay. But, yeah, when I type in front of students on a screen, it just is like. Like, it's just like, nothing but typos. And that is always embarrassing. And then I joke about it every time, and then it's this, like, cringy professor joke. So it just is a spiral embarrassment, which is a word I also can't spell. So, yeah, it's definitely a thing.

[Tracy Thomas]

I love this vest. Okay, I just have two more questions for you.

[Eve L. Ewing]

I love these questions, in case you can't tell. I'm so glad.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm so glad. I love asking them. For people who read and love original sins, this book has a robust bibliography and notes section. But what are a few books you might recommend to them that are in conversation with the work that you've done here?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Okay, so I'll say. I'll say three. One is by Dorothy Roberts, and it's called Fatal Invention. So Dorothy Roberts is amazing. She is a black woman who is a sociologist, but also a legal historian, and she's written so many amazing books that, honestly, you kind of can't go wrong. But Fatal Invention is a book about basically, like, the history of race and science and the way that science kind of normalizes eugenicist ideas about race. And she's just a great writer and great person, so recommend that. The second book I'll recommend is called the History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. And a lot of what you and I briefly glossed over in this conversation about, like, white people weren't always white and then they became white is discussed. Discussed in that book. And she talks about, like, the social construction of whiteness over time. And then I also. So this book is a little bit more technical. The book is called Native American DNA by Kim Tallbear. And it is a little bit more dense, It's a little bit more academic, but it's also short. And so I go back and reread it a lot. So it's a book that rewards reread, rereading. And it's a phrase that we hear all the time, right? Like, oh, I have Native American DNA. I might have had Native American DNA. And so it's her talking about the way that those kinds of claims can be weaponized to really hurt indigenous people in the past and present and how it relates to the kind of symbolism of the idea of blood quantum. And so that is a book I would really recommend. And one more. This is kind of a cheat because it's like a two for one. But Robin Wall, kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass is incredibly popular. And I think a lot of what we were talking about in terms of, like, part of this book is about. About whose knowledge counts what knowledge counts, what it means to be smart. Right. And who gets to decide that. And Braiding Sweetgrass is a book that I think does a really good job of challenging some of those assumptions. And if you're like, oh, man, I've been meaning to read that for a long time, but I haven't gotten around to it. Robin Wall Kimmerer just came out with a really short, little, bitty sweet book called the Service Berry, which is, like. I mean, it's. It's so brief. I read it on a single train ride. And I don't mean like an east coast train ride. I mean, I read it, like, from one part of Chicago to the other part, like I said. Yeah, like, yes, exactly.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah.

[Eve L. Ewing]

I read it on public transit. And it's a really. Both of those books. She is a scholar and a scientist who brings indigenous worldviews into challenging how we think about how we should engage with the natural world, with each other, and what kind of knowledge is worth knowing. And she's also, like, just a beautiful writer. So. Yeah, those are. Those are some books that I would recommend. Recommend.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm gonna throw out one that you reference in your book that I've read that I loved.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Punished for Dreaming by Bettina Love. Because that book talks a lot about, like, the punishment aspect and sort of brings a lot of the history that you talk about even more front and center in the current moment, especially in the section where you talk about, like, the charter schools and kids and all of that. She has a chapter on Kip that was, like, mind blowing.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Yeah. And she's amazing. She's an amazing and amazing person, amazing educator. And I also, like, that integrates a lot of personal narratives as well and really kind of captures how people's lives were changed, transformed, often irreparably damaged by. I won't say irreparably, because I want people to have change and hope in the future. Right.

[Tracy Thomas]

But.

[Eve L. Ewing]

But really, really hurt by these narratives about, you know, basically being. Being bad, being criminals. Yeah. And so definitely recommend that book as well.

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay, last question. Last question. If you could have one person dead or alive, read this book, who would you want it to be?

[Eve L. Ewing]

Oh, man. You know, Gwendolyn Brooks is the single most important writer in my life, and I did not ever get to meet her. And so I would like her to read anything that I ever wrote. I'd like, her to read, you know, like a grocery list.

[Tracy Thomas]

I wrote, like, Arnold. Hey, dude.

[Eve L. Ewing]

Hey, dude. Yeah, I could have written some hair on a. But, yeah, I'd be happy to have her read anything that I ever wrote. But I will say I am really grateful that a lot of the book is dedicated to my teachers. And by that, I mean not just like, my classroom teachers, but I've had many very generous, loving, challenging, dedicated, political teachers who brought me to this moment of having this book out in the world. And many of them are living and have had the chance to read the book. And that means a lot to me. And so. So I'm. I'm very, very grateful to them for that time.

[Tracy Thomas]

I love that. Okay, everybody, you can get your copy of Original Sins anywhere you get your books. It is out in the world. Now it comes.

[Eve L. Ewing]

There's an audiobook, too, if that's your job.

[Tracy Thomas]

I listened to some of it because I wanted to hear how it is.

[Eve L. Ewing]

It's good.

[Tracy Thomas]

I. The audiobook, though, it was too hard for me because I needed to be taking notes. I did listen as I was reading with my eyes, which I never do, because then I could really, like, be immersed. So that's an option for you. You probably need both. Is that what I. I'm trying to say? But please read this book, people. I really just. I think you need to read it. I just really enjoyed it, and I think you can read it. If you're feeling intimidated, don't, because, you know, I'm the stupidest person in the room, and I got it, so you're gonna get it, too. Eve, I'm obsessed with you. I get it. I understand why you're everyone's favorite person. People at home, you can't see me, but this whole time, I've just been sort of, like, head to the side. Just, like, staring lovingly at Eve as she, like, teaches me about life in the world. So thank you so much for being here. This was just such a dream come true. And everyone else, we will see you in the stacks. All right, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Eve for being my guest. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Carla, Bruce Eddings, and Andrea Pura for helping to make this conversation possible. Don't forget the stacks. Book club pick for February is Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov and Ira Madison III will be back to discuss the book with us on Wednesday, February 26th. If you love this podcast and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com the stacks to join the Stacks Pack and subscribe to my newsletter@tracy thomas.substack.com make sure you are subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at the Stacks Pod, on Instagram threads and TikTok, and check out the website at the stacks podcast.com Today's episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McCrite, and our theme music is from Takirajit. The Stax is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.