S4 E2 Book Talk Kendra James

DAWN WILLIAMS: Welcome to On Balance, a podcast for parents created by Blue School educators. 

Blue School is an independent school in New York City that has pioneered a balanced educational experience, empowering children to be creative, analytical, joyful, and compassionate. I’m Dawn Williams, Blue School’s Director of Enrollment, and grateful parent of a Blue School graduate. I’m especially excited about this new season of On Balance and couldn’t be more excited about today’s book conversation. I will be talking with Kendra James, author of Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School, a book that I strongly recommend to all folks who work in, go to, and/or send their children to an independent or boarding school. Kendra James was Founding Editor at Shondaland, where she wrote and edited work for two years. She has been heard and seen on NPR and podcasts including Thirst Aid Kit, Three Swings, Star Trek: The Pod Directive, The Canon, and AlJazeera. Her writing has been published widely, from Elle, Marie Claire, Women’s Health Magazine, Lenny, The Verge, Harper’s, Catapult, and The Toast, among others. 

DAWN: So Kendra, first, I am so grateful that you’re here today spending time talking to us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

KENDRA JAMES: Oh no, thank you for having me. This will be really fun. I’m excited to talk to you again. 

DAWN: I’m really excited to talk to you, too. And sort of — I guess I should say, we got to work together for a couple of years, right? 2015, 2016, a year and a half. 

KENDRA: [UNINTEL] I know, like 2015 through like — I — it’s funny, I keep forgetting that there was a minute before I moved to LA when I was working two jobs, and I was working my LA job and still coming into Blue School because I didn’t know how to leave jobs. 

DAWN: It’s so funny you say that, I was today, just today, I was looking for an email address, one of your email addresses. And I saw the letter you sent when you left that is like one of the funniest, most lovely pieces of writing ever. You call — you call on Oprah, you call on — like it’s amazing, okay. 

KENDRA: No. 

DAWN: No, it’s — I’ll actually forward it to you just because it’s awesome. 

KENDRA: Okay. 

DAWN: But — so you know, having spent years getting — or a year, a year getting to hear your stories, this — reading this book was — and I should say your new book is called Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School. And getting that much of your story felt like sitting in a room with you. So thank you, like thank you for your book, it’s amazing.

KENDRA: Oh, well thank you.

DAWN: For sure. I’ve missed you so much, and like literally this was like sitting and talking to you, which is exciting. And I also feel like, just a shoutout, that every parent and every person who works in independent schools should be reading this book. So if you haven’t read the book, read the book. So can you share what brought you to write and share this book now? 

KENDRA: Oh my gosh, yeah. So I — it was — I knew I was going to write a book. I didn’t know it was going to necessarily be this book. But I — like I met my agent and we were talking about ideas, and she was very encouraging of like, there is a boarding school story to tell here. Because like the thrust of Admissions is about my — the three years that I spent at the Taft School in Connecticut, and it deals with the fact that I was a legacy student but also I was one of six Black girls in my graduating class. 

And so it’s a book that deals with like race and socioeconomic status and stuff like that, but also really deals heavily with like the pop culture of the early 2000’s. So I — I wasn’t sure that I was ready to write it yet because I have a lot of feelings about people who write memoirs who aren’t far enough removed from their experience to have like really reflected on it. And I wasn’t sure at the time that I was far enough removed. And I think part of that actually had to do with the fact that I was still working in independent schools. 

So I was still like kind of processing a lot of those feelings, and there is a reason that the book only focuses on those three years, because like those were the feelings that I really feel like I processed. And the moment I knew that I was ready to write the book was when I went up for my 10 year reunion, and I really — I was talking to people who were very effusive and very enthusiastic in their greetings. Like, oh my gosh, it’s so good to see you again. Oh, we have to catch up, it’s been so long. And I was just like, we didn’t speak when -- when we were in high school.

And that’s not a unique experience I think when you go to a reunion. We know — we’ve all experienced that. But for me it was just so stark because these were all these white kids who had just never spoken to me or my friends. And out on top of that that I was like one of — I was one of two — I want to say I was one of two Black girls who came back from my class that year. And then I was talking to this guy during and I write about this in the book. But I — I was talking to a guy during our march of classes who basically didn’t know that one of my friends, a Black guy in our class, had passed away, and he passed away in a horrible way, it’s a sad story, it’s not a good story. 

But just the fact that people didn’t know that he had died really affected me, and like kind of realized — made me realize that like, as much as I kind of knew that Black kids weren’t really in the historical memory of Taft, except when it really made Taft come off in a good light, like were used for admissions, materials were used for recruitment, all of that good stuff, and were touted when we graduate, only if we’ve done, you know, something that they deem appropriate and good. But we're not really in the historical memory of the school and I kind of just wanted to create a public record of the fact that like we were there, and this is the real experience of being Black in this space. 

DAWN: Yes. And how did you know that it was a book? So your articles are so power — like I feel like I read your articles all the time. You know my family had a thing and we still do with [UNINTEL] but we still — like whenever we get your articles, we have to read them out loud. And — and this feels like such a different form for this story. How did the format affect the story, or affect like what is held in the story? 

KENDRA: It was honestly really hard, because the articles that I had written about being at boarding school before, they were all on this site called The Toast. And so they were like little listicles, and like fun pieces that I sort of like really mined the humor of the stories for. And I had written essays about it before in other publications. But when I started writing this, I did say to my — I said to my agent, I was like, “I see this as a book of essays, and that’s what it’s going to be. It’s just going to be like little vignettes of the experience of being in this place.” 

And she was like, “No, you have to write a comprehensive piece that goes preferably in order, because you need that space in order to unpack and to draw connections through all these stories that you have.” And honestly, that became the best thing because I feel like by the time I got to telling the story in my senior year about the article that another classmate had written, like a pretty racist article appeared in our school paper, and no adult fact checked or really red flagged at all. 

So by the time I got there I really felt like I had built up a powerful story that then let me unpack everything that I had already talked about up until that point. So yeah, I think book format really helped. And allowed me to get into — and allowed me to make it a good balance. Like there is real — there is real material in there, and there’s like very serious conversational pieces. But then there’s also — like I said, it’s like — it’s some pop culture stuff. I wanted it to be funny. I really wanted it to be relatable to kids who were growing up in that area. And feel nostalgic.

DAWN: Totally. I want to come back to that story, but staying with it being relatable to kids in that area, I also — it sort of brings up that question of audience and who the book is for, and — and like I said, I think it’s for any — all of us, like anyone who is in independent schools, curious about independent schools, thinking about independent schools, whether — like whether you’re a parent or a student maybe or definitely like an administrator. But this — like what you just said about the fact checking in this article, or the fact of this article getting into a paper, and in like — I know I said I’d bring this up later, but I — it seems I need to talk about it. And the — the fact that also like where were the adults when the Black and Latinx students needed to process [UNINTEL] —

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Process and like deal. 

DAWN: Yeah. So I do think like it is important for parents to read this book and think about our role as parents parenting humans in these schools, right? But the audience [UNINTEL] who were you thinking about? 

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: [UNINTEL] — so I wanted — I absolutely wanted this book to be accessible to teen readers. And so there is a reason why I think — a lot of this — a lot of the feedback like on — not in — in like real publications like in — that actually do reviews but it’s — if you go through like the Goodreads and like Amazon stuff, people are like, “Oh it reads like a YA book.” And I was like, yes, that is actually what I wanted. Because I wanted adults to be able to take in the information and to do some reflection and to have sort of thoughts about how they could take these stories and bring them into her schools and make sure that these things don’t repeat themselves. 

Because a lot of these incidents on these campuses are cyclical. So I wanted people to be able to take that away. But I also didn’t want it to be an intimidating read for anyone who’s in like eighth through twelfth grade, like I wouldn’t — I think early middle school, it’s a bit much, but I feel like — and I like — a big reader in eighth grade can sort of take this in and [UNINTEL] —

[OVERTALK]

DAWN: Totally. 

KENDRA: — be able to read it, might not get all of the references, might be confused why there’s like no cell phones or anything. But can at least read it and then like probably have enough questions to go talk to an adult about it. 

DAWN: Yes. 

KENDRA: So I really wanted it to — to feel — to feel YA-like. And I think I succeeded in that. 

DAWN: Absolutely. And I — I have said — I’ve talked about the book with our librarian. I mean, definitely it feels like older middle school students — this could be a really, really good read for older middle school students and definitely high school students, oh my goodness. And — and yes, like I think it is also a piece that happens in a time. And like — 

KENDRA: Yes. 

DAWN: You know, you are so like tech savvy in a moment that — like there’s a lot of ways that message it — like a lot of communication that’s happening that might be like very surprising to students now. 

KENDRA: Yeah. And I also think — I mean, I was — I joked about this with my mom, but like this book is very much a testament to that phrase that I feel like a lot of parents use, where it’s like if you don’t want — like treat everything that you write down as if it’s going to be on a billboard. Literally — I mean, yeah, it’s literally like every communication that I had in high school I just tucked away, and I was like — I didn’t even know — it wasn’t even for like a — it wasn’t for like a nefarious purpose or anything, I was just that person who wanted to save and journal everything. And it just turned out to work very well. 

DAWN: Right, so you journaled always. Did you — that’s a question. Did you journal always? And — and did — it does feel like you have everything, like you have saved everything. Like there is a very — I don’t want to give away all the moments in the book, but there is a very disturbing like stalker situation that is going on that also you’re like, where are the adults? Like where — who is watching? 

KENDRA: Yes. 

DAWN: But — but it feels like those — those are coming right out of a notebook to me. Like — yeah, so what was [UNINTEL] —

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Yeah — yeah, so that — like the stalker situation, that’s an AIM conversation. A-I — AOL Instant Messenger for those of you who don’t remember. But yeah, no, I — for that part of the book that happens in year two. So my junior year. And it was funny, because I — my editor and I at Grand Central, we were like rearranging things, and we knew that we needed an incident for my second year. And I was just going back through all of those old journal entries and instant messages, and I found the messages from that guy, and I was like, “Oh right, this was like just a whole thing that was going on for the entire winter semester that I guess I had just like blocked out.” And so that — that series of — of IMs is literally copy pasted from — those are verbatim what he was writing me. 

DAWN: Oh my god. So you actually have them still?

KENDRA: Yes. Oh, I have them. And the funny thing is, he has since reached out to collaborate. He does not — I don’t think he — 

DAWN: Whoa. 

KENDRA: Yeah, and I don't think he’s read the book. Like because he’s — he’s now like — he’s semi-well known in his field, and he like has reached out to collaborate. I don’t think he has read the book, because if he did he would — he would know. 

DAWN: No. Yeah, wow. Oh, that — yeah, there’s actually like — I’ve — there’s a moment in there where you like don’t go into that, you don’t use that system for a long, long time, and then you go back, and immediately he’s like back again. 

KENDRA: Yep. 

DAWN: That’s — yeah, that’s very, very creepy. So you were writing this book, and certainly telling these stories, like before and during and after the Black@ social media movement. And I wonder if the outpouring of experiences that were happening on all of the Black@, like across schools and across years, if that changed anything about the — the why of your book or the to who of your book. 

KENDRA: Yeah, it certainly changed the tone. Like I — and I remember when it switched. Because prior to that happening, this -- so the Black@ movement, where the — all of these Instagram accounts that started popping up after June of 2020, after George Floyd was shot, and they were all in responses to like a lot of the schools simply either doing very performative responses to what had happened, or doing nothing at all. 

And so these accounts started popping up, and they were literally there for like every school. And when Taft’s — when Taft’s popped up, I was going through them and I was like — I already knew, like I had already written the part of the book where I was like these things are cyclical, they happen all the time. But then to see just how many stories there were, and just not even like just from my graduating year of like 2006 going back in time. But there were stories from like 2019, 2020, 2018. 

And I had also found by that point an article in our — in the school paper from like winter of 2017 that was almost like — it was all the themes from the article that I write about in my book. So after all of this happened I was just kind of like — I had been giving Taft a little bit more of a  — like a cushion I guess. I had been -- the tone was a little bit more forgiving. And after that I feel like it became a lot — it became a lot angrier. Not angrier, but a lot more critical of the school. 

And that was when like we had already — I’m married and my husband is — is a purely public school educated person, like most of his family is as well. And so we had already been like having that conversation of like boarding school, Taft, like independent school, like what are we going to do? And it was after like — I was already very much leaning towards like I would not send my kids there. But like if I had had any remaining doubts, like June of 2020 kind of just like sealed it. And yeah, like I said, really changed the tone quite a bit I think. 

DAWN: Yeah. So your book weaves back and forth between — or sort of oscillates back and forth between your years as a student at Taft, and including your experiences working in admissions at Taft, and giving tours at Taft. And then your years working in admissions in independent schools and for organizations that work to place students of color in independent schools. So can you talk about what — I don’t want to say what draw — what drew you to do it, but like why you chose to do admissions work, maybe at Taft and then coming — coming off of your experiences in high school and college.

KENDRA: Yeah, I mean at Taft it was really simple. Like I had to do something with my afternoons. And admissions count — I think it was called admissions council, was just like honestly the best thing to do, because my friend, Callister from the book did it, my friend Esther did it. So like we would — we would all — there was like — we called it the Harley Roberts Room, it was the admissions room, it was like this huge, gorgeous like very New England wood paneled room, lots of fireplaces. There was always tea.

So we were just like kind of the losers always just like hanging out in that room anyway, like talking to the woman who ran the front desk there, we were always there. So like that was just like a very simple thing. And then also, I mean, I liked giving tours just because I was an extrovert who like couldn’t do theater. Like I can’t act, can’t sing. So like that was kind of — 

DAWN: But you can definitely do theater. You definitely [UNINTEL] —

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Right, no, yes, I was — I do — I do stage crew. But yeah — but so like when I didn’t have — when I didn’t have softball or I didn’t have skating, that was just something that I liked to do. And also you had to do an — you had to do a sport, an art, or like some sort of like volunteer extracurricular every semester. So admissions like helped fill that in. So that was Taft. And then I did some tours at Oberlin and — where I went to college, and like kind of kept that up. 

Then when I graduated from college, I was working at a Broadway talent management company which started as an internship and then turned into something insane, and then I was like I’ve got to get out of here. So I was kind of just like, “What can I do and get a job immediately?” And it was a very — this was 2011, and very frankly, it was a — it was very pinnacle decision. I was like, I am Black, I went to boarding school, and I’m currently like just starting to dip my toe into like writing and cultural criticism so I have that under my belt.

And I was like, “Who will hire me?” And I was like, independent schools will hire me. Independent schools like want a Black woman who like might be slightly public facing to be — to doing — to do admissions. So like that was it, and I — immediately I interviewed at like three or four different schools and organizations, and it pretty much — it only took like a month, two months, to get out of there once I decided that like that was going to be the path. And then, yeah, I was there — I was — gosh, I was at my first organization for like three years. 

And then liked it. Again, like genuinely was — I — I enjoyed the work I was doing. I was very much starting to see the flaws and the cracks in the system. I worked for a program that a lot of my friends from Taft had gone to. And I was slowly starting to pick up on some of the things that maybe I had heard them complaining about but didn’t — wasn’t able — didn’t have the experience to sort of map on to what they were talking about. So just like sort of some of the ways that they were treated, or the expectations from the program of like really like the sort of like respectability politics, like perfection and — and presentation and the expectations that the program had of them. 

And so I ended up leaving there after a while because I liked what I was doing, and wanted to work at an actual school. And I went to work at this other school across the George Washington Bridge, and it was genuinely — it was like one of the most horrible experiences of my life. It was — it was really bad, and that — and it was a very eye opening experience in terms of like me thinking about independent schools overall. Because just like, long story short, it was a campus, it was separated into an upper school and a lower school, the upper school was up a hill. 

If I or one other woman who worked on the administrative team didn’t walk up — didn’t walk up to the upper campus, the kids up there, the middle schoolers, didn’t see an adult Black person all day who wasn’t a janitor. And so I was just kind of — and they — this was a school that like really thought they were diverse. Like they really — that was their whole narrative, that they were one of the most diverse schools in their area. And I was like, this makes absolutely no sense. 

But yeah, no, so then I left there, and then I — I came to Blue School, where like, yeah, I would have — I would have remained had I not sent you that — had I not gotten the opportunity to send you that wild email apparently. 

DAWN: It was a really good email. Yeah, well I’m — I’m so glad you spent that one last year in — in admissions so that we got to cross paths. And I’ve been thinking, I mean, I’m — of course this book makes me think a lot about work of admissions. And — and that so much of the work of admissions is storytelling, and I think you — you really key into that over and over — I — I've heard you talk about the importance of like the stories we tell to students, and the importance of like memory — is that what you say? 

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: In shaping student’s sort of experiences of their school, like nostalgia. But that all starts during the admissions process, right? Like these stories that we tell. And I am really curious about the — the movement in your storytelling about schools from like early in the book when you’re talking — you’re working at a place that you called Students Striving For Success, is that right?

KENDRA: Yeah, yeah. 

DAWN: Okay. And — and you’re sharing the sort of the promise of these elite boarding schools and the outcome that like you personify coming out of these elite boarding schools. And then over time you sort of grapple with the story, and there’s — I’m going to quote you, because this [UNINTEL] important. 

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Oh, wonderful. I love that.

DAWN: Great. So at one point you share that on tours of one school where you worked you would sometimes like whisper or just sort of aside say, “A lot of the white kids at this school will have come from privilege, and whether or not you and your kid have a different lived experience or not, they will very likely assume that you do. You’re going to deal with everything from unintentional micro aggressions to outright racism. And I’m saying that like in general. That’s going to be every school you apply to, not just here.” And you say that’s information that you wish you had received, if only for the questions that it would have prompted you to ask. 

KENDRA: Yes. 

DAWN: So like thank you for that paragraph. And then also like how — can you talk about what changed in your story of independent schools? 

KENDRA: Yeah. I think a lot of it — so like the book opens with the speech, like you said, that I used to give at Scholars Striving for Success, so yeah, I used to give that speech, and I think that speech is still like — it’s — again, it’s 2011 at that — in that period, and it’s like that to me — that speech is really baked in respectability politics, which again, like you’re saying, like this is the presentation of a person who like went to one of these elite schools, like this is what they sound like, this is what they do every Saturday. Like don’t you want your child to be like this. And that’s all that speech is. Like that’s — that’s the entirety of it. 

And I think that as I started not even just related to schools, but just like related to in my everyday life as I started breaking down a lot of that respectability politic, which I had grown up with, because that’s how — that’s just what my parents had presented me with for better or worse. I started breaking a lot of that down, and then that speech started changing over time. There was only so much that it could change, because I still worked for an organization, as you mentioned, like that was when I like got to that — that first school that I worked at, and I did start getting like very honest with certain people because there was — I’m not going to say who it is, but there was a Black celebrity whose kids went to this school, and like I saw them dealing with micro aggressions from these other kids, and it’s like these two children have more money and like more clout and cache than like you could ever imagine, but they are still getting treated this way, and they are still like — I still am overhearing other kids saying like, “Oh they must be from a program.”

So it’s like — so hearing all of that and like — and then also doing just like personal work on my own mode of thoughts is like what really started to — to change my approach to admissions. 

DAWN: Yeah. I also wonder if like — what — so now you’re writing this book from no longer being in independent schools and from the distance of like being across the country and no longer in schools. 

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: What has — how is being out of schools allowed you sort of the space to reflect back on them?

KENDRA: God. Like I mean, it’s been — it’s been helpful, a, to be out of them. I — it’s funny, I actually live down the street from an independent school. 

DAWN: Oh, funny. 

KENDRA: Yeah. Here — here in LA. And that’s like another thing that’s been really interesting, coming out to LA and meeting people at various jobs who are like native to Los Angeles or like the greater area who are also people of color who then went to the big independent schools out here like your Harvard West Lakes or your Marists. Schools I’m like — I’m still getting a little bit familiar with the landscape out here. 

But hearing like them — I have a friend who’s Chinese who — who went to one of these schools. I have a friend who is Black who went to one of these schools, and like hearing their experiences out here on the west coast, and hearing how like some of the stuff that went down even though they’re like maybe a few years younger than me was just like the same things that I was then dealing with at my New England independent school. It’s just so interesting, just how similar the cultures at a lot of these old institution schools are. 

And the schools out here like aren’t even — they’re not as old. They’re — I mean, Taft is — was — was founded in like 1891, and Trinity is like some time in the 1700’s. So like they don’t have that longevity out here, but still like because a lot of these schools were like based on that model, you get a lot of the same culture. And so learning about that to like really give me a little bit more urgency in writing when I realized like, “Oh this like truly isn’t a niche topic to the tri-state area on the east coast. Like this is really actually more of a universal space and this book like might actually be very useful to — to more than just that little niche community.” 

DAWN: For sure. I mean, I feel like, you know, although you are very specifically talking about your experience and very specifically talking about your experience at Taft, as the Black@ —

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN:  — like it makes it very clear over and over again that you’re talking about systems of school well beyond Taft and — and maybe experiences beyond school. I mean, I think this is — this is like systems, right? What you’re pointing out is like all the systems too although you’re doing it through a very personal story. 

KENDRA: Yeah, I mean, it’s like you think about, I mean, like it’s just like even using Taft as an example, I mean — or — you think about people who have graduated from schools like Taft and lived that culture, and it’s like, okay so the whole point of going to a school like Taft is that you then get — you’re supposed to be able to — it’s easier to get a job at like a Goldman Sachs or like NBC Universal or something, and it’s easier to be in a high up position there because you have the connections. 

So you’re then bringing that culture that you like grew up in — in these schools and then for the most part like if you went to a Harvard or a Yale, like those systems are still in place  at those institutions as well. And then you’re bringing that into the corporate world. So it’s like it’s all — again, it’s all cyclical and it all follows each other because it starts in these like boarding and day schools. 

DAWN: Yeah. Yeah, there is actually a moment, and I feel like a lot of stories in here were a little familiar to me just having sat across the table to — from you. 

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: But there were — there was a moment of like an internship that you did in one of those places that I — it was a total shocker.

KENDRA: You were like, “Why were you there?” 

DAWN: No, seriously. It’s amazing. I love the idea of them thinking that you were bringing Taft culture when you were like, I’m going to be doing other — it’s great. Yeah. 

KENDRA: Yeah, literally did no work that whole summer. I was not interested. 

DAWN: Well done. I — yes, I love when you get back to school and the teacher’s like, you don’t — you don't have to do that again. 

KENDRA: Yeah. Which — and it’s really interesting because there’s a kid out — who lives out here now and I’ve run into him a few times on like Alumni of Color Zooms, and he like — I — he really made that internship work for him. Like he worked at that bank for like a while, so it’s — it really is, it’s like different strokes for everyone. 

DAWN: Yes.

KENDRA: But it was not for me. 

DAWN: Right. So you’re — the — this book, it’s funny. You’re — you’re — it’s very funny. And -- and also like really hard to read. Your experiences at Taft are hard to read. And it’s like everyday racism that — and you say like — “everyday,” I’m putting that in quotation marks in my head. That you didn’t even realize that you should have talked to an adult about them. 

KENDRA: Yeah.

DAWN: There’s this moment where you say like, “I didn’t even — I didn’t know the word micro aggression, I didn’t have the language for what each of these tiny cuts was, or how they made me feel.” And I feel like there are those, and then also in the book there are these like — I don’t want to say bigger but [UNINTEL] —

KENDRA: Bombastic, yeah. 

DAWN: Yeah, that are like curriculum that is like irresponsible and harmful and like the school leadership letting this racist article be published and then having no support, and false allegations of robbery and no systems like —

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: And like very problematic honor code, and — and I’m curious, you know, as so many people are listening are parents like or school people, what is your like — you then talk about going to Oberlin and that being such a different place in terms of like who the adults were, and what they were there for. And so can you — like can you talk about that? I mean, I think there’s such a piece about the responsibility of adults in these places. And parents for their children, which — yeah. 

KENDRA: Yeah, I mean, because like so if you go to a boarding school, I don’t know if it applies so much at day school, but at boarding school there’s like this whole phrase, in loco parentis, which means in place of the parents. And it means like you’re sending your kid out to — to this place for four years, and so — or sometimes like if you’re going to a Rumsey Hall, it’s like for many years, for like starting in like sixth grade. 

[OVERTALK]

DAWN: Right. 

KENDRA: And it’s basically you saying like, okay I understand that like every adult on this campus is here to raise my child in place of me, and I’m giving them that responsibility. And like a lot of the things that I think about now, especially in the wake of — obviously I think post — I think not just post-Ferguson, but very much post-Ferguson, we now live in an era where people my age who are just starting to have kids or who have young children are just like so much more frank about like what’s going on in the news, and like what is — what conversations are happening in the general public. 

And so for me, it’s really hard — and I should say I specifically meanlike Black parents and like parents of color are doing that because it like really is so important for survival and processing and understanding what’s happening rather than leaving your kid in the dark. So you have that aspect. And then there’s just like — then there’s the stuff that a lot of Black parents just tell their kids in general. A lot of — which like I didn’t necessarily get. But like stuff about like being careful around the cops, or keeping your hands in your pockets in the store, just like stuff like that. 

So those conversations are very specific to Black households. And then you’re going to this boarding school where you have a white staff in loco parentis, and for me it’s like being a parent to a Black child is just such a very specific experience in America, that if you’re doing this in loco parentis thing, you must have multiple Black staff employed in order to accommodate like all the various needs that you might have from your Black students. Just because like obvious — we had one woman who I call Ms. Gallagher in the book, and she was amazing, and I was lucky that I jived with her. Like that — because one of — like just having one doesn’t ensure that like all, you know, 20 of us at the school are really going to glom on to her. 

Because you know, we don’t all get along. And so I was really lucky. But there might have been students who like didn’t feel that relationship with her but then had no one else to go to. So it’s just like really important that if — if you’re going to be operating this way, that you have multiple people for your students to — to go to. And that’s like why staff diversity like outside of just like curriculum is so important. 

DAWN: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. you are really thoughtful about the way you talk about like both belonging at Taft and — like Taft is a place where your father was a student and loved it, like and — and super involved — he was a board member too, right? 

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: Yeah. And you spent time there growing up, like it was a campus that was familiar to you. And then you -- so there’s this like super belonging and then super not belonging, right? And then there’s like super visibility and super invisibility, as you talk about. But like you keep showing up, like you keep going back, and you know, you talk about the reunions and the — and like I know you work so hard for the schools that you've been through. Like you — so — but I wonder if your reasons for showing up have shifted. Or if your like feelings of who you’re responsible to or for have shifted. 

KENDRA: Yeah, it’s — I mean, so what I — going up to the reunions and various alumni days and alumni things that happen in New York, that was always important to me. Reunions specifically because then that gave the students who were there on campus, because alumni weekend is always like two or three weeks before graduation. So all the students are still there. And they all like — alumni weekend’s a big deal, there’s like a parade, there’s bagpipes, there’s like lunches that former students are visiting classes. A lot is going on. 

And so for me going up there, I wanted to make sure that the Black and other students of like — especially like Black and Latinx specifically, like I wanted to make sure that they saw people who looked like them. Because a lot of Black alumni don’t come back to campus. And it’s for various reasons. Some of its s because like they do not care to come back to this place that was traumatic for them. And like some of it is like I now live across the country so it’s like harder to get back. So it can be for like economics or whatever, but I wanted to make sure that at least someone was there. 

And even when I would go back for my own class reunions it was like — it was hard, because my friends don’t go back. There’s like one other Black woman who does go back, but we weren’t really friends when we were there, and then like a few of the Black guys go back as well. But out of my group of friends, the ones that I write about in the book, they don’t — they don't come back. And so like it’s hard for me to be there in a way too because I’m just like — I’m just kind of like on the outside just like, all right, like I’m doing this. 

And like the first time I went back for my five year was actually like kind — it was really hard to the point where I had a panic attack, left, went to Palisades Mall, saw Bridesmaids one and a half times, then ate a meal at TGI Fridays by myself, and then got my — and then got my ears pierced at Claire’s. Like I literally — I fled the campus. 

[OVERTALK]

DAWN: And then you went back again. And then you went back again. 

KENDRA: Yes. And then I went back. But yeah, no, so it’s — it’s really important to me, like to go for visibility’s sake. And now that I’m not so close by, the school — and like I — I do like to give them — I like to give them a little bit of credit, like they are trying to facilitate more stuff for alumni of color and there’ve been more regular meet — meetings of alumni of color with current students since June of 2020. And so I do make sure that I go to those as well. 

And we meet with the affinity groups, so I — like we meet with like the Black and Latinx girls group on campus, and like are able to talk to them about their experiences and like what’s going on on campus. And that to me is just like more important now, not even just for visibility’s sake, but just to make sure that they feel like they’re being heard, and that their experiences really do matter to someone. Because again, like we were not really openly talking about these things at the level that they are constantly. I always feel like our responses came from like when something happened specifically on campus. Whereas they seem to have a bit more of like an open dialogue now, which I think is really great, and should be supported.

DAWN: Yeah. Okay, so you’ve said that — you were saying that you, especially after the past few years have become more and more clear about not sending your children there. 

KENDRA: Yeah. 

DAWN: I wonder if you have thought about like what you would want for your future children. Like what — what would you be hoping for? 

KENDRA: Yeah. It’s really a toss — it’s like a hard toss up, because like I wrote about — even my public school system that I grew up with in New Jersey, it’s a great public school system, like Brooklynites are flooding Maple Wood and really driving up the housing prices because the schools are good. But like I talk about, like we had a leveling system. I don’t know where it stands now exactly, but like we had a level two, level three, level four, and it was very like — the way it was arranged was pretty racist. Like it was much easier to get into level four classes, or even AP classes in the high school as a white kid and to stay there than it was as a Black kid. 

So on the one hand it’s like you’ve got a public school system that maybe is doing that, and also like where you’re going to run into a lot of like biases and teachers who are problematic and might not treat your students of color the way that you want them to be treated. And at a public school you kind of like can’t walk in to the principal’s office and be like, “I’m paying $66,000 a year. Like what are you going to do about this?” So there is that. 

And then, on the other hand, there is independent schools where you’re going to run into the same thing in any number of different ways. And so as a — as a parent of color, like you’re kind of just weighing like which one of these options is going to be less harmful. And I think we’re going to go — like public school is probably going to be the thing up until a point at which like — like it was for me, at which point I think like you have to then examine like, “Okay is this public school going to serve like what my kid needs to then get into college?” because I’m like — I am pretty frank, like if I had continued at my public school I don't think I would have gone to Oberlin, because my public school sends like the most kids to Oberlin in New Jersey. So like the numbers would have been completely against me. So —

DAWN: It’s so interesting. That’s fascinating, yeah. 

KENDRA: Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, one of my best friends at Oberlin, like we had gone to school together since — like since the first grade, and he would always say to me, he was like, “Well, and you left and went to like an expensive high school and we all ended up in the same place.” And I was like, “Yeah, but Jessie, you’re a white dude. So like I like needed like an extra boost.” But yeah, so like you have — that’s the problem I think with like being a parent of color, like you have to weigh the good with the bad, and yeah, I think it’ll just depend on like what my kid’s interests are. 

Like for me Taft was as mixed bag of an experience as it was, I like learned to like write very well there, I wrote my first screenplay there because they were like, you don't have to take math, you can take screenwriting. I learned how to hang lights professionally in a theater. I had like — I could ice skate whenever I wanted.

DAWN: There’s two ice skating rinks.

KENDRA: Yeah, right. So like for me, like it worked — like that was like what I needed for — well, not — okay, need is actually like a very strong word there. No one needs to be able to skate whenever they want, but like it matched up with my interests very well and set me up in a really good place to then go do what I wanted to do in college and the real world. 

DAWN: Yeah.

KENDRA: So yeah, it’s a balancing act, and you have to just decide — I won’t know until like I’m in the moment, I feel like. It definitely won’t be a boarding school, I can tell you that much. Like even if it is an independent school, it will be an independent school that like I can get to in like 15 minutes. Like I couldn’t — this is so LA, but like I could not — I live in North Hollywood. I could not send my kid to a school in Santa Monica, I can’t get there fast enough if something happens. 

DAWN: Yeah, well you talk about — I mean, I think there’s a real thing there about like hearing — and I feel like this comes up sometimes in the book that’s like your amazing parents, not judging your parents, but like they weren’t setting you upfor this — like you didn’t — they weren’t sharing their stories of school with you in a way that — that would have like let you know what you were in for. And then you were far, far away. So even this idea of being able to be sort of in your child’s life immediately when things come up feels really powerful. 

KENDRA: Yeah, if like — yeah, if nothing else, it’s not like I want to be a helicopter parent or anything, like my parents like weren’t super helicopter parents, but yeah, no, I think it’s really important is that like for an independent school understanding that environment, like there might be a time that I want to be on campus immediately.

DAWN: Yeah. 

KENDRA: So yeah, I want to make sure that I can do that. 

DAWN: Yeah. Okay, well I thank you for this. I — I wish we could talk all day. And I really — 

[OVERTALK]

KENDRA: Of course.

DAWN: Really hope that — that everyone reads this book. I hope everyone reads this book. And I can’t wait for your next book, and more articles, and all of the things. It’s really good to hear your voice. 

KENDRA: It’s going to be — it’s going to be fiction. I’m like — I’m done mining my personal life for now. 

DAWN: Well done. 

KENDRA: Yeah.

DAWN: And you would have always been writing fiction, right?

KENDRA: Yeah, I — yeah, I mean I was — well, if you — yeah, if you read this book, you’ll see, I was very — very distracted child. 

DAWN: Very inspired child. 

KENDRA: Yeah.

DAWN: Okay, thank you so much, Kendra.

KENDRA: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was great. 

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