The conversation opens with Davey D breaking down a quiet but devastating move by the Trump Education Department that declared key careers like nursing and teaching as “non professional” for federal loans. He frames it as a slick attack on Black and Brown communities, women, and working class folks who rely on those pathways for stable work and community care.
Registered nurse and union vice president Jennifer Esteen explains why that ruling is both an insult and a direct economic strike. Nursing is mostly women and largely people of color, and nurses are the ones who actually keep patients alive and cared for. She connects this new policy to massive federal cuts, the long standing nursing shortage, and the racism she and her mother faced trying to enter and move up in the field. Jennifer stresses that this is about destroying the pipeline of Black and Brown providers while worsening medical disparities that were already clear during COVID.
Educator and author Christopher Emdin zooms out and names it as part of a larger project to strip value from soulful professions rooted in care. He argues that nursing and teaching are attacked precisely because they require humanity, empathy, and what he calls soul, something many of the people making policy lack. He links the move on loans to earlier signs, like putting unqualified leadership over education, and explains how Black students have used federal loans not only to pay tuition but to survive while studying. For him, this is an economic and political assault on Black resistance, because classrooms are the boot camp for fights against white supremacy.
Dr Norlissa Cooper, a nurse with a doctorate in health policy, brings in the academic side. She notes how advanced nursing degrees are already rare, especially among Black nurses, and this policy will choke off the future supply of professors and researchers who study and challenge health disparities. All three guests land on similar solutions. We have to turn back to community, build our own support systems, lean on unions, sororities, and Black institutions, and even look to models like the Black Panther clinics or Filipino labor unions that created their own funds. The conversation closes with a call for resilience, imagination, and collective responsibility to defend nursing, teaching, and the communities they serve.
Show summary by 10 minute segments
0 to 10 minutes
Davey opens by explaining a recent move by the Trump Education Department that quietly reclassified professions like nursing, nurse aides, special education teachers, and other educators as not being professional for federal loan purposes. He lays out why that is dangerous for Black and Brown communities and for women who depend on these careers for economic stability and community care. Registered nurse and union vice president Jennifer Esteen responds, asserting the professionalism of nurses and how they are the ones who actually nurse people back to health. She calls the move a direct attack on a workforce that is nearly ninety percent women and mostly people of color, and explains how cutting loans and gutting Medicare and Medicaid will both shrink the pipeline of providers and worsen health outcomes.
10 to 20 minutes
Jennifer connects this new policy to a broader economic assault. She recalls entering nursing after the mortgage crisis because it was one of the few stable paths available and talks about the long standing nursing shortage and persistent racism in training and promotion. As nurses try to advance into leadership, she notes, the field gets whiter at the top. She ties these dynamics to the intent of the Trump administration to protect access for already privileged groups while making it harder for Black and Brown communities to stay healthy. Davey underscores the importance of trusted medical professionals in his own life and then shifts to bring in educator and scholar Christopher Emdin.
20 to 30 minutes
Chris praises Jennifer’s combination of data and lived experience and argues that nursing and teaching are attacked precisely because they are rooted in humanity and soul. He describes how Black nurses and educators merge psychology, sociology, anthropology, and pedagogy in their work, and how that deep care is dismissed as non academic by people who lack empathy. He links the loan decision to earlier signs, including unqualified leadership over education and open disrespect of women and Black women in particular. Chris emphasizes that Black people have historically used federal loans as a survival tool while in school, stretching that support to cover family needs, and he frames the new restriction as both a racial attack and an economic self sabotage for the country. He also stresses that classrooms have always been the boot camp for struggles against white supremacy.
30 to 40 minutes
Davey shifts the conversation to solutions and the threat of artificial intelligence being used to replace human workers in nursing, teaching, and other fields. Chris responds by naming the way Black communities have been pacified by just enough comfort in a hypercapitalist society and calls for a return to resilience. He reflects on his own upbringing in poverty in New York, contrasts it with the softness of his children, and says we need resilience plus imagination to create new possibilities. Chris insists that artificial intelligence is artificial for a reason and can never reproduce the healing that comes from human touch, eye contact, and shared spirit. He lifts up examples like Barbados under Prime Minister Mia Mottley, where leadership is intentionally building diasporic, community grounded models of schooling and development as a sign of what is possible.
40 to 50 minutes
Davey and the guests dig deeper into community based solutions and parallel structures. Dr Norlissa Cooper insists there is no replacing human touch in health care and calls for turning to community, burning down unjust systems in a strategic way, and rebuilding with the right people and demands. Davey raises the idea of nursing as a pathway for immigrants and questions whether people see this as a collective attack or hope to escape harm individually. Jennifer warns about divide and conquer and stresses that no group is safe, while lifting up sororities, Black nurse associations, and service organizations that already support nurses through scholarships and mutual aid. She and Dr Cooper talk about the need for unions and professional associations to go beyond statements and create concrete funds and structures that provide loans, training, and clinics for the community, drawing inspiration from Filipino labor unions and Black Panther health centers. The show closes with a call for unions, schools, and communities to reimagine value, rely less on money, and build systems where effort, responsibility, and collective care are the real currency.