Today on Mainline News Hour on WRFG Atlanta, we are featuring a rebroadcast of our special bonus episode covering Critical Race Theory that was originally published in our Patreon in June. We are joined by Sylvia who gives us a recap centering us in the present day in a conversation that is extremely relevant today & has largely gone uncovered in many important ways. Join us next week for a continued conversation between Sylvia and Mainline contributor Nolan Huber-Rhodes to dive deeper into the missing pieces.
As Sylvia explains today, “In early June, the Georgia State Board of Education passed a 13-point resolution regarding the teaching—or should I say not teaching—of CRT in Georgia’s public schools. This is a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.”
“As we all know by now,” she continues, “CRT wasn’t being taught to K-12 students in the first place; that didn’t stop a wave of outrage around this wedge issue. It led to showdowns in many school board meetings throughout the state & country. Some parents have since moved past their CRT outrage to protesting mask & vaccine mandates in schools. Part one of this conversation touches on the definition, examples, & possible outcomes of the absence or injection of CRT in schools. We mainly touch on education & policy, but didn’t go into great detail on other systems affected like healthcare. I wish we had.”
In this special rebroadcast, Sylvia shares a recent personal experience in the medical and health care system regarding her personal care, linking the importance of critical analysis of race in our systems beyond public education.
“Data & well documented history of the American medical system have made it very clear to me that as a Black woman, if I am not careful when choosing healthcare providers, more harm than healing will be done. Maybe if doctors were exposed to CRT, biased thoughts like the pain tolerances of Black women during childbirth, the thickness of black skin, or perceived drug-seeking during emergencies wouldn’t be some of the horror stories many of us have heard or experienced.”
We’ll return with new stories on Oct. 22 as we embrace much-needed structural and formatting changes to ensure sustainability in our coverage and newsroom. Catch us on the airwaves on WRFG every Friday at 12pm EST & look for our backlog of podcast episodes of The Mainline Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Support our work directly at https://patreon.com/mainlinezine to access bonus pieces, interviews, & conversations provided by Aja
