don t even say that. do you know what that means? that is a racial slur. i can t believe that you would say that to me. there s no words that offend me. because you re white! we are not at this point looking at any type of diversity, equity, inclusion plan. people don t know what it is, but now there s a name for that thing that goes creek in the night. when then president trump stepped forward and said it was critical race theory any i thought there s a bogeyman. is there racism? i didn t know that was going to be asked. it s at the center of what the students have been saying. i don t know that i necessarily have to have a yes or no to that question. joining me now antonia hilton, a correspondent for nbc news and the co-host of the southlake podcast. antonia, great to see you.
with schools right now, some teachers in some states where they have passed these new anti-crt laws and we re seeing teachers not just in southlake, but other communities around the country feel pressured to change the way they talk about race and history, feel pressure to remove certain books from their classrooms or get them vetted by administrations and that s something that started in southlake and we are starting to see crop up in other communities, as well. i think throughout our reporting one of the reasons nbc has invested so much in the story of southlake and the podcast, it s a battle over these issues. what happens in southlake starts to happen elsewhere in a couple of weeks and a company of months later. great research and reporting from you and mike. antonio hilton, nbc correspondent, co-host of the southlake podcast. all episodes of this podcast are available wherever you get your podcasts. coming up, if you don t know the
build empathy for other people and they say that what s at stake here is the quality of everyone s education. they say they re going to keep speaking up in the coming days and weeks. our thanks to antonia hylton for getting us started with all of this. we re happy to have antonia s reporting partner on the southlake podcast. mike hicksenbauh. he got the initial tip that led to this firestorm. good job for you. your investigation started with one piece of video of students chanting a racial epitaph. many parents pushed back in the meantime, and now there s new leadership at the school board. what does that tell you, say that it s taken this long, and still there s some cultural clashes taking place in this suburb of dallas? well, i think what that tells you is that these issues that we re seeing in school board meetings across the country this year with parents clashing with
students. okay. joining me now are cohosts of the southlake podcast. that was a moment, antonia. i can t help but think. i don t know how he was caught off guard with that. not anticipating something like that being asked considering the subject of your podcast and all that had been going on for so long. what was your reaction beyond what we heard? when the superintendent responded the way he did. my reaction was similar to yours. this was a story as you spelled out at the top there beginning with in 2018 a video going viral of well phone students in the district chanting the n-word. but that is not the video of racial slurs over the course that the district and the community got to work on this oirnl diversity and inclusion
opportunities, changes their lives, they couldn t vote on that and they reflect on that. my take away from this entire series not just this episode, it s children who really should be at the forefront of these conversations, we talk about race and try to solve these issues in communities. we see parents screaming back and forth and the kids voices get drowned out. and that shouldn t be the case. the kids not only are kinder to each other, they re smarter about solutions, and mike and i try to keep their voices at the forefront throughout the series, but we come back to the them at the end because they have more to say than people in positions of leadership. thank you to both of you for doing this, for bringing it to us. we re only going to tell these stories if we tell them in little chunks how this is playing out as opposed to philosophical discussions about racism. i m deeply appreciative to you. the co-hosts of nbc s southlake podcast. the final last episode drops on monday. subsc