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Why does evidence not become accountability? This episode introduces hegemony and intersectionality to explain how exploitation becomes common sense — and why reform often stabilizes the very structure it claims to change. The workforce crisis is not a labor problem alone. It is a governance problem.

Works & Scholars Referenced

Toni Morrison — “A Humanist View” (1975); Playing in the Dark (1992)

Ruha Benjamin — Race After Technology (2019)

Kimberlé Crenshaw — “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” (1989)

Antonio Gramsci — Selections from the Prison Notebooks

Audre Lorde — “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1979)

Christine L. Williams — “The Glass Escalator” (1992)

Stuart Hall — “The Problem of Ideology” (1986)

Lea J.E. Austin — CSCCE racial wage gap and workforce research

Films & Documentaries

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

Inequality for All (2013)

The Take (2004)

Make A Circle (2025) — Early childhood educators organizing for structural reform

You can find the full transcript, citations, and extended reading list at waginglove.org

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Care has always been here.

The question is whether we will finally build a system that protects the people who provide it.

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