It's Friday, July 16th. I'm Akila Hughes.

And I'm getting arrested. This is what today, the podcast that when you download it,

will cause ransomware software to avoid your computer.

Yeah, half the code in each of those ransomware viruses devoted to avoiding wild listeners.

Uh-huh. Please don't interpret this to me. We are friends with these cyber hackers.

Yeah, I don't know them, but I feel like they did a cool thing here.

Yeah, I mean, this was great. I don't know them either. I just want to be fair.

Today, we're dedicating our entire show to a major passion project for conservatives

across the country, which has put educators and students into the crosshairs.

The teaching of what is called critical race theory.

Yeah, and at its heart, it's the idea of explaining how systemic racism has persisted in our

country's policies and laws throughout history.

The concept is not at all new. For example, banks have historically been more likely to

deny mortgages to black people in America that had consequences impacting where black people could

live, what kinds of schools their kids could go to, what kind of community they could build,

and more. That racist system is part of the country's history.

That's right, but using a phrase like critical race theory to describe it is a relatively new

phenomenon. And conservatives around the country are so unbelievably triggered by it that many

have moved to ban it from being talked about in public classrooms, in various state agencies,

and more. In fact, lawmakers in 26 states have either banned or are trying to ban critical

race theory in some form. Teachers themselves say this political effort is only going to hurt

children in the end. For instance, here's Randy Weingarten, the president of the nation's

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