Notes From the Margins: What Call the Midwife, HillmanTok, and Tommy Robinson Reveal About Power

In this third episode of Rigour & Flow, we introduce our new three-part format - spotlighting the stories, ideas, and questions we can’t stop thinking about.

Aiwan unpacks a jarring moment in the hit show Call the Midwife to explore how Black people are represented (and misrepresented) on screen, and what it says about who’s behind the camera.

Tamanda dives into the story of HillmanTok - a viral, TikTok-powered learning community inspired by the legacy of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) - to ask what happens when research escapes the academy and meets the people. Named after the fictional Hillman College from A Different World, the initiative nods to the legacy of HBCUs while reimagining what radical Black education can look like online.

And in response to a big question from someone in our network, we wrestle with whether we’d ever take on a project involving Tommy Robinson - and what that says about values, representation, and the limits of pigeonholing.

This is an episode about culture, curiosity, and where we choose to show up - even when it’s uncomfortable.

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