Mainline Presents: Hear Her The Mainline

In the final episode of the season, Hear Her host Cartier Georgette is joined by Jacquasia Vandros, founder of Black Girls Can Heal, Inc. The two discuss the importance of healing for Black women and girls, the impacts and effects of generational trauma, and how to break the cycle.

This week, Hear Her host Cartier Georgette talks with Sylvia about gentrification and its iterations in Atlanta, and which communities it affects the most. Some argue the changes gentrification brings are positive, such as bringing jobs, raising home equity, and making Atlanta a "hot spot" for younger generations. Critics argue it largely and disproportionately affects lower-income Black and brown communities in the city, creating a large divide between class and race.

Atlanta is tied with Baltimore at 22% for the highest rates of gentrification and is the fourth-fastest gentrifying city in the U.S. Atlanta also has one of the highest pay gaps in America, with investors from California and Texas coming to the city to build projects like Echo West, Quarry Yards, Centennial Yards, and more.

Meanwhile, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has promised the city affordable housing on the campaign trail and throughout her administration. Yet, people—particularly Black families—are regularly displaced and pushed further out of the city. Listen in to learn more about what's happening in Atlanta and across the country, as well as where you can learn more about your Neighborhood Planning Unit!

This week, Cartier talks with T, founder of UBLC Atlanta, a community organization focused on dismantling systems and creating support from within through mutual aid. T and Cartier discuss the five types of community (interest, action, place, practice, + circumstance), mutual aid, and the reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual aid benefit.

As we are all caught up in the tumultuous Election Day cycle, protests aren’t receiving the same widespread coverage they did in the wake of George Floyd and it appears a lot of people have stopped screaming Black Lives Matter. But guess what? They still matter (Black women, we see you, fighting to mobilize the vote and protect democracy more than any other person in this country) and organizations are here doing a lot of great work to directly benefit their communities. This work deserves our attention and requires the spread of information, volunteers, and donations.

Black creatives are important. Black womxn creatives are especially important and necessary for envisioning our future. They push the limits and tell stories we love, make imges we never forget, write poems that touch us deeply, and author books that we return to again and again.

Hear Her host Cartier Georgette sits down with Katrina a.k.a. hip hop artist King Cooley, whose track “Southside AF” is the intro/outro of the Hear Her podcast, and filmmaker Colbie Fray to discuss their creative processes and projects during these unprecedented and uncertain times while navigating their fields as Black womxn. Both of these womxn run businesses here in Atlanta to support other Black creatives: Katrina is Creative Director of @elev8edusc and Colbie founded @dopeaffilms. The group reflects upon how and what they put out for their audience, their business models, and how they relate to current economic, personal, and social conditions. They also weigh in on how this year has provided an opportunity for transformation if we buckle down and do the work.

Tune in to hear about what these Black womxn creatives are up to and how they’re moving forward with their work. King Cooley just dropped album "Heat" today on Spotify and Colbie’s short film “Laundry Day” was just featured in Oz Magazine so go check those out!

For more info on King Cooley’s design agency Elev8ted, visit https://elev8edusc.com/.
For more info on Colbie Fray’s production company Dope Artistic Focus Films, visit https://www.dopeaffilms.com/.

This episode is all about friendship in all of its complexity and differences. For many of us, friends are like family. Joined by some of her girlfriends, who are all Black womxn, host Cartier begins the conversation reminiscing about the show Girlfriends, which aired on UPN/CW from 2000-8 and was recently released on Netflix. The group talks about difficulties of life during COVID-19, including keeping up with friendships. Throughout the episode, the friends reveal what their friendships look like and what is important to them.

Being a Black womxn is hard, and being friends with fellow Black womxn who can relate to each other in their experiences is important, especially right now. Because nobody rides for Black womxn like Black womxn.

Special thanks to the friends featured in the episode—Cassandra, Angelica, and Ashley—and those not featured here.

This week, Hear Her host Cartier Georgette sat down with Melody Bray to talk about the upcoming election, which will probably be the most important election of our lifetime. This election will shape the future of the next generations, and will impact many of our lives. The Civil Rights Movement made way for Black Americans to be able to vote, but voter suppression is still a real threat (we see you #briankemp). Melody, who is involved in the Georgia 55 Project, talks about the organization’s efforts to make voting accessible and fun.

Tune in to hear Cartier and Melody’s conversation to learn more about how to vote and the importance of voting early in this election. Vote! Let’s work together to move us forward, let’s make our voices heard.

For more information about The Georgia 55 Project and voting, please visit https://www.georgia55.org/