‘Greatest Seasons Ever: Sean Lowe’ with Robyn Jedkins and Leslie Hughes

We are coming back in the midst of a global pandemic and a series of nationwide (and global!) protests against racism and specifically police brutality. We always want the podcast to feel like it’s adding something to the world, not taking up space. So the context of the world has changed how we will be approaching this season.

On this episode, we have a short discussion about Sean Lowe’s season, which was the first Bachelor season after a class-action lawsuit was filed against the show by two men, Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, alleging that “the deliberate exclusion of people of color from the roles of the Bachelor and Bachelorette” violated their civil rights.

One of the results of trimming the season down to spotlights on its final six or so contestants – and fan fave Sarah Herron – was that the only woman of color spotlighted was Catherine. None of the black contestants really got any screen time.

But two black women actually had notable arcs on the season – Leslie Hughes, who made it to week four, and Robyn Howard, who made it to week five. Leslie garnered a glam one-on-one, the annual Pretty Woman shopping spree date, and Robyn, when she wasn’t getting mixed up in Tierra drama, had a pretty frank conversation with Sean about race.

To look back at that season, the first for several years that even had any black contestants, we talked to Leslie and Robyn about their time on the show.

Links:
National Bail Fund - https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
Bachelor Diversity Campaign - https://www.change.org/p/abc-a-campaign-for-anti-racism-in-the-bachelor-franchise
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