Welcome to the (AfAm) House
By Afro American Cultural Center at Yale
The Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University (affectionately called “the House”) was established in the fall of 1969 after the rise of issues surrounding race and civil unrest at Yale and throughout the New Haven community. Learn more about the House at afam.yalecollege.yale.edu.
Want to hear the full unedited interviews with our speakers and get access to so much more? Join our Patreon www.patreon.com/user?u=41836892
Welcome to the (AfAm) HouseApr 10, 2020
Middle Ground Discussion: First-Years and Seniors
For this episode of Welcome to the AfAm House, we present a Middle-Ground inspired episode in which we discuss different dialogues with 2 current first-years and 2 current seniors. We spoke with Dani Doss '24, Zada Brown '24, Hunter Robbins '27 and Miles Kirkpatrick '27 about their experiences at Yale and asked their opinions on certain statements. You can keep up with them by following them on Instagram at @danid6707, @zada.b_ , @hunnashane_, and @miles.kir.
Reclaiming Our Fashion (Black History Month Special)
Happy Black History Month! In this episode of Welcome to the AfAM House newest podcast team member, Steven Shepherd speaks with three fashion-forward Yale first year students, Christian Daniels ‘27, Marame Diop ‘27, and Kellsie Lewis ‘27 about fashion while in college and some of their fashion hot takes. Diop and Lewis are also cofounders of a new fashion group called FLY (Fashion Lifestyle at Yale) that functions as an outlet for creative and stylistic expression for students on campus . You can keep up with Christian, Marame, and Kellsie by following their instagrams, @christiandaniels_, @marame.ee, @Kellsielewis, as well as the FLY instagram @fly.yale.
Taking the Good With the Bad
In this episode of Welcome to the AfAm House, we speak with Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb ‘92 about his experiences as a Yale undergraduate in the 80s and 90s as well as his family genealogy. Representative Rabb is a descendant of the Livingstons— a wealthy slave owning family for which one of Branford College’s courtyards is named after. In this episode, we untangle race, family genealogy, and Yale what that means in our current political moment. You can keep up with Representative Rabb on instagram @RepRabb.
Black Creatives
For this episode, we spoke with Malachi Beasley, Anaiis Rios-Kasoga, and Caleb Dunson about their work as Black creatives and what it means to be a Black artist at Yale and in the world at large. You can keep up with their work by following their Instagram @_malachibeasley, @anaiisrioskasoga, and @caleb.dunson.
Onwards and Upwards
In this episode, we speak with Assistant Dean of Yale College Risë Nelson about her tenure as Director of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale. We discuss her journey to Yale, how she ushered in a renaissance at the AfAm House, and her plans for the future as the inaugural Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Yale University Library.
Redefining Masculinity
In this episode, Welcome to the (AfAm) House speaks with professional basketball player Damen Bell-Holter. Damen Bell-Holter was raised in Hydaburg, Alaska and has played for both Fortitudo Agrigento of the serie A2 and the Boston Celtics. Listen in to hear Bell-Holter's reflections on being Black and Indigenous, redefining the concept of masculinity, and lessons he has learned over the course of his life and career. To learn more about Bell-Holter and his work, go to his website at https://www.damenbellholter.com/.
Blackness, Athletics, and the Ivy League
Happy Black History Month! For this month's episode, we spoke with the Yale Sr. Associate Athletic Director Nathalie Carter as well as two Black student athletes, Laila Booker (women’s soccer) and Audrey Leak (women’s volleyball) in order to get insight into their experiences as Black administrators and athletes within the world of athletics at Yale University, as well as how they are working to improve this space for future generations of Black collegiate athletes. You can keep up with Yale Athletics by visiting their website at yalebulldogs.com as well as following their social media @Yaleathletics on both Twitter and Instagram!
The Joyful Journey of Language Learning ft. Dr. Ifunanya Nwanonyiri
Happy Indigenous People’s Month! It is important that we uplift and support Indigenous peoples and Indigeneity across the world not just during the month of November but year round.
You can support Dr. Ifunanya Nwanonyiri by listening to her podcast “Ọjị Abịala: An Igbo podcast” on Spotify and Soundcloud, and you can also keep up with the podcast by following their Twitter and joining their Clubhouse.
Decolonizing Healthcare
Ericka Hart
Instagram: @ihartericka
Website: http://ihartericka.com/
Wear Your Voice - They need to hit their patreon goal by Nov 30!
Twitter: @WearYourVoice
Patreon: @wearyourvoice patreon.com/wearyourvoice
Baldwin 2nd Generation - Instagram
Link to My Gender is Black article mentioned in the podcast
Kelewele and the Power of Plantain
Rachel Naa-Du Laryea is a doctoral student in the joint degree program in Anthropology and African American Studies at Yale University and the founder of Kelewele, a plantain based food company. In the definition of culture, food is one of the main components. In her work with Kelewele Rachel continues a long tradition of connecting the African Diaspora through a known and beloved super food, plantain.
Get Rachel's recipe book A Plantain Love Story here
Women, Fashion and the Decolonization Movement in Togo
From the 1960s-1980s, a group of Togolese women cloth traders were among some of the most powerful people in Togo. Their influence spanned the economical, social and political spheres. One of them became such an icon and inspiration, she was featured in Ebony magazine, a premiere magazine for African-Americans in the USA. We are learning about them from Marius Kothor, a PHD student in History at Yale University writing about the Nana Benz for her dissertation.
Check out Marius' twitter here.
You can check out pictures of mentioned Nana Benz member Eunice Adabunu here.
Episode music if from Free Music Archive. The song is entitled Bless-Ups by Ketsa.
Mother Tongue
Our guest today, Nandipa Sipengane, join us today to talk about the importance and beauty of her indigenous language isiZulu.
Wine Language
Tanisha Townsend has cultivated a community of wine enthusiasts through an unyielding passion for oenology. As Chief Wine Officer of lifestyle agency Girl Meets Glass, Tanisha leads wine classes and tours in Paris (and virtually). She also hosts the podcast, Wine School Dropout. Her goal is to empower individuals with an advanced knowledge of wine & spirits in order to build confidence in their tastes and make choices as a better informed consumer.
The Language of Earth Keepers
Happy Earth Week! We need the Earth. Farmer and founder of Off Grid in Color, Chantel Johnson joins us today to talk about the ways Earth is communicating with us and ways we can more lovingly communicate with the Earth.
Episode Questions
What is the origin of the land you currently live on? Who were the original stewards of the land?
What is/are your daily practice(s) for taking care of the Earth? How do you communicate with the Earth?
How do you support Earth keepers?
How are you disengaging from capitalism?
Stay in touch with and support the work of OGIC!
Website:www.offgridincolors.com
Email:offgridincolor@gmail.com
IG: www.instagram.com/offgridincolor/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/offgridincolor
Farm Raiser: https://gofund.me/f2c8ccb1
Become a Sustaining Donor: https://pages.donately.com/offgridincolor/form/frm_ba7e87b92c77
Resources
Learn more about the history of land left from Black farmers here
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michele Elizabeth Lee
Check out and support the work of other Black women farmers such as Tanya Fields of the Black Feminist Project, and organizations dedicated to Black farmers such as Acres of Ancestry
The Power of Vulnerability
Emily Bernard is the the Julian Lindsay Green & Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont and an award winning author. In this episode, we explore the concept of vulnerability, a powerful theme present throughout her latest book Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine.
Episode Resources
Emily Bernard’s website
Why I Finally Forgave My Fathers Mistress by Emily Bernard
Episode Question
What does vulnerability mean to you?
What are some of the ways you incorporate vulnerability into your life?
Who are you able to be vulnerable with?
What is the purpose of vulnerability?
What makes you feel powerful? Is feeling powerful important to you?
What story are you writing about yourself?
A Gap Year To Remember
Ife Desamours Adeyeri is a PhD student at Yale University studying Microbiology. She joins us to talk about what it was like growing up in six different countries as the daughter of a UN Human Rights lawyer, and the many fascinating experiences she had during her gap year.
Episode Questions
1) What are the places you want to travel to? What do you want to do when you get there?
2) How do you decide which places to travel to? What are your safety considerations?
3) When is the last time you did something new?
Credits
This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Shantrice King. Special thank you to the Afro American Cultural Center at Yale and our guest Ife Desamours Ayederi.
Music provided by pixabay.com
More Love, More Joy
Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey aka DJ MOR Love, Joy is an activist and educator working on issues of militarism, armed conflict and violence against women. Margo was a member of the historic Black feminist Combahee River Collective. She is a founding member of the Afro-Asian Relations Council, East Asia-U.S. Women’s Network Against Militarism, and the Institute for Multiracial Justice and the International Network of Women Against Militarism. She has a long standing relationship to social justice work in South Korea and with the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling in Palestine.
Episode Questions
1) What do you love?
2) What brings you joy?
3) How are you working to be in service of others?
Resources
Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities
Breakdown of wealth gaps amongst Asians in the US
Feminist Freedom Warriors by Mohanty & Carty (2018) http://feministfreedomwarriors.org/book.php
Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives by Kirk & Okazawa-Rey (2020) https://learninglink.oup.com/access/kirk-okazawa-rey-7e
Credits
This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Shantrice King. Special thank you to the Afro American Cultural Center at Yale and our co-sponsor for this episode, Asian American Cultural Center.
Music provided by pixabay.com
How Not to Weaponize the Legacy of Dr. King (MLK) against Black People
James Forman Jr. is J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He attended public schools in Detroit and New York City before graduating from the Atlanta Public Schools. After attending Brown University and Yale Law School, he worked as a law clerk for Judge William Norris of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Forman’s first book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, was on many top 10 lists, including the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2017, and was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
Episode Questions
1) What is your role in making the world safe? What solutions are you working on?
2) In your new free world, who and what is present? Who and what is absent?
3) What work do you do and ho is it supported by the criminal legal system?
Resources
Center for Law and Racial Justice at Yale
Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s Drum major instinct sermon
Transcript : https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/drum-major-instinct-sermon-delivered-ebenezer-baptist-church
Audio- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mefbog-b4-4
Lawyers for Black Lives
http://www.law4blacklives.org/about-us
Black History Buff episode on Mrs. Coretta Scott King
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1412528674?i=1000423095580&at=1000lSDb
National Bail Out
https://www.nationalbailout.org/
A Lesson in Authenticity
Rosa Clemente has been an organizer since the 1990s, working on and studying Black and Brown liberation efforts in the US. Her work has taken her from hip hop centered organizing with youth in Brooklyn as a part of the Malcom X Grassroots Movement to campaigning across the country as a Vice Presidential candidate in 2008 for the Green Party. Through it all, one thing that has always remained, her determination to show up and be her most authentic self.
Bio
Rosa Alicia Clemente is a Black-Puerto Rican woman born and raised in the Bronx, NY. She is an organizer, producer, independent journalist and scholar-activist. Rosa was the first ever Afro-Latina woman to run for Vice-President of the United States in 2008 on the Green Party ticket. She and her running mate, Cynthia McKinney, were to this date the only women of color ticket in American presidential history. She is a frequent guest on television, radio and online media, as her opinions on critical current events are widely sought after. As president of Know Thy Self Productions, she has produced several major community activism tours over the last 20 years. As a co-founder and national coordinator of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention in 2003, Rosa helped bring together more than 3000 activists to create and implement a national political agenda for the Hip-Hop generation. She also co-founded the REACH Hip-Hop Coalition, a Hip-Hop generation-based media justice organization. You can learn more about her and her work on her website.
Episode Questions
1) How does authenticity show up in your life?
2) Are you a part of any social movements? Do those spaces affirm you and allow you to show up as your whole self?
3) What are ways we can be sure to uplift our community members and comrades?
4) What has been authentic cost you?
5) What do you think you gain by being authentic?
Resources
Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mai'a Williams, China Martens
Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities by Victoria Law
During our full interview Rosa talked about the Green Party's radical platform, here is a link to it.
Credits
This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Shantrice King. Special thank you to the Afro American Cultural Center at Yale and our co-sponsor for this episode, La Casa Cultural de Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center.
Music from the episode is from bensound.com
Congratulations Black 2020 Graduates
A Tribute to the Black Yale graduating class of 2020.
Special thank you to Alyssa Ince for sharing her rich experiences at Yale with us on this episode.
Black at Yale
Alyse Robinson and Raajii Daniel are the Co-Presidents of the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY). This interview provides a glimpse into their experiences as Black students and Black leaders at Yale .
Stay up to date with BSAY by following them on their instagram, BSAY instagram, or checking out their website, BSAY website.
Find out more about the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale by checking out our website and following us on instagram.
Black Church
Two Black Churches, same city, different work. Music in this episode is by Universal Jubilaires and the song is entitled childhood days
Healing Hands
This week's episode of Welcome to the (AfAM) House explores traditions of healing amongst Black people in the United States. Our guests for this episode are Dr. Deidre Cooper Owens, Thema Haida, Hanifa Nayo, and Leonne Tanis. Through their rich knowledge, we delve into the stories of the earliest known Black healers, Black women, and move through history to investigate how Black people have retained traditions that keep them healthy and cared for.
Guest Speaker Bios
Dr. Deidre Cooper Owens is the Charles and Linda Wilson Professor in the History of Medicine and Director of the Humanities in Medicine program. She is also an Organization of American Historians’ (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer. Her first book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology (UGA Press, 2017) won the 2018 Darlene Clark Hine Book Award from the OAH as the best book written in African American women’s and gender history. Professor Cooper Owens is also the Director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the country’s oldest cultural institution. Stay connected and learn more about her by visiting her website.
Thema Haida is the co-founding Practitioner of One Village Healing. is a certified Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master Teacher, a 200hr Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Instructor, and a certified Advanced Metaphysical Healing Practitioner. While holding a space of non-judgement and care, Thema combines Reiki with intuitive energy assessments to facilitate and guide people on their healing journey to wholeness. Her practice as a energy healer and yoga instructor has focused on supporting community activists, artists, healers, and people of color- the people that hold and bring life to communities that are most affected by racism, systematic oppression and inequality. .
Hanifa Nayo Washington is the Principle Organizer and co-founding Practitioner of One Village Healing. She is an award winning cultural activist, storyteller, singer songwriter, performing artist, and a certified Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master Practitioner who graduated from Beloit College in 2001 with a B.A. in Communications & Russian & Soviet Studies. Hanifa is a former Arts Fellow of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund and currently works with The Word Poetry, Co-Creating Effective and Inclusive Organizations (CEIO), serves as an Intern for Beyond Diversity 101, and is a leader of the New Haven Community Leadership Program. As a cultural activist Hanifa views her creativity as a radical tool for liberation, healing, and community building. Most recently Hanifa was awarded a Phenomenal Woman in the Arts Award by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
Leonne Tanis is a change agent, evolving leader, former finance executive and current student midwife. Leonne Tanis left her 15 year financial career to pursue her calling in midwifery. Leonne’s mission is to change the birthing profession for birthing people especially black women and persons and people within the LGBTQIA community. Leonne believes that birthing care should be centered around the person giving birth and her/his/their chosen support structure. Leonne is a Haitian-American with an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Master’s of Science in Nursing candidate at the Yale School of Nursing a Board member of the National Association to Advance Black Birth.
This episode is hosted, written and produced by Shantrice King.