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In the third episode exploring Ethnic As A Descriptive + Other Coded Language, Lezli is joined by Dr. Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies at American University. They discuss institutional patterns that maintain hierarchy in academia and send implicit messages to students, Disney’s Bunk’d, parallels of the US racial construct, and coded behavior in the LGBTQ community and the impetus for push back on the term Latinx.

Relevant and Recommended Reads:

• How to dismantle the workings of whiteness and redistribute power in academe

• How to fix Hollywood’s race problem

• Black Trans Women Seek More Space in the Movement They Helped Start

• This Comic Breaks Down Latinx vs. Latine for Those Who Want to Be Gender-Inclusive

Lezli co-hosts ON THE YARD for the first time with her daughter and Spelman College student, Nava Levene Harvell, ‘23. They chat with two Nigerian students that attend HBCUs. Amelia Ayomoh ‘23 and Divine Linus ‘23; students at Philander Smith College and Morehouse College respectively, share their experiences as international students, their rationale for tensions between continental Africans and African-Americans, and their thoughts on BLM.

Relevant and Recommended Reads

• AFRICA IN THE MEDIA

• News media offers consistently warped portrayals of black families, study finds

• From Wakanda to reality: Building mutual prosperity between African-Americans and Africa

• Why Black Undocumented Immigrants Are at Greater Risk for Deportation

The second episode under the theme “Ethnic As A Descriptive + Other Coded Language”, Lezli is joined by Dr. Niambi Carter, Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University and author of American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship as well as Dr. Lok Siu, a cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. The three discuss the evolution of the US racial construct circa The Hart-Celler Immigration + Nationality Act of 1965 against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement.

Relevant and Recommended Reads:

• American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship by Niambi Carter

• How the Model Minority Myth of Asian Americans Hurts Us All | Time

• The 1965 Law That Gave the Republican Party Its Race Problem

• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act)

Lezli and Zuri chat with two White students who attend Hampton University. Dario Abou Rjeili ‘21 and Emily Workman ‘22. The four discuss some of the issues brought to the fore due to Black Lives Matter and if Dario and Emily feel they have unique insight into these issues. They also discuss their thoughts on VICE media’s web episode focusing on a White student at Morehouse College. They discuss Whiteness and Emily shares how her understanding of Whiteness has evolved since attending Hampton. Dario, an international student from Venice, shares the crash course he received on American race relations when he entered Hampton as a freshman. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE FOR OUR DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING FAMILY

Relevant and Recommended Reads

• How HBCU Enrollment Grew In The Face of Hatred

• Students are using Instagram to reveal racism on campus

The first episode under the theme “Ethnic As A Descriptive + Other Coded Language” Lezli is joined by Dr. Matthew Frye Jacobson, a William Robertson Coe professor of American Studies in history and a professor of African American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of seven books on race, politics and culture in the United States, two of which are whiteness of a different color. European immigrants in the alchemy of race, as well as roots to white ethnic revival in the post civil rights America. In this episode they explore understanding the contemporary use of the word ethnic, who it describes and how it creates asymmetry of power is to understand whiteness within the context of the United States.

Relevant and Recommended Reads:

• Whiteness of A Different Color by Matthew Frye Jacobson

• The Anti-Racist Reading List

• Envy, Guilt, Symbolic Reparation and Images of Whiteness in Hollywood Sport Themed Films by Marcus Free

• Where I’m From by Aisha Harris

For this live-streamed ON THE YARD event, Lezli Levene Harvell and her co-host Zuri Levene Harvell Spelman College ‘21, explore the emotional toll of activism with Zion Gates Norris ‘21, SGA Vice President of Florida Memorial University as well as Nupol Kiazolu, President of Black Lives Matter-Greater NY, Hampton University ‘22. They are joined by Atlanta based psychotherapist, Dr. Thomas Vance who is trained in addressing the emotional well being of those with multiple stigmatized identities. The five of them explore a non-Eurocentric lens of mental health, defining racial trauma, Black GenZ not having to code-switch in therapy, what culturally responsive mental health care should feel like, and what intentional self-care looks like.

People rarely think of what was agriculture like in this country prior to Columbus. But they do understand that the US economy was primarily dependent on cash crops and enslaved black people (and then eventually sharecroppers) to cultivate their land. Now, with the current environmental issues the world is facing, these tillers of the land are experiencing circumstances like never before.

So on the fifth episode under the theme “Climate Change + COVID-19 + Communities of Color” Lezli is joined by an indigenous farmer and a black farmer to discuss how they’ve tackled the impact of COVID-19 and the global climate crisis. These farmers are Dr. Michael Kotuta Johnson, member of the Hopi, and Leonard Diggs, the Director of Operations at Pie Ranch. The three conversed about the indegeous and regenerative farming practices being used to combat climate change, how COVID-19 broke the food distribution chain within America, and strategies to solve the poor industrial farming practices.

Relevant and Recommended Reads

• From Apples to Popcorn, Climate Change Alternating the Foods by

• Dump Milk, Smashed Eggs

• Black farmers are embracing climate resilient farming

The fourth episode under the theme “Climate Change + COVID-19 + Communities of Color

Lezli and Zuri begin the conversation with the two of them exploring how the pandemic will impact Zuri’s senior year as well as Zuri’s concerns about the freshman and sophomore classes and their connection to Spelman. They share information on how HBCUs have developed the Black middle class and explore how the pandemic may possibly impact the future of the Black middle class. They discuss Spelman’s 40 million dollar gift from Netflix Co–Founder Reed Hastings and his Wife, Patty Quillin and the backlash from some of the alumni and current students of other HBCUs. They are later joined by Zuri’s classmate, Chantia Murphy ‘21. Chantia is an English Major with a 3.9 GPA, first generation American and college student with aspirations of working for a media outlet that focuses on telling Black stories. Chantia shares the financial impact of COVID-19 on her family and why she may not be able to return to Spelman for her senior year.

The third episode under the theme “Climate Change + COVID-19 + Communities of Color” Lezli is joined by Andre M. Perry, a Metropolitan Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution and two business owners/restaurateurs; James Beard Award winning chef; Nina Compton and award-winning marketer turned restaurant owner Karl Franz Williams. Karl and Nina share their battles with financial hardship during the global crisis.. Perry is the author of the recently published book, Know Your Price Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities; Nina, is owner of Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro in New Orleans; and Karl Franz Williams is owner of 67 Orange Street, in Harlem as well as the Anchor Spa in New Haven, Connecticut. The conversation between these four tackles how the legacy of systemic racism (eg red lining, discriminatory lending practices) has made Black businesses more susceptible to failure in comparison to their White counterparts both prior to the crisis and amidst the crisis. Lezli and her guests discuss data about the uneven distribution of funding from government recovery efforts (eg CARES Act) and why the legacy of discriminatory lending practices contributes to the uneven distribution of recovery dollars. Andre shares solutions and they wrestle with the troubling question of what America’s cultural landscape may look like if Black owned restaurants do not prevail.