The second of three volumes of “ON THE YARD” episodes inspired by the HOMECOMING HOLIDAY. Lezli and her ON THE YARD co-host Nava Levene Harvell; Spelman College ‘23, chat about the shifting of power in college athletics with Sports Editor of The Howard University Hilltop, Kira Grant; Howard University ‘21, and Sports Photojournalist for The Hampton Script, Trey Wilson, Hampton University ‘22. The four explore the civic engagement of Makur Maker, Mikey Williams and how the new generation of 15 and 16 yr-old athletes can impact the future of HBCUs and the Black community at large.
Lezli continues this five-episode theme on historical nostalgia and romanticizing colonialism with Prof. Anthony Szczesiul, author of The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory. Why did Southern Living magazine make its debut at the height of the Civil Rights Movement? What does “southern hospitality” mean? Benevolence, graciousness, refinement? Mmm, it’s complicated. They explore the racist origins of the phrase, the historical context of its emergence, and why this “regional virtue” has become part of the United States' cultural memory and identity.
The first of three volumes of “ON THE YARD” episodes inspired by the HOMECOMING HOLIDAY. Lezli and her ON THE YARD co-host Zuri Levene Harvell; Spelman College ‘21, chat cultural memory in the African-American community with Leila Sampson; Spelman College ‘21, whose family has been attending Spelman and Morehouse since the 1890s and Jada Thorne, Spelman College ‘21, who is a third-generation Oak Bluffs Family, a legacy started by her grandfather who was one of the Tuskegee Airmen. The four explore the traditions they hope remain for forthcoming generations, how Spelman and summering on Martha’s Vineyard empowered them respectively, and why they feel they must continue this legacy.
Melania’s Hat, Plantation Weddings, and Indochic. Why do people long for a time period they’ve never experienced? Over the course of five episodes, IDE Impolite Conversation will explore romanticizing colonialism in popular culture. Lezli kicks off this theme with a conversation with Caitlin Faulkes, British-based psychologist specializing in nostalgia. She conducted one of the first pieces of empirical research on historical nostalgia and developed the first index to measure personality traits associated with historical nostalgia.
Lezli and her ON THE YARD co-host Zuri Levene Harvell; Spelman College ‘21, chat with two Afro-Latina students, Maya Machado; Spelman College‘21 and Zula Oliveira; Clark Atlanta University‘23.They explore being held to a mestiza and European beauty esthetic, people not assuming they are not Latina because they are Black, being affirmed by Amara La Negra, the lightening and whitening of Reggaeton and the people forgetting it’s Afro-Panamanian roots
Lezli chats with Tanya Katerí Hernández, internationally recognized comparative race law expert and Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. The two explore the mythology of national identity over racial identity in Latin America, anti-Black customs that make anti-Black laws unnecessary, "boa aparência/good looking” as a job qualification, and how Hurricane Maria “outed” folks with 4A, B, and C hair.
Impolite Conversation Curated by The Iconoclast Dinner Experience - Episode 18: “ON THE YARD”: Anti-Blackness in Latinidad with Afro-Latinx HBCU Students
It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month. Lezli and her ON THE YARD co-host Nava Levene Harvell; Spelman College ‘23, chat with two Afro-Latinx students, Leonard McClinton; Morehouse College‘23 and Liana Viaga; Florida A&M University‘22.They explore the importance of people understanding the difference between ethnicity and race, that they aren’t Spanish, if they feel included in Latinidad, mestizo privilege, and why the use of the word Black needs to be more inclusive.
Latinidad: The Darker Other, Anti-Blackness, and Mejorar La Raza
It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month! We’re kicking it off with some Impolite Conversation! Lezli chats with Dr. Katie L. Acosta, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University. They explore historical periods of whitening in Latin America (mejorar la raza/"improve the race"), who isn’t included in Latinidad, Zoe Saldana, the policing of Blackness, and what gets lost in translation.
Impolite Conversation Curated by The Iconoclast Dinner Experience - Episode 16: “ON THE YARD” HBCU VOTE 2020
For this live-streamed event, Lezli and her ON THE YARD co-host Zuri Levene Harvell; Spelman College ‘21, chat with two SGA Presidents students, Alanna Gaskin;Prairie View A&M University ‘21 and Xavier McClinton; Florida A&M University ‘21, as well as Andrea Hailey CEO of Vote.org about some of the unprecedented voting-related obstacles facing college students this election season, digital voter suppression, the national poll worker shortage crisis, data from the 2020 mid-terms regarding the percentage of rejected mail-in/absentee ballots of college students, and exact solutions on how to ensure your vote is counted this election season.
In the first part of this two-part episode, Lezli chats with Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D., a Museum Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). They explore how and why food and restaurants served as indispensable tools in the fight for democracy during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. During Part two, Lezli chats with Louisville based James Beard Award-winning Chef Edward Lee. Lee talks about the Community Kitchen he opened in Louisville during BLM's wake and named in honor of David McAtee. McAtee was a beloved chef, community pillar, and owner of YaYa's BBQ in the West End of Louisville. A member of the National Guard fatally shot him in the early hours of June 1st. Lee shares what his goals for the kitchen are and what measurable progress looks like to him.
Lezli closes out the topic that explores Ethnic As A Descriptive, Other Coded Language, and who gets to be American with a two-part conversation. First, she chats with Tyler Phillips, Director of Culture & Lifestyle Partnerships at Bacardi USA. The two explore coded language in marketing and how brands should move forward in a post-George Floyd/Breonna Taylor world with their storytelling. Part two of this episode, Lezli chats with emerging filmmaker Ekwa Msangi about her film Farewell Amor which was the belle of the ball at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is an Official Selection at the 2020 Urbanworld Film Festival. Msangi’s directorial debut shifts the paradigm of what an American love story looks like. Farewell Amor tells the story of an Angolan immigrant joined in the U.S. by his wife and daughter after 17 yrs of being separated due to visa challenges. Now, strangers, they discover a shared love of dance that may help them overcome their distance.
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.
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 andDivine 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.
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.
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
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.
For this live-streamed ON THE YARD event, Lezli Levene Harvell and her co-host Zuri Levene HarvellSpelman 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.
