so i think um i'd like to get started
if uh everybody is ready
um my name is joanna nelson boynton
class of 88.
some of you know me as jojo i'm
president of the harvard varsity club
and uh this is a terrific honor and
privilege to be
introducing this evening um we
have been having lots of conversations
in the recent weeks
um to to begin a conversation
and as as the title suggests uh race
sport and harvard
active steps and conversations um toward
change
um we hope that this will be a beginning
of a series of conversations
and we really appreciate all of you
joining us we appreciate the staff at
the harvard varsity club tonight
helping us host this and i will
introduce our moderator
and then you will get to hear lots about
um the wonderful people on the panel
who've um
been willing to join us in this um
journey and i
i'm so appreciative and and theresa
moore uh class of 1986 is our our
moderator tonight she and i were in
college at the same time she's a
teeny bit older but she is uh
ivy league hundred meter chat champion
in her track and field days
but more importantly she's been in the
business of
sports marketing and her uh own started
her own media production company
um called tea time productions um and
has
has been in the field of um
focusing on issues of race and sport
long before
any of this conversation began here
officially so we're really lucky to have
her
and teresa will take over and
i really look forward to the
conversation and i appreciate all the
people who've joined us tonight it's
it's exciting start to a
a wonderful um journey through this
topic
well thank you jojo i'm very excited to
be here and i want to welcome everyone
and thank you for participating
and joining us this evening in what is a
series of critical discussions
um i think the one thing that we've
stressed is that a key goal for
our work in this area is that it's not
just discussions but it actually turns
itself into actions
moving forward so i'm very excited to be
joined by these uh
four amazing panelists and i'm going to
give some brief introductions so
bear with me as i read so i don't you
know in any way mess it up so we've got
tracy green
who has completed 13 seasons as the
sheila kelly polangian head coach for
harvard women's tennis
and has led the crimson to two ivy
league championships
she currently serves on the usta
collegiate pathway national committee
on the board of the black women in sport
foundation on the uspta diversity and
inclusion committee
and as the outgoing board chair of the
sportsmen's tennis and enrichment center
so
welcome tracy we've got chris egge
who class of 18 who captained the men's
basketball team to an ivy league
championship in 2018
and that same year became the first
varsity athlete in recent memory to be
selected as the undergraduate student
orator
at harvard commencement he is also the
founder of no more names a youth-led
fundraising and awareness-building
organization
created to combat criminal injustice
police brutality and to empower youth to
vote
so welcome chris uh we've got joseph
johnson also of class of 18
who was a two-time captain of the
harvard wrestling team
a three-time ncaa championships
qualifier
and a three-time academic all-american
as an undergraduate he served as the
consent
as a consent advocate and relationship
educator helping to address campus rape
culture and building a safer community
for students by educating peers on
fostering health fostering healthier
relationships so welcome joseph
and then last but no way least um
ghazimusa
who is class of 19. she won five ivy
league championships as a sprinter and
captain the women's track and field team
in 2018-2019
she's the founder of aesthetics and
athletics a platform and podcast
to empower and inspire the athlete in
every woman
and is co-president of the seattle
chapter of the alumni network for
harvard women so welcome ghazi
and welcome to all of our panelists i'm
extremely excited to have you here
uh for everyone listening the format is
that we are going to engage with our
um panelists for approximately 45
minutes and then have a q a
session where you can submit your
questions so
i want to start out just asking the
panel kind of from the 30
000 foot view that we've seen sports
leaders and athletes be at the forefront
of some of these recent discussions
regarding race
systemic racism and
police injustices so what role do you
think
sports does or can play in starting to
address some of these
issues so maybe we'll start with tracy
and go from there
well first i want to say thank you to
the varsity club for
putting this event on it's conversations
like these
that we need so hopefully we can keep
these going um
and to our panelists up here our young
folks
um it's been it's been fun to to watch
you from afar and
kind of see you blossom obviously i
wasn't your coach but you know obviously
everybody lives vicariously for everyone
so um congratulations on your on your
careers as well
and thank you a good teresa um
to answer that question i absolutely
believe uh athletes
should get involved be able to speak up
um you know state their opinions
i think too many folks put athletes on a
pedestal with coaches on a pedestal
um too many times we we see celebrity as
a time we have to be a politician
um you know you know too much
um especially when it comes down to uh
human rights issues and that's what we
have right now um
i think about a sport like tennis and
tennis is obviously a very
white sport uh and i think back to folks
who played tennis before me
like arthur rash alfie gibson i just i
look at it an amazement of all the
things they did
to break through barriers and just to
kind of combat
racism every single day it makes me
makes me feel like
what am i doing what am i even doing
right now uh to
to to further this cause makes me feel
you know my new
in a sense um but i am so um
hopeful and amazed about
with all the things that are going on
right now and i'm really hoping
um this conversation this conversation
can keep going
and we can really move the ball forward
in terms of that
actually making real change okay thanks
uh tracy chris yeah no
uh thanks crazy for everything you just
said i think that really hits me on the
nose
um two other things i kind of think
about when i think about athletes and
sports and the impact they can have with
respect to race
the first being the the just the
visibility of professional sports
collegiate sports and the attention that
the athletes garner
you know offers them the opportunity to
create moments in themselves
where we're able to kind of sprite these
dialogues
so for example when you think back to uh
colin kaepernick and him
taking a nail and kind of how that
sparked the whole
kind of rush of athlete activism young
people becoming more aware of the issue
that dialogue being apparent on
television and kind of permeating
culture
um and that was sparked just by an nfl
player you know kneeling
during during the anthem it's not like
he gave a great big speech
or you know he did anything extremely
crazy
but um because of the visibility and the
way we put
athletics and sports kind of on a
pedestal as tracy said
um it offered an opportunity to create a
moment in itself um
which i think is extremely powerful and
then the second is sports as
as community and the ability that you
know sports offers to have conversations
like this
um one thing you know a big credit to
my coach at harvard and tommy hamrick we
we had a you know he would give us
articles
in the locker room he leave it you know
he'd leave it in our locker
on top of our shoes when we came back
when we came in for practice
and you know we would read and uh um
about different issues and
you know we had the opportunity to meet
dr harry edwards but through
that kind of communal opportunity of
being athletes
myself you know someone who you know has
lived these issues firsthand but also my
white
teammates who may not have experienced
that we were able to engage in the
dialogue
because we kind of had that communal
aspect of brotherhood and teamwork that
was pre-existing and a lot it allowed us
to kind of facilitate those discussions
across
boundaries whereas they might not have
happened before
okay thanks chris uh ghazi you want to
share your perspective
yeah i think chris made a great point
just about community and how
that's also important and i think a
quote from cream abdul jabar
said that sports could be our only hope
for true dialogue on these issues
um because in sports we're able to unite
regardless of race regardless
of diver of like how you look regardless
of what your
like sport you're playing like if you
all play the same sport you're able to
unite on the fact that you're playing
that sport
and i think it becomes almost this great
equalizer that allows people to
break down that barrier of oh we look
different but then have this unifying
idea and concept that we're playing the
same sport we're out here
all working hard on the same sport and
so
this is a space where we found this
equalizer and now let's also look at our
differences and be able to reconcile
with that and reckon with that
um and use that for good
okay and then joseph your your thoughts
yeah i would definitely echo everything
that's been said um
you know for me personally one of the
things that stick out the most
in my experience in wrestling is just
that communal
aspect of things um specific wrestling
like the heart of the sport
is in iowa pets pennsylvania is also one
of
the most competitive states um it's a
it's
just a very rural sport um
and you know for me a lot of the the
teams and communities that i
interacted with you know i was often you
know one of the
only black peers that people were
probably dealing with
um and just the the purity
and humanity involved in sports i think
you know
offers an opportunity to
you know bridge certain gaps in ways
that
people often aren't able to um you know
when you think about all the
institutions that people have the
opportunities
to engage with on a daily basis like
whether
it's your school or clubs that you join
it's often going to be people that look
like you
especially in more segregated parts of
the country so
um i think athletics is a wonderful
opportunity to bridge those gaps
and i guess parallel to that point um
chris kind of alluded to this as well
is just the emphasis on character
development that's so central
to effective coaching um i think you
know reflecting on
all of our experiences as athletes the
best coaches that we've had
you know are focused um not only on our
success on the mat or the court or the
track
but also you know our our success is
developing into strong adults men and
women
um and i think you know that orientation
of things
just provides a pretty powerful avenue
for
um you know having these difficult
conversations because you're definitely
you're not doing your job in building a
better person
if you know social justice is not one of
your priorities
okay um and and i think that that's all
very helpful too but the reality is that
sports is also a microcosm of society so
that
the same issues regarding race and
racism
that are present in society are present
and some would say prevalent
in the world of sports as you look at
ownership or things of that nature so
can you share maybe some of your
personal experiences
as a black student athlete or a blog
coach at harvard both positive and
negative
uh you want to start with uh joseph
yeah yeah for sure so i mean i already
kind of talked about
the demographics of wrestling um
you know at harvard my sophomore through
senior year i was the only black
wrestler on the team
and a lot of division one programs look
you know pretty much the same
in terms of racial diversity and
um you know some of the opportunities
that i think that brings
um you know in terms of educating people
um you know i alluded to you before but
on the negative side of things
um you know i think framing things as a
microcosm of broader societies
is a great way to put it because um
you know one of the bigger narratives
that you hear in the nfl
as an example is uh you know some of the
narratives that develop around black
quarterbacks
you often hear that they're super
talented and you know they don't have
they're not as uh technical and you know
they may not have a good arm
um and ultimately they just rely on
their athletic ability to succeed
and i think that's a narrative that
unfortunately you know due to the lack
of diversity in wrestling
is pretty um commonplace around black
wrestlers
um you know it's if if you're
going up against or one of your
teammates is wrestling a black wrestler
and you know nothing about him
they haven't seen any tape on them it's
not uncommon
to hear people already make assumptions
around how they
either a don't have a gas tank like they
don't have the endurance to last like b
they're not a technical wrestler
and as long as you can hang with them
and their athletic ability
and out uh technique them you're gonna
beat them uh without knowing anything
about these wrestlers
um you know that's a pretty common
narrative that i see
that i think is just you know obviously
a result of a lack of education
and a lack of representation uh it's
something that's like bothered me
throughout my career
um and i don't want to go on too long
but
outside of the wrestling room one thing
at harvard that i think
um ghazi and chris can probably speak to
as well
is just perceptions
around your identity a lot of people you
know when they see a black student on
harvard's campus like no matter how
well-meaning they are
um ultimately you need to find some sort
of justification
for why you know they're a student there
and their first assumption
often tends to be oh you're an athlete
and you know luckily for them
in those interactions with me i turn out
to actually be an athlete
um but you know if you talk to my
non-athlete peers who are black
on campus it's it's a very similar uh
situation i
i guess chris is you know almost seven
feet tall so
that might also be a fair assumption for
him but if you talk to the non-athlete
black students it's a very common thing
um
and i think there are just a lot of
assumptions that people
cast on you um you know when you're a
black student but then on top of that
when you're a black student who's also
an athlete
um that you know you would almost you'd
be shocked that those
sort of stereotypes carry on into
harvard square
but unfortunately they're pretty common
even in you know 2018
yeah and and joseph two things you said
that were really interesting because
they carry on
afterwards too because i i remember
encounters where i said i went to
harvard and everyone was like oh you
went to howard
and i'm like howard's a wonderful school
but i'm like no i went to harvard and
then
somehow athletics would come up and
they'd be like oh right like like
that was the only way that you could get
into it right and then
your comment about the nfl um we had
done a documentary about that and it was
kind of the thinking man positions
of quarterback and center and some
others for the longest time
had no blacks in them because it was all
assumed that they didn't have the
intellectual capabilities right and so
then you get
you know doug williams you know blowing
that up by winning the super bowl
but still having that narrative play
itself out so um chris you know joseph
mentioned
you know you kind of your experiences in
being you know almost seven feet tall so
so what is what are some of your
experiences yeah and
i thought joseph mentioned a point that
uh i thought was really interesting
of the idea of kind of the
intersectionality of being you know both
black and a student athlete at harvard
and and one way i think that really does
come into play
um is kind of i know you hear about
imposter syndrome
a lot and the idea that you know you're
coming and coming to harvard
you hear harvard's the best for the best
the best and then as being a black
student where people
might you know people have conversations
around affirmative action maybe you
don't deserve to be here
stuff like that people have i remember
actually during visitors
during my pre-frosh here i was on the
bus um
heading into boston i think and someone
men and you know someone saw
myself and i was with a kind of a
diverse crew of folks and they said this
is the affirmative action bus so
that kind of plays into this idea of
okay do i do do i deserve to be here and
you start to have kind of questions of
self-doubt
and then you you add on to that the fact
that you're a student athlete and
you know the perceptions that people
might have about student athletes on
campus again about
you know your academic progress and i
thought that you know at least early on
in my career
um that was a little bit damaging and
actually took like
quite a bit of reinforcement from you
know i had a great support system um
to actually believe that not only did i
belong at harvard but i could excel
academically because i thought that
you know a lot of my peers i felt
perceived me as you know just
that student athlete or just that you
know
kid who might you might not deserve to
be here and it's
and even though you're aware of you know
your talents and
everything else you know those questions
will arise and uncertainty
you know starts to creep in so i thought
that was a great point that joe made
and then you know just uh to offer a
point on the flip side of something that
positive for being a student athlete at
harvard i would say that you know some
of my best uh
a lot of my awakening honestly in terms
of learning more about these issues
came came from discussions with you know
my teammates came from discussions in
the locker room
i remembered you know the first major
protests i attended i attended with one
of my teammates as we were walking
outside of practice and
people were i think marching down mass
ave and we you know we were we're trying
to get to a dining hall
but we were just kind of overcome by
just people kept on going we said
we have to join in and um that
experience was really awakening for me
and really emboldened me
and you know i think played a key role
in you know some of the stuff i'm doing
now and uh
some of the stuff i did throughout my
college career because that was my
freshman year that happened so
um again going back to the idea of
community and having people that you
know you go to war with on the field or
on the court
and you can kind of go through you know
have this more uh
intangible war of dealing with these
societal issues and complex
dialogues that you know as a young as a
young you know
at the time i was 17 year old man um you
know in search of his identity
i think you know going through that with
other people who
you have a shared identity of sports
really helped
okay gauzy any uh anything that you want
to add
yeah i think chris and joe really hit on
this self
fulfilling prophecy idea and this
concept that we lie
at a double intersection and for me
personally it's like a triple
intersection of being a woman
but also being black but also being a
student athlete
and just the pressures that you can feel
there because even i remember coming in
freshman year
from high school someone said oh you'll
get into harvard because you're black or
oh you'll get into harvard because
you're an athlete
and it was this almost pressure of oh i
need to excel
academically and athletically in every
way because
i need to prove that stereotype wrong
and i think that comes with a lot of
pressure than
black athletes black student-athletes
put on themselves to exceed
this self-fulfilling prophecy that we
feel
is placed upon us and i think another
thing that
is really interesting that i think chris
and joe also hit on
was um just this intersection like
sports in itself like your specific
sport
because i can say for track and field
yes um it is a diverse sport in the
sense that we have
people of all backgrounds people of all
shapes and sizes
are part of the team but i think there's
this concept in the stereotype that
black women are sprinters and that
white women are distance runners and i
think even within a sport where it's so
diverse and you have people
from all backgrounds coming together you
still at some
levels have to do the work to integrate
um people on a team because if you've
grown up like growing up a sprinter if
i've always been
around other black sprinters and having
a white friendship on my team is a great
aspect and shows a different perspective
but when
it's like you only see or specifically
see white women
that run uh distance and then black
women that sprint
then that's the automatic stereotype
that a lot of people think of and if i
was to say
a distance runner it would be probably a
shock to a lot of people that
i was a black woman and i was a distant
trainer so i think there are a lot of
stereotypes even within diverse sports
that
come into play yeah now and that's an
excellent point because you always
see it when you see like the men's track
and field events and the white sprinter
walks up to the line and everybody's
like well it just happened you know and
the
and the guy from the ducks that actually
won and everyone was like okay everybody
hold the phone right so
um very interesting tracy you have a
different lens as a coach so what
what of your experiences or what do you
see both with the
students and student athletes that
you're helping coach but also
your interactions with other coaches
right you know it's funny um
what ghazi just said i get am i the
track coach like all the time
um so i think all this sort of carries
over
um and i'm listening to chris speak
about you know people you go to war with
and and tennis and i know you know
joseph you you participated in an
individual sport as well
um it's very combative it's like you
against someone else
non-stop so you really didn't have
anybody to really go to war with before
college so really college for athletes
is
really the first time they're actually
playing uh and competing on a team so
it's a whole new experience for a lot of
them
um because they pretty much played at an
elite level um
but tennis is just in my opinion this is
so isolating
um you know it's it's that constant day
in and day out
you know you against somebody else so
it's really we got to really
just break down these barriers just to
make sure we're all
kind of on the same team uh growing up
you know even
just you know coming from philadelphia a
pretty diverse
um city i pretty much lived in a
predominantly white neighborhood i went
to a
k-12 private school played tennis
obviously but still
felt so isolated in that sport still
felt all the pressure behind it because
there weren't that many people who
looked like me
you know playing tennis and the further
you got um level wise as a tennis player
um and coaching as well but tennis you
play sectionally
you know locally right you play
nationally you play internationally
there's no one
who looks like you or we're gonna kind
of go through the same things
that you go through um it's just
different right you make amazing friends
along the way but things are just
different um and i've always sort of um
sort of envied uh some other sports
where you you might come across
some folks who look like you a little
more frequently
um and obviously in the coaching world
they're not obviously
in case some folks don't know there
really aren't that many um black
women coaches at all um
in division one in general so that can
be pretty isolating as well
so i'm hopeful that uh you know folks
are really
taking all these all this data to heart
and trying to make some
some changes um you know as far as
individual instances uh it's interesting
i mean you could be on a plane
with your whole team there and they're
saying hey coach coach do the coach
coach and someone says
hey richard where's your coach and
they're talking to me like they just
literally heard
our team call me coach and they're
asking me who's the coach i said yeah
i'm the coach
oh wait wait you're the coach and i'm
saying yes i'm the coach well you're the
head coach
yes okay but where's the other head
coach no i'm the heck so it's like this
whole
you know perception thing right uh that
you go through pretty frequently our
team like cracks up sometimes
um when that happens uh i also heard
support systems uh mentioned in this
conversation that's huge
i think whenever you you know take a job
um i think it's important to try to
build relationships as much as you can
hopefully
you know your uh you know your company
or your school
has tried to make steps um to help you
create those and give you some supports
and if you can't maybe you have to build
them outside of your workplace
um this is one of the things that i i
did pretty pretty early i i got involved
with the sportsman's tennis and
enrichment center
um and and kind of worked my way up uh
you know on the board over there
they were located in dorchester that was
a good way for me to
wait for me to kind of connect with the
with the local community and
um and really i feel like i was you know
doing some important work
that not that the work we do now is not
that important but it allowed me to
connect
uh to some folks so i can go on and on
but
um those are a few things i think you
know the support systems and just
obviously the you know the bias that
takes place all the time
yeah and and it's interesting because
you and joseph both
mentioned kind of how it's almost it
seems like exacerbated a little bit when
you're on a team that
might have less diversity but then gaza
easily pointed out that even within
teams that are technically more diverse
you can still have a lack of diversity
or assumptions or stereotypes
right so um joseph has there you know is
there ever been a situation or are there
situations
you know because part of the
conversation around this is that
we have what are you know people who
want to be white allies right and so
many of the comments that came in for
this event were that
people feel like you know white people
want to step up but they don't know how
right so what would be some of your
guidance or what have been your
experiences
of people stepping up because you've
talked about the communities you have so
it could be a coach it could be a
teammate it could be someone in
administration but
what would be either your experience or
your guidance to white people who are
saying
i want to step in and help with some of
these situations but i don't
know what to say or what to do and i'll
start with you
joseph yeah i think um you know coming
from
a team where you know at best you're
supported by allies
um and you don't have that built-in uh
support network that looks like you um
i've reflected a ton on what that
experience
um felt like you know particularly over
the
past couple months and i've had a lot of
difficult conversations actually with
teammates
um and coaches of the past um having you
know navigated
through these um you know largely white
spaces
and you know when i reflect on some of
the more critical moments
um you know i think they're moments that
look like this one
um you know in the midst of a national
tragedy
that um you know just has a certain
severity of pain in across the black
community
um and you know
particularly with the with the george
floyd case like you know that's
something that
you you see that video and it's
impossible
to assume that everything's going to be
okay in the black community
and everything all of your black peers
are you know going to wake up and
feel the same way that they did
yesterday um
and a moment that paralleled that in
college for me that
you know has stuck with me and uh
affected me pretty dramatically i i'd
say was probably the summer of 2016
um where you had the murders of both
philando casspill and
alton sterling and you know it was a
very similar moment
in that you know you didn't have to be
very attuned to
uh you didn't have to be very attuned to
the struggle for racist
racial justice to know that you know
that's going to be a moment that
hurts the black community it hurts your
your black teammate or black
friend or roommate um
and you know i just recall struggling
you know seriously that summer it was
like one of the darkest periods of my
life
just reflecting on um you know race
relations in america
and the implications of something like
that on myself
you know it's a moment where you know
you're reminded no matter how much
privilege you accumulate
you know the color of your skin can be a
determinant of outcomes like that
and uh i struggled a lot and at the time
um you know i was i was living with two
guys who were teammates
like you know people that i was very
close with um that summer i don't mean
to call them out
like this isn't an attack on them but i
think it just you know speaks to
what good allyship can be and it's just
like a moment where like
you turn on the news like you're getting
iphone alerts about what's happening
and i think the first step of being an
ally
is just applying the empathy that you
apply
you know in every other facet of life
like you know if
midterm season comes around and
i'm really struggling and i look like
i'm going through it you're probably
gonna
you know say something because you know
that there's a stressor
um but if you see that happening and you
know
it's probably being caused by um
you know broader issues around race
relations like i think that's a moment
where
you know as as a friend as a teammate as
someone who should be able to empathize
with me
personally and easily like that's a time
where you have to step
up and it doesn't mean that you have to
be waving the flag
and be an example of you know
what perfect allyship looks like but i
think that's where you rely upon
your capacity for empathy for someone
that you've been in the transits with
like you've gone to war with
um and you've struggled with and like
you you need to identify
with the pain that they're going through
and initiate that conversation
because it's very easy to say well why
didn't you why are you not the one
initiating that conversation yourself
but it's important you know for our
allies to understand that
you know these are these aren't just
like frustrating moments like these are
deeply painful traumatic moments you
know that that the black community is
experiencing real
real time so it's not always easy for us
to be the
the one starting the conversation when i
don't even i don't know how you're gonna
respond like i don't know
where you stand um because you have made
it clear to me
so i think you know that receptivity and
just applying the empathy that you know
you expect
your friends and and colleagues and
close individuals to apply in other
scenarios
you know to those that relate to to race
because sometimes it's obvious you know
um it unfortunately doesn't get more
obvious
than the murder of george floyd which
you know is the reason why we're having
this conversation right now
but you know part of being a good friend
i think is is being attuned to those
things and
um you know caring about people the way
that you care about them
in other elements of their life as a
good teammate or as a good friend
i know thankful and i and i thank you
thank you and i think you hit on a good
point too like sometimes you're just
processing the stuff that's happening so
trying to process it and also initiate a
conversation is sometimes challenging
right so
um ghazi you want to add to that
yeah i was going to say something around
the aspect of
recruiting and how in order to be
an ally in that space there needs to be
a diversity of recruiting
and um looking back on the women's
sports foundation they were talking
about
the at this equity project and how
personally i
on the track team um was on a
predominantly in the spring group i was
on a predominantly black
squad of people but the numbers in terms
of the ncaa
are staggering when at like 21
of all female division 1 student
athletes are black and 56
of all division one female student
athletes are white and the sports that
have like
very few black athletes are softball
volleyball
soccer and swimming within lacrosse and
just looking at those numbers
i had it was a shock to me because being
a black athlete or bringing back student
athlete and being on a team
in a sport that's very diverse i don't
necessarily i didn't realize how stark
that was
and i think it comes down to like when
younger black women can see
older black women in ncaa at harvard in
these sports
playing those sports then they can start
to believe
and continue that dream and journey of
being an
athlete in that sport whether it's
volleyball whether it's softball or
whether it's swimming
if they see representation they'll be
more inclined to continue with that
sport
and want to do that sport so i think
it's being an ally in that i respect
from like a recruiting standpoint but
then i also think it's like
knowing that possibly like my team like
a team isn't diverse
um looking at okay what is our
anti-racism
curriculum what is our orientation
around these things
how can we start this discussion how can
we continue the discussion and how
are we allowing this to be something
that's part of our culture and a part of
what we talk about and what we care
about
um so i think it's like whether your
team is predominantly white whether your
team is a
mixed race like it's having the
discussions and creating curriculum
and having an orientation around it
because i think that's how we begin to
have the conversation and create change
uh tracy do you have any thoughts on him
no i completely agree with what ghazi
said there i mean i think harvard isn't
in a unique place um as as leaders right
i think they've done a lot so far but
there's a long way to go uh
in all these areas um and obviously
numbers don't lie
right so the more we can create
programs and systems that can really
help
um you know folks reach a broader
group of people i think i think they're
better um
we also um we also probably need to
start
start some start some affinity groups
right
what's wrong with having a black uh
student athlete group i'm just naming it
that but
what's wrong with that why not you know
i know some people there were some
hormones about it
uh last year and we have a new id so
so so we'll see where where some things
go uh but
but i think the possibilities are
endless right now there's a lot of
energy
out there i know my team is pumped up
and a lot of teams out there at harvard
pumped up i know guys even track team
you guys are
doing a whole lot of things that i've
been following on social media
um it's great to see you again i'm so
hopeful um but there's a long way to go
you know when i say a long way to go i
mean
there's a long way to go so this just
this conversation right now it's the
first step
um and it can be it can it can feel
tiring to folks like oh we're talking
about this again
and again and again but but it's the
reality for so
many people right so we can't we can't
um
forget that it's gonna take a long way
to make these
permanent changes okay chris
um do you want to add anything yeah no i
had a few thoughts and
uh one of them's actually something that
joe's actually my roommate so
we talk about this every once in a while
and uh
one point that he brought up that was
pretty salient was
the idea of the benefit of the doubt and
it's something that i personally tried
to apply as i trying to be an ally in
you know
different situations whether that's uh
you know the lgbtq
community or learning how to be an ally
to women and you know survivors of uh
incidents of violence but i think just
the idea of giving the benefit of the
doubt sometimes
i you know a lot of times i think the
struggle is i don't know what the
experience is i've never experienced
this personally and i think you should
acknowledge that that is a privilege
that you have to have not experienced
that
and that your job then is to acknowledge
that you have a lack of knowledge and
and when someone says something and this
hurts you don't oh why does it hurt
you accept that it hurts and then you
work from there because you don't
understand
so your job is to center the voices of
people who live those experiences
and then work backwards from there
rather than working from a position of
oh you need to give me every answer
right now because oftentimes
particularly instances like with george
floyd where it's such an acute pain and
such an acute
instance of violence that is really
traumatic i i in the moment especially
people don't have the words
so you have to take me at the words i do
have
or at the thoughts i do have and uh
and meet me there rather than me having
to
me needing proof to show you that racism
exists or me needing proof to show you
that i'm hurting
or that harm has been done and then with
that i think
uh the next step i think is really
important just ask start asking
questions
um and really interrogating your life
and starting at home it's whether that's
um you know if you're on a team that's
less diverse and
asking okay why are we less diverse and
it's like oh because oh we were
you know for example at work it might be
you know because we don't recruit uh
you know uh we don't recruit people from
you know certain schools like okay why
not and just really getting down to the
roots of that
things and then doing the reading to
back it up you know and
understanding that maybe oh maybe the
pools that we recruit from aren't as
diverse already because of these
institutional problems
and then getting to the root of things
but i think that starts with just asking
the right questions
um the way you would i think you would
approach it you know if you're trying to
solve a you know problem
at your workplace you know you start
asking questions and you start
um you start moving and i think that
that leads to the last point of
just showing up every day i think it is
a big part of what it means to be an
ally i think
you know um people always talk my mom
has a quote that you know she never got
to take a day off being my mom and um
whether you know whether she was tired
or not she she you know she made dinner
when i was a kid and you know couldn't
see myself you know
so i think that's part of what what
being an ally is you don't get you don't
get to pick and choose which days you
show up you know
george floyd was killed but uh i don't
know if i want to support you know the
movement for brianna because this is
this is my stance there i think again
get the benefit of the doubt and just
continue to show up
day after day week after week and um
center the voices of people who who are
who are leading the way
okay and i think that you know that's an
interesting point too because this idea
of showing up because it applies not
only to white allies but also
black showing up for other blacks right
and so you know i i think about
uh and i think one of the readings the
author talked about not stepping up
you know to some situations and i
actually reflect on something that
happened when i was a freshman right and
and we did the harvard yale oxford
cambridge
meet where you go you know you compete
and then you're a teammate with harvard
with the yale team to go over and
compete in europe
and so there was a black woman runner on
the yale team who
in essence was my teammate but i didn't
really know her i was just first meeting
her and she had
braids in her hair and um somehow a
conversation started about her braids
and then someone said to me well what do
you think
and i didn't say anything negative but i
didn't say anything really affirmative
right
like i didn't step up to that moment and
support her and so
she never said anything to me and and we
never discussed it
but i sit years later regretting the
fact that i didn't step into that moment
to be a support mechanism for her within
that conversation so
what do we think is also that
responsibility
of other blacks to step up and be in the
moment with other people
um gazzi i see you shaking your head
what do you think
well i think there's a quote on the
dexter gate that says
enter to grow in wisdom depart to better
serve thy country and thy kind
and i had to ask myself at the beginning
of this like after i graduated from
harvard university like what
was i doing to do the second part of
that like to better serve thy country
and my kind
specifically thy black kind um and i
think
all of us as harvard students as a black
harvard student as a black student
harvard united athlete
we have a set of privileged black
privilege that sometimes you don't like
to talk about
but we have black privilege in the sense
that we're able to look like we do and
go to the school and afford
the opportunities that we do have so it
i had asked my question myself like how
am i
serving those that might look like me
but aren't the same socioeconomic status
or might not have the same job as me
like what am i doing
to go beyond just the people that
might have gone to the same school as me
um so i think it's
everyone has a job to do in all this
it's not one person or the other person
or a specific
race like we all have to do the work in
the sense that like
if we don't all do the work like we're
gonna be running two separate paths like
this
and we'll never come together and work
it out
like we all have to meet each other
halfway in some ways and
choose to choose people like it's not
about parties it's not about
sides it's not about this or that it's
about choosing people
and putting people first and treating
people like you want to be treated so i
think
that comes down to the we all have work
to do
i was muted sorry about that tracy would
you like to add on to that
i mean support comes in in so many forms
right so it could be
like one person supporting another
person you know it looks
looks so different right all the time um
but it usually
starts with with the thought so if you
keep that thought in your mind like how
can i
help someone else how can i be kind
today just just break it down to the
minimal steps i think that's that goes a
long way
acknowledging one another you know you
know
every day is tough obviously being a
student at harvard
you all know is super tough you know um
you know so just just taking a break and
just saying hey how can i help someone
else today
how can i lift someone else up and
that's been something that hope for me
as a coach um you know talking about
other other coaches other people who
have
tried to mentor who've mentored me it's
been totally
you know a huge part of my life i
wouldn't be where i am today
without somebody you know reaching back
to help me
um me trying to help others so that's
something we definitely need and the
more we can just think
about that on a daily basis um as
students right people
who recently graduated uh the whole nine
yards i think the better the better off
will be this is tough because you gotta
you know get away from the me for a
minute and think about the wii
uh but it's something we need to do more
of for sure
okay chris and you want to add
yeah and i you know i just uh like that
you know hop on that last one of it
it isn't always easy but um
i think things are worth it never are um
and then you know the the the one other
side i would add is um
sometimes the hardest part is just
getting started um so
start somewhere you know don't don't get
caught up in the idea of paralysis is i
don't know what to do
i start start with an article i'll start
with a conversation
but start okay joseph any uh any
added comments on that yeah real quick i
mean i think just on that last
point of getting started a lot of this
um really benefits just from education
um going into harvard you know one of my
big goals
was just developing a stronger knowledge
of self
and um you know i think just being
equipped with
the appropriate education you know
particularly from a historical context
um can be really empowering as a way to
start and
just understand you know how you fit
into the puzzle
um in terms of making change so i mean
globally everyone benefits
from that component of things but um
there's definitely something special
when it um manifests in terms of like
knowledge of self
and understanding who you are okay
and i and i think each of you is kind of
hit on some ideas whether it's
uh internal or external to harvard about
as people are leaving this discussion
what can be some things that they think
about that they can do personally
you know as a team as athletics as the
harvard community both internally and
externally and i know
you know tracy you talked about the
affinity group and uh chris you
mentioned
um coach omaker who i was just watching
him on espn the other day
talking about the john mcclendon
initiative to create more opportunities
for blacks within leadership positions
in
collegiate athletics so what are maybe
some
some thoughts because that's part of our
goal is to step away from these meetings
with actual things that people could do
so you know what would your one thing
you know maybe be to suggest to some
people as to coming out of this meeting
do this um tracy you already gave us a
good one so you can say your affinity
group again but do you want to
add another one
so i think if you're sort of new to this
arena i would say
you know aside from trying to create
affinity groups and
groups in general i would say really try
to educate yourself
as much as you can on all these topics
if you know someone who's
who's active in the
in this movement or just or you just
want to learn your history that that's
like that's so important i love the
the point that guys you made about uh
creating a course
you know uh at harvard i think that'd be
super useful for everyone
um but truly i mean history is so vital
to understanding the steps
that have taken place in the past right
so we don't remember the past we will
what repeat it
um just i'm just talking about tennis
right now for a minute
1990 the number four player in the world
a black woman xena garrison they would
not sponsor her she had no apparel
sponsor
she was in the finals of wimbledon
number four in the world
no sponsor so that wasn't that long ago
so yes
learn about slavery and all that but
like things that happened like not that
long ago like learn about
um what's going on right now so so it
takes it takes effort right if you don't
have an automatic
uh you know if you're not thinking about
it day to day if you have that privilege
where you don't have to think about race
or color or whatever
um but but if you take the time to
really make it your agenda make it your
mission to educate yourself
and that's the very first step um to
helping
to help you make things better
gazi anything that you might want to
suggest i know you have the curricular
idea but anything else
yeah i think um just like a big point is
in order to make this
like not just a moment but a movement we
have to kind of diversify our movements
and i think one big thing especially for
the in the gen z generation
um everything is done on social media or
everything is done publicly but
not every movement is public like some
could be physically
talking to other people in our spaces
and places
that might not talk about this stuff
maybe it's um
like mentally like mentally talking or
looking at ourselves
inwardly and i think one of the biggest
things about also diversing your
movement is there's kind of three parts
to it
similar to how we how you would train
and you have the prehab you have the
competition then you have rehab like
look at it as that like you have to prep
before you can go into battle you have
to prep before you can go into
competition
so prepping yourself to make a move
make a move and make a movement is
important and then the reflection side
after you make the movement of
reflecting like why did i move in this
way this
time and how can i move differently how
did that help
what did it how did it harm if it did
and how can i
continue to make different movements but
in different ways so
i think that's really big okay
joseph uh your idea
yeah um i'd say institutionally
as we think about athletics um
particularly
at harvard um one of the
you know most effective things i think
that we could do is just strengthen
um strengthen the infrastructure for
supporting your athletes and ensuring
that you know they can advocate for
themselves
um that's a you know that's a big focal
point of the athletic department broadly
like ensuring that
students can run issues that they have
up the chain
uh relatively easily but um as you think
through
how that looks in terms of you know
racial issues
um i think you know there obviously
needs to be a bit more
sensitivity around that um i think
that's just one
sort of tangible institutional thing um
and then
at the personal level as you do engage
with education
whatever that looks like whether it's
reading articles or
um you know ideally participating in a
harvard-led curriculum i
i think one important piece of advice
that i have is just put
your ego to the side um because a lot of
this is challenging
when you know for example if you're
being told that
you've benefited from white supremacy
your whole life
you know that's that's a difficult thing
to hear but that doesn't mean that
you yourself are a villain because of
that um
you know whenever we think about being
an ally and chris alluded to this
you know you know when you're thinking
about supporting the women community or
the lgbtq community um
you know it's important to recognize
that you know you've benefited from
from privilege but that does not um
create an unconquerable barrier
to being a part of the solution um so i
think
you know that ego point is is just very
important
as you you know do begin to challenge
yourself and educate yourself
just something to keep in the back of
your mind that yeah maybe i have caused
harm
in the past but that doesn't mean that
i'm incapable of um
overcoming it
okay and chris yeah and um
on my end the one thing uh i'll speak
about it from my perspective because
when i you know um my senior year i
looked to try and get involved
more and uh more hands-on in a movement
i started this organization no more
names and the idea
was to run a you know a benefit concert
on campus to donate to an organization
that uh
supports uh you know reforms for police
officers
uh and their departments to you know
reduce incidences of police brutality
and you know in the time since starting
that organization i think the most
important lesson i learned
was really take the time to
not necessarily try and think of your
own solutions or
try and think of you know
try and you know create try and lead
necessarily but
understand it's okay to follow and
really spend time researching who are
the
the leaders of this movement um because
there are there are people who are
you like the young people of minnesota
are doing great work um there's young
you know seth townsend from our
basketball teams doing great work
there's there's young people who are
you know already doing great work just
people organizations and places are
doing great work
really understand the landscape take
your time to familiarize yourself with
those organizations
and you know align with one that you
really think you could you know invest
your time with and i think
um that's one way that i i think uh and
even just taking that first step of
finding out the landscape i think is a
great first step to take
because it will help you you know beyond
just action but in the future that was
as well
okay well thank you we're going to open
it up for
questions the one thing though i did
want to do beforehand because a couple
of you
hit on it was that you know all these
actions don't have to be this over the
top like you know
huge elaborate thing and uh we had a a
dr
richard wharton who wrote into us he
wasn't able to join us tonight but
he's the class of 57 and he talked about
that
he ran um track and field he was captain
of the track team he's in the harvard
varsity club hall of fame
and that his senior year he asked the
coach could he have
all of the team over to his home in
roxbury for a celebratory meal
and so the whole team you know mostly
white uh
fellow teammates went over and had this
amazing meal prepared by
his mother and his grandmother and he
said that years later and at reunions
his teammates still come up to him and
just say how that was a moment in time
that changed their perception because
they had never
entered into the home of a black family
had a meal with them
and that years later out of all of their
harvard experiences
that's the type of thing that they
remember so we have to also remember
that sometimes it can be just the most
simple of sharing a meal or
doing something that reaches out and
brings someone into your space
that can create that moment as well so
um i'm going to start to read to you
from the q and a board panelists you can
all decide you know what you want to
jump in and take so we've got
uh ted bailey who says i'm
old class of 1962 in track i wish we had
more
interracial participants when i was
there i think stereotyping and bigotry
is truly ignorant
how do we stop it education in this
program is a good icebreaker
and then it says i appreciate the
panelists describing their experience so
ted thank you for that comment um
then um another anonymous attendee just
said they hope that we can get to a
point where skin color is just like
hair color how do we get there
um then we have one that says when you
were an undergraduate student what would
you have liked to see in regards to
transparency from your school and or
athletic department to feel supported in
the culture of harvard
so do any of you recent grads want to
take that
uh and joseph i think you started a
little bit on saying like some of the
things that need to be broken down
but are there other things that you
think might um
help kind of start to break down some of
those those barriers
um yeah from from a transparency
perspective
i think you know tracy's advice around
creating an affinity group
is powerful um in that you know
you're more um equipped to
deal with scenarios that are bothering
you um when there's an actual
infrastructure of people that
you know are going to be solid in that
moment
um when when it comes time to have a
difficult conversation
um i think another tangible activity
or action um you know that ghazi also
alluded to with regards to diversity and
recruiting is
you know being very introspective and um
meticulous in the way that you're
reflecting on recruiting techniques and
tactics
um and how inclusive we're being
in terms of the approach um because it
is easy
to you know not be able to piece
together
why a team looks a certain way um
but if we do a better job of just
tracking that um and creating structures
for
accountability that are particularly
committed to these
uh sort of initiatives uh i do think you
can
make a little bit of progress in in that
sphere
okay ghazi or chris or tracy
do you want to add on or or we can move
to the next question whatever works for
you
yeah i wanted to add on briefly and i
think this speaks to joe's point
and uh into tracy's point about the
affinity group but i also think
just representation and you know as
these dialogues happen
looping you know black student athletes
um as the school thinks about the next
steps they're gonna take in terms of are
we gonna have a
you know are we gonna have events how
are we gonna have education materials
like in
all those processes have reps from
different teams
be involved in the creation of that have
an active dialogue where you're meeting
quarterly with
black student athletes or annually or
on a regular cadence where these ideas
are being discussed and people are
constantly coming to the tea because
those are the people who are
experiencing every day and
that way you don't have to have you know
these big
kind of you know you have less big
kumbaya moments where it's like oh
there's a huge problem now we have to
come up with big actions
because you're constantly iterating and
having that dialogue but just opening
that kind of
two-way dialogue i think is super
important
okay uh tracy or gauzy anything that you
want
okay um so one of the questions at
wants the panel to comment on how we can
ensure more interactions between black
students and students of color and white
students at harvard and beyond
it says by being on the track team i was
fortunate enough to have interactions
friendships with a diverse group and
learned greatly from this
so how do you think that that happens
both
on the you know down at the athletic
field but just as importantly when you
step back across the river how do we
look towards more of those interactions
do you think
crazy i think that's a great question
and i think two things um one i think
one way we could do that from an
athletic standpoint
is we i think i'm not sure if they still
have them but we used to have the
meetings at the beginning of the year
where we talked about eligibility and
how um
like we'd send those long meetings and
talk about eligibility but i think
one way to integrate that aspect is
you don't really necessarily go outside
your team of where you're sitting you
don't necessarily interact with other
people
on different teams and that's a great
opportunity where you have
three different times where you have all
spring sports all winter sports all fall
sports
sitting there to have a dialogue and
have a conversation
for people to meet other student
athletes that might play different
sports as them
might look different than them i think
that would be a great
place in space to do that and then on
the other end i think
it's hard because it has to start with
you want making the effort and wanting
to
because if you are once we're across the
river on the other side
if there's not an equal place where
people
both want to meet to people that don't
look like them don't act like them
aren't from the same socioeconomic
status of them
then we're still going to be running the
race like this so it has to be
kind of a commitment from everyone to be
like you know what i'm going to
diversify my movement i'm going to
diversify the people i sit with
at annenberg i'm going to diversify the
people that i talk with
during section so i think it's having a
desire and a want
to diversify how you interact
that i think comes from with everyone
reflecting on their own
and deciding that that's the action
they're gonna take
okay and it seems like coaches could be
pretty helpful with that idea you gave
about having teams interact
that's it's a great idea guzzi
yeah okay um next question and chris i
think this is for you it said how did
the experiences that coach omaker
offered in various locations such as
atlanta with president carter
the mlk center and later at the supreme
court and other
involvement with the breakfast club
prepare you for the moments you're
facing now
uh well first unfortunately coach waited
until i graduated to meet
president carter and uh so i missed out
on that one but i i had a great
experience we got to meet you know
karima jojobar which was incredible dr
gray edwards
um every year we we uh mlk day weekend
we we play
against howard um so i mean you visit
the memorial um
and all that so he created he's fostered
a great ecosystem
in terms of one
bringing in great speakers and
individuals who we can kind of bounce
ideas off of
i remember in particular a great
dialogue we had with a professor cornell
west
where we basically we have like a team
dinner after practice one day
and then you know we have a speaker who
speaks and then we just have like a very
transparent
question and answer section and um
i think some of those experiences have
been you know some of the most
informative experiences as i look to
build my world view and
look to you know contribute to these
causes um
for you know for example dr haye edwards
i still reach out to him for
advice and assistance with uh no more
names he was one of the first donors to
our first event
he contributed a video to our event so
just meeting people who
are advocates and sponsors throughout
the process are super great and then
secondly educating yourself but then
lastly as i spoke about before
doing it in community makes a lot easier
because these are painful
you know for many people these are
painful discussions to have because
you know it might not be easy to
acknowledge you have privilege it might
not be easy to acknowledge that you know
um you might be not just benefiting from
but contributing to a system that you
know is harming others and
going through that process of unlearning
and relearning i think
and re-educating yourself um with others
in community
with the guidance of people who are
super experienced in these fields was
super beneficial
okay anyone else wanna chime in
oh it was just basketball so never mind
sorry sorry
about that okay uh so the next question
it says in the late 70s i was the first
african-americans to start on the
varsity baseball team in modern times
during that time my teammates and my
teammates were supportive and close
but i experienced instances of
microaggressions and profiling
on campus and in the dunster house that
were very disheartening
as white folks asserted privilege
assuming that you don't belong
one person asked me did i live in
dunster house while i was washing my
clothes even though i had lived there
for two years
and coordinated activities in the house
for black organizations for the entire
community
i had to provide a teachable moment for
her even though i was very upset
i had to maintain my reason and always
think about my overall goals
how have you had to do how have any of
you dealt with
and confronted microaggressions so
anyone can take that one
any examples of microaggressions or
things that you've experienced
i mean i think we talked about this you
talked about this a little bit like this
concept of howard versus harvard um
and i've experienced that even in the
work world of someone asking
oh like where'd you go to school and i
say harvard and like oh you mean harvard
howard and i'm like no i went to harvard
um
so i think it's those little
microaggressions or even
at school whether it was i was in a
class like this concept of
oh that being an athlete class or like a
section tf saying oh that's an athlete
class and
when you look at the multiple
intersections you lie there like you
could just take that as
that saying that's an athlete class but
then when you look at the demographic of
the class
that's a whole other thing like there
are a large majority of black students
in that section
um so i think dealing with
microaggressions is
hard in the sense that it takes uh a
toll for you to reflect on okay why did
that person say that
and where can we go from here but then
also like
having the courage to talk to the person
about like
wondering asking maybe it's asking the
question of like hey just wondering like
what was your
meaning behind that comment like why did
you what what like not trying to be
defensive but trying to understand like
and get to the root of why that comment
was made
and maybe that will help show that
person a different perspective of
oh you know what i didn't realize that
this comment has
like racist rhetoric rooted in it or it
it hurts someone else
um so i think it's taking comments like
that
and trying to reason with okay why is
this person saying this like
is it do they have a different
background that they come from that
they're saying this
but then also looking at it like asking
the question
a follow-up of like okay why why like
what
made you want to say that comment or
like how um do you think that comment
affects other people
in that respect yeah and i think one of
the articles actually talked about that
like if you start to get into an
argument of intent
it's never going to because you can't
really fully
understand people's intent but you can
understand the impact right
and i think ozzy i think also and this
wasn't necessarily a microaggression but
we talked a little bit about it too when
you're
in these situations where you feel
uncomfortable and i think we talked
about it like twice where
during my collegiate career i ended up
at classmates homes or alumni's homes
where all the people all the butlers
amazing everything were people of color
and just sitting there as a kid of color
being served by people of color and just
the level
of discomfort i felt but you're not
really in a position to be judging or
anything but just and so it wasn't a
microaggression by them
but just these circumstances that you
end up in and you have to figure out
what is my what should be my interaction
with these people
or should there be any and just not
always knowing what to do
so um let's see next question says do
you have any recommendations for
candidates for the harvard board of
overseers and directors
who will address the concerns discussed
in this excellent forum see
panelists it was called an excellent
forum yeah you
um so you know and that's an interesting
thing it's kind of like what joseph
talked about is
you know getting people into leadership
things that can affect some change so
what do we think about on that front
chris yeah i talking quickly um i know
mitch purse who was on the soccer team
um
when i was at harvard now she i think
she plays soccer professionally she's
part of a group called harvard ford
that is uh looking to you know address
a lot of issues of social inequality on
harvard's campus whether that be
that you know divesting from prison or
uh environmental issues
um and she's i know she's running for
the boarded
over series that's the elections right
now so that's a candidate and you know
you can read more about the harvard
foreign group
um i'm sure i think if you just google
their website it will pop up and it'll
give you some information
about the work that they're doing i
think that i i'm really supportive of
what they're doing i think it's
incredible and i think
you know these are dialogues that need
to need to happen and
as a former student athlete i think
midge is a great
uh representative for that yeah and i
think this goes to the
the comments that all of you made about
being informed right because
you when you get the election thing it
lists all the things that people are
involved in or whatever so
you need to really look in that and then
choose to vote
right like we were talking about this
for november but election things like
this have just as much
impact on resources or things that are
happening at harvard so
understanding whom you're being asked to
vote for and then
executing you know your suffrage rights
is always key
anyone else have any comments about the
the board of overseers
tracy i don't have any comments on that
but just going back to the
microaggression this reminded me of
something i heard once about um
microaggressions it's almost like
a bunch of paper cuts right but if you
get like a million paper cuts that's
like
being stabbed with with a knife right
over and over again
so you really have to stop them you know
head on i think
guys you made a great point about asking
the question wait why did you ask me
that or what did you mean by that and
that's that's really important
i think it happened a lot so much where
sometimes you don't even realize it
because you're just like in a zone
sometimes and
obviously you know some people could be
your friends it could be your colleagues
they could be
a fellow coach right but i think it's
important to stop
and have these conversations and this is
the reason why we need
dialogues like this one where we need
dialogues going on on campus
as much as possible in the beginning of
school at the end of school in the
middle of school all the time
so we know how to combat these issues so
i just wanted to say that thank you
yeah um and it's funny too because you
don't even sometimes realize that you
are
having some of those moments because i
was just talking to a a good friend of
mine and
she was talking about how you know this
panel kind of made her think about
this thing that happened with us where
we were somewhere and a bunch of us were
trying to find someone's house to go to
and we got lost
and everyone was like well just go up to
the window and peek in and i was like i
am not as the black person
going up to those windows to peek in you
know and and so she said at the moment
or at the time she didn't understand it
but now stepping back and listening how
you know that was something that i had
to consider in all of my
interactions versus something that she
didn't even remotely think about
you know or have to think about so um
let's see we have um
let's see oops this is probably for you
guys it said would the
idea affinity group be integrated and
what are the best venues to bring
together
you bring people together so ghazi
i know so i think
um that's an interesting point because i
think there needs to be a space and a
place like we've come far but we've not
come far enough
so there needs to be a space and a place
for black athletes to come together
and be able to speak about the issues
and things that are going on
but i do think there is space for an
ally group within the infinity group
of people that are willing to come and
listen and come in here
and join meetings and bring knowledge
back to their teams
about um kind of what's going on so i
think it's like
it there is a need for an affinity group
but also there's need for allies in
themselves and a group of allies that
are willing to listen
and willing to really do the work okay
um thank you so question are there
particular organizations that you would
favor sending funds to a lot of harvard
grads have funds
um over the last several weeks and i've
been donating to
bail funds and also to the united negro
college fund to support historically
black colleges and universities are
there any other funds that you might
suggest or even some of your
organizations you're doing some great
things so go ahead put it out there
ask for the ask for the money but are
there any groups
you might recommend
anyone um
one uh there's a few organizations i
think bail funds wanted are
great are a great way to contribute um
particularly with all the processes
processor going on
um i'd also say um
i think a focus on you know
organizations that
uh support intersectional intersectional
groups within
within the black uh within the black
community are
particularly helpful and more regional
organizations rather than always
national organizations because those
organizations particularly in this
moment have received
a ton of funding but local
organizations for black youth for black
trans folk
for a black woman um that address those
issues
often get can get overlooked during
moments like this where like everybody
for example the minnesota freedom front
was a
name of an organization that really got
plastered all across social media
and they do great work and they're super
you know visible but they're just
organizations
i would say um i could give you names of
national organizations that
um i've recommended to a bunch of people
but i think it
what it might even be more powerful is
you know doing some work and uh
finding a local or regional organization
that you know
is a little bit more in the shadows that
you can contribute to
um and then the other thing i would say
is um
something that doesn't really require
you giving away money but yes uh
kind of reallocating a bit um
putting your money and saving some
putting some of your savings in black
owned banks
is a great way to contribute to uh black
organizations particularly black
businesses and localities
you don't have to spend your money is
sitting there just as it would but
those banks then use those funds to make
loans to black businesses
to black homeowners etc that have
historically been
you know denied access by um other
financial institutions and now that's a
huge problem within the black community
being underbanked
and uh you know putting some of your
savings or putting some money in
those in those organizations is it goes
a long way
yeah and chris i think that's an
excellent point because you saw it
illustrated during this code this ppp
thing
right where minority businesses didn't
have relationships with the chase or the
wherever and so they didn't even get the
chance to get their applications in
right and so they had to kind of go back
and
kind of have some of these black banks
or these community banks
actually have the access so that some of
those businesses could even
have a chance of getting the funds right
yeah and
to that point um i just wanted to say
that oftentimes people think that you
know
to be an activist is just to you know to
march on the streets and that's one way
but i also think
you know if you're a business person
like i said putting money in in banks or
investing in black owned
businesses recruitment or um
you know uh connection sponsorship of
young young individuals who are
interviewing you know i've seen many
people post on linkedin that you know
if you're interested in breaking into my
into my career path
reach out to me and you know i'm here's
a calendar
find a slide and we can find time and
those are the simple ways that like
you don't need a new skill set it's just
do what you already do but offer your
skill set to young people of
color or people of color more broadly
who have historically been denied access
to resources like that and that's one
way to chip in without um
with your time rather than you know
always uh is donating money
yeah and i think that's a great example
too because when we did our
football film about the integration of
pro football
i actually had all black women
uh almost all black women had one white
woman work on the project so we had both
a gender
and a race thing going on and so i know
the nfl was like what the heck right but
it was a way to bring the narrative
forward and also bring a different lens
because we wanted to talk about women's
role in the movement
so i think that's a great idea that you
can think of ways that you can be
providing opportunities whether it's
giving money or giving opportunity right
anyone else want to tracy yeah one of
the organization organization that's
near and dear to my heart is the black
women sport foundation i'm actually on
the board
there we provide opportunities for black
women and girls
and boys in sport all aspects you know
coaching administration you name it um
you know you can even partner so like
chris said there's there's money there's
donating that way but even partnering is
another way
um to help a foundation i know some of
the sports teams at harvard
have become involved and they're really
strong components of non-traditional
sports for african-americans as well so
sports like fencing
golf tennis those are some of the sports
where we're obviously underrepresented
and they're really doing an amazing job
at getting more people involved and
having a voice not just a seat at the
table but really being involved in the
decision making
aspects as well so again the black women
for foundation
i think it's an excellent organization
okay great yes
that's the second that too um aesthetics
and athletics the
platform start i started um is working
so i'm running a
a half marathon and donating
um money to the black women sports
foundation and
i have a couple other girls a part of my
team that are also on running the same
half marathon and donating to that so i
just like to second
um the black women and sports foundation
great thank you okay next question now
that you've graduated
how does the outside world compare to
your experience at harvard
and how well did harvard prepare for you
to cope
so joseph we haven't heard from you in a
while what are you thinking
yeah um i imagine you know
some of the thought that one of that
question may be that the world is not as
forgiving as as harvard um but
what i will say you know throughout a
lot of our lives
having gotten to a place as elite as
harvard
you know we've all done the balancing
act of navigating through
predominantly white spaces um
so i i don't think it's dramatically
different
um in in terms of you know a lot of the
the attitudes that um i've i've had to
navigate
um where i do think you do
feel a bit of a distinction in terms of
the culture of my workplace for example
um you know versus the culture of
harvard broadly
is uh you know just how willing people
are to
have a discourse um as you can imagine
like professional settings like highly
professional settings
um often don't really lend themselves to
difficult conversations um and
you know that at times can be
challenging and that's where
um you know a lot of the advice that
we're talking that we've talked about
over the course of this discussion
shifts from the personal to the uh
systemic and
you know infrastructure sort of related
um
and that's where it becomes more
important that you create
more dynamic systems as opposed to
hoping that you can
connect with people on a on a personal
level because
um you know i can affect change you know
by through having conversations with
people that i work with
directly but you know corporations
um you know if that's where your
post-grad
experience takes place um just don't
have the same
soul and emotion that a college campus
does
have um so i think that's where the
fight just becomes a bit more
strategic and oriented around around
systems
sorry you're on you i was gonna say i
keep forgetting i'm on
my bed uh anyone else wanna chime in
yeah i was gonna talk about um because
being in the beauty industry and now
um having my own brand in the beauty
industry um
it's something where you have a seat at
the table
or you don't have to see the table and
you see the side table and you may not
even be invited to the side table
um and so i think that's a big thing
because you come from harvard you
graduate and you it's almost like you're
at the top of the world or you're
top of your game and then you go to a
land and a place in a world in a
corporate world that's very different
and you have that intersection again of
like okay i'm back
at the bottom of the totem pole i'm a
freshman but then i have at the
intersection of being
a black freshman a black athlete
freshman a black female athlete freshman
um in that respect so i think um it's
just
it's almost a rude awakening um and it
was written awakening from me
personally i'm just going into the
beauty industry but i do
think um with everything going on and
how um
how we've dealt with it like changes are
happening but i think it's
understanding that it's not gonna be
like
the same in the sense you're not
welcomed necessarily always welcomed on
to your team
so yeah okay
um so then next question is how would
you the team navigate approaching a
coach that is not so vocal on diversity
issues
black lives matter or at least just
doing the bare minimum of support
any thoughts on that
yeah i can go ahead i mean uh to be
frank
i think you know when i reflect on my
college experience i think i i fell
short of um you know what
i was capable of achieving in terms of
moving the needle and
um being the starting point of
conversations and ensuring that your
coaches are doing enough as it relates
to
racial justice um you know i was a
captain for two years
i was you know effectively a leader the
entire time i was there and i had a
great relationship with my coach
um but i think you know the dynamics of
my team
um having been the only voice
um you know that could identify with
those types of
issues uh i didn't feel very empowered
um despite having a you know decently
strong relationship
um but i will say you know in the wake
of
uh you know everything that's happened
over the past couple months
i had a very long conversation with my
coach
um and a very transparent one um and
it started you know the same way that
many of my points tonight have started
you know just from
the emotional element of things um from
a place of
empathy and um you know i think it was a
very effective
conversation not only in terms of you
know his
understanding of what i've experienced
but also
um you know his willingness to you know
take that extra step
um from an action standpoint you know
and not just uh you know having this
feel good kumbaya moment
um so i think a lot of it really just
comes down to that that transparency and
um if you do have the benefit of a coach
that
um puts a tremendous amount of effort
into building those relationships with
uh
you know with his competitors or his or
her competitors
um you know leverage that um and
understand that
you know that's a part of yourself that
you can't really neglect
on you know your racial identity and all
of the uh challenges that come with it
and when someone signs up to be your
coach um you know that's an element
of your humanity that um
you know they're meant to nourish the
same way that they nourish other parts
of it
um so i think a lot of it's just that
transparency
and that openness it's difficult to have
those conversations
you know when you haven't um but again
you know
oftentimes these people are incredibly
invested in you as a person and i'm sure
tracy
can speak to this um and and just try to
leverage that as a starting point
yeah i think it's probably be pretty
tough to navigate that as the as the
athlete right in that
the power structure there um but i'm a
firm believer
that uh leadership most of the time come
from the top
um so you know the more you know the
administrators
the more the leadership can create that
environment
that is diverse you know whether that's
through hiring you know to have having a
more diverse staff
more more diverse coaches whether
they're assistants
like i said administrators i think it's
going to trickle down i also believe if
if an administrator or an ad
makes it at their agenda um you know
indies doesn't have to be hard for any
school
right to diversify
the department diversified teams
i i think we're moving in the right
direction
not just checking off a box but truly
believing that
and when that ad truly believes that
that trickles down to the staff
right so if you're just checking out the
box say we have to diverse our
diversifier staff we have to
add this person at that person okay
those coaches who are kind of on the
border line that like this person
described
um might not change but if the ad truly
uh shows conviction behind that mission
it trickles down immediately so again my
firm believer in your leadership
and even on your team like you've been
on sports teams in general if you have
strong leaders on the team that can help
that situation as well but again i think
come from the top
okay thank you and so in the oh go ahead
chris i don't want to cut you up
i was just going to say quickly on that
point joe uh gazi and i have been
working on
a coalition for you know student
athletes across the country basically to
talk about issues like these
particularly
for black student athletes and you know
a few thoughts that
came to mind with respect on how to have
those tough conversations are
one to tracey's point you know the
administration creating
a culture where student athletes feel
empowered to speak
um but second i think the idea of
community and the affinity networks that
we've spoken about i think
having community emboldens people to be
able to
you know have a place where they can one
have an outlet to you know confirm that
wait i'm am i am i sure that is actually
a thing or maybe i'm overthinking it
but having people that you can kind of
bounce those ideas off to affirm you
and then also people you can have a
conversation like how do i approach this
discussion what have you guys done with
your team
like there needs to be a place where
student athletes feel like they can um
they can they can be empowered by their
peers as well
okay well in the interest of time i i
want to thank everyone there's still
some more questions in there that i'm
hoping that
the varsity club can capture and that we
can address but
i want to thank all of my panelists
tracy greene
gazi moussa joseph johnson and chris
egge uh thank you so much for your
insights your willingness to share
i want to thank everyone that joined us
this evening and again
encourage you to continue to participate
in this series of discussions but just
as importantly think about how you can
turn that to action so
thank you again for your time everyone
have a wonderful evening and
take care
