Racial Identity

Teresa Tindle Akintonwa, born in 1976, has been an Educator for over 25 years with extensive experience in Instruction and Corporate Training. Since becoming a Long Hauler after her initial covid infection in February 2020 she founded the Black Covid-19 Survivors Alliance  which was first an online Patient-support group. It has since evolved into  activism and advocacy aimed at helping African-Americans overcome the misinformation and social stigma of CoVid and Medical Research involvement. As President of Black CoVid Survivors Alliance she now collaborates with various organizations to increase Health Equity through Health Coaching, research participant recruitment, and DEI advisement to Research organizations.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, gender and health, racial identity

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Cathy Cohen, born in 1962, is the former co-chair and a founding board member of the Audrey Lorde Project in New York. She served on the board of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY. Cohen was a founding member of Black AIDS Mobilization (BAM) and a core organizer of the International Conference, Black Nations Queer Nations. Cohen has also served as an active member in many organizations, such as the Black Radical Congress, African-American Women in Defense of Ourselves, and the United Coalition Against Racism.
Keywords: LGBTQ rights, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

He Zhonghua, born in 1937, is a professor of literature from the Naxi ethnic minority. She established a women's studies center in the Academy of Social Sciences and a minority women research center in Yunnan. She has worked on many projects ranging from improving ethnic minority women's health to empowering women to participate in rural development.
Keywords: feminist conferences, environment, academia and women's studies, education, intersectionality, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio

Diane Lima was born in 1986 in Mundo Novo, Bahia, Brazil and is an independent curator and creative director. She holds a Master of Arts in Communication and Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and her work focuses on experimenting with multidisciplinary artistic and curatorial practices, developing collective learning devices with a focus on knowledge creation and production processes. In 2014, she founded the NoBrasil (InBrazil) platform, created the “Leave the Girl's Hair in the World” campaign (campanha “Deixa o Cabelo da Menina no Mundo”), and the AfroTranscendence project, an immersion program in creative processes to promote contemporary Afro-Brazilian culture. The project produced the short film Tempo de Cura (Healing Time) that was screened in several Brazilian film festivals. Between 2016 and 2017, Lima curated the Vale do Silício African Film Festival, created A. Gentes, an immersion program on racial issues for the employees of Itaú Cultural, in addition tobeing the curator -at the same institution-of Diálogos Ausentes (Absent Dialogues), a project that for a year and a half discussed the presence of black people in different areas. The project culminated with a homonymous exhibition in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 2018 she was the curator of the Valongo International Image Festival, a member of the Art Critics Group of the CCSP –São Paulo Cultural Center, in addition to be a jury member on several selection and award commissions such as Bravo Award!, the award EDP in the Arts from the Tomie Ohtake institute and of Artsonica from Oi Futuro. Lima also collaborated for the Bravo! Magazine and in 2018 published a text in the Anthology Afro-Atlantic Histories of the MASP -São Paulo Art Museum.

Keywords: media, racial identity, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (Portuguese, English), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles)

Anjum Rahman was born in the village of Mahuwara in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Her family moved to New Zealand from Canada in 1972 when she was five years old. She became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1976. She was a chartered accountant for 30 years, working with a range of entities in the commercial, farming, and not-for-profit sectors.   

Rahman was a founding member of the New Zealand Islamic Women's Council, an organisation formed in 1990 to bring Muslim women together and represent their concerns and was the media spokesperson. She is also a founding member of the Shama Ethnic Women's Trust and served as a trustee on its board from 2002 until 2019. Shama supports ethnic minority women through its social work service, life-skills classes, and community development. Rahman has worked in the area of sexual violence prevention both as a volunteer and as part of Government working groups.   

Rahman was a spokesperson for the Muslim community following the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, in which 51 people were killed and 40 injured. In media interviews following the attack, she voiced frustration at the failure of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and other government agencies to take concerns about violence towards the Muslim community, Islamophobia, and the rise of the alt-right in New Zealand seriously. In response to the attacks, Rahman established the organisation Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono to combat discrimination.   

Anjum was an active member of the Waikato Interfaith Council for over a decade, and was a trustee of the Trust that governs Hamilton’s community access broadcaster, Free FM. She is currently a trustee of Trust Waikato, the largest funder in the region, and on the governing council of InternetNZ. She is a member of international committees dealing with violent extremist content online, being the co-chair of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network and a member of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism.   

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Rahman was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to ethnic communities and women; she was also shortlisted for the New Zealander of the Year Award. 

Keywords: intersectionality, politics and the law, racial identity

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Luciana Adriano da Silva (interviewed with Angélica Souza Pinheiro) was born in 1981 in Angra dos Reis. She studied at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, and received a graduate degree in Rural Education. Luciana is a community leader of the Quilombo Santa Rita do Bracuí and also works with a number of other social movements and institutions.
Keywords: rural women and land reform, racial identity, education, reform of domestic/family roles
Media: Transcript (Portuguese, English), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Elizabeth Viana (interviewed with Giovana Xavier) was born in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro and is a sociologist. She helped found the Group Lima Barret and actively participated in the democratization process of the country. She has been involved with the Nzinga Collective of Women, the Unified Black Movement (MNU), and the Black Action of Nilópolis. She has been the Legislative Assistant at the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for 35 years.
Keywords: community activism, racial identity, academia and women's studies, reform of domestic/family roles
Media: Transcript (English, Portuguese), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio