Radical Wellness: Reimagining Health Through a Black Liberation Lens

Please join the Yale School of Nursing's Office of Student Life and Belonging and the Afro-American Cultural Center for a powerful and necessary conversation with Ericka Hart and Da'Shaun Harrison - educators, scholars, and social justice activists - moderated by YSN's Dr. Ronica Mukerjee. The panelists will explore questions on the topics of medical racism and the intersections of blackness, queerness, fatphobia, and disability justice. They discuss how the structures and belief systems within and outside of our medical-industrial complex - ideas of what and who are normal and healthy, abnormal and unhealthy - inform the care that is provided to all patients, but that in particular lead to exclusionary and harmful health care practices that impact people from historically marginalized communities. Finally, they will share about the importance of organizing and activism in fighting for a world where all bodies are honored, treated with dignity and liberated.


Ericka Hart (pronouns: she/they) is a Black queer femme activist, writer, highly-acclaimed speaker, and award-winning sexuality educator with a Master's of Education in Human Sexuality from Widener University. Ericka's work broke ground when she went topless showing her double mastectomy scars in public in 2016. Since then, she has been in demand at colleges and universities across the country, featured in countless digital and print publications like Vogue, Washington Post, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, VICE, PAPER Mag, BBC News, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, W Magazine, Glamour, Elle, and Essence. Ericka's voice is rooted in leading edge thought around human sexual expression as inextricable to overall human health and its intersections with race, gender, chronic illness, and disability. Both radical and relatable, she continues to push well beyond the threshold of sex-positivity. Ericka Hart has taught sexuality education for elementary-aged youth to adults across New York City for over 10 years, including for 4 years at Columbia University's School of Social work and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. They are currently an adjunct faculty member at Widener University's Center for Human Sexuality.

Social Media: Twitter, Instagram - @ihartericka

Da'Shaun Harrison: Da'Shaun Harrison is a Black trans writer, abolitionist, and community organizer in Atlanta, GA. Harrison currently serves as the Managing Editor of Wear Your Voice Magazine, and is the author of "Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness." Harrison is also a public speaker who often gives talks and leads workshops on Blackness, queerness, gender, fatness, disabilities, and the intersection at which they all meet. Find out more about Harrison on their website: dashaunharrison.com


Ronica Mukerjee: Ronica Mukerjee is a family nurse practitioner, acupuncturist, training to also be a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Dr Mukerjee is passionate about racial, economic and health care justice in LGBTQIA+, refugees and migrant communities, for people with substance use disorders, and for people living with HIV. She is the program coordinator/creator of the Gender and Sexuality Health Justice concentration at Yale for NP-students, medical and PA students and also teaches primary care at Yale School of Nursing. She maintains multiple practices in NY and CT, focused on substance use disorders, HIV and LGBTQIA+-affirming care. Dr. Mukerjee co-directs two organizations that she co-founded (focused on free available-to-all, regardless of citizenship or income, healthcare projects): Refugee Health Alliance in Tijuana, Mexico (where she currently is) as well as Healthcare for the People in Brooklyn, NY. She works closely with multiple community organizations in CT focused on youth homelessness and support for former prisoners. Her co-edited textbook: Clinicians Guide to LGBTQIA+ Care: Cultural Safety and Social Justice in Primary, Sexual, and Reproductive Healthcare was published in February 2021.

With a private practice in New Haven and as Clinical Director of an Opioid Overuse Prevention Program with a Syringe Exchange in New York City, Dr. Mukerjee splits her time between New Haven and New York. She works closely with Youth Continuum, a shelter for homeless youth in New Haven as well as with various immigration and refugee organizations in both cities. Since December of 2018, Dr. Mukerjee has worked closely with migrant, LGBTQIA communities in Mexico and is a founding member as well as the International Coordinator for Clinica de Salud y Justicia, a volunteer-run LGBTQIA-inclusive refugee and migrant healthcare and community center located in Tijuana, Mexico.


For questions about the event please contact shiliu.wang@yale.edu, tayisha.stvil@yale.edu, and afamhouseicsj@gmail.com (cc all).

Afro-American Cultural Center | Website | View More Events
Co-hosted with: School of Nursing - Office of Student Life