Dr. Yaba Blay, scholar-activist: "When I think about my relationship to the academy, part of the struggle was I don't want to talk in academic prose… Because who's gonna see it? And who's it gonna benefit?”

9 to 5ish with theSkimm

theSkimm

Entrepreneurship, Careers, Business

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Yaba Blay is a scholar-activist and cultural consultant whose work centers on the lived experiences of Black women and girls. While she’s got all of the degrees and academic accolades, Dr. Blay sat down with us this week to talk about why she’s taken her work outside of the classroom. And how she’s creating impact through her creative campaigns and community on social media. In this episode, Dr. Blay shares how she uses her personal connection to her work as fuel (6:26), why she believes it’s important to be able to change your mind (12:14), and when she decided to create her series “Professional Black Girl” (21:00).

Transcript

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0:14.7	You know when I think about my relationship to the Academy part of the struggle was like I don't want to talk in academic prose I don't want to publish an academic prose I don't want to publish in academic journals because who's going to see it and who's it going to benefit.
0:18.6	How can I do work that that actually reaches people right and and can impact their lived experiences.
0:24.5	I'm Carly Zaken. I'm Danielle Weisberg. Welcome to Skim from the couch.
0:30.3	This podcast is where we go deep on career advice from women who have lived it.
0:34.0	From the good stuff like hiring and growing a team,
0:37.0	to the rough stuff like negotiating your salary and giving or getting hard feedback.
0:42.0	We started the skim from a couch,
0:43.9	so what better place to talk it all out
0:46.1	than where it began on a couch? Hey everyone it's Carly. This show might sound a bit different today because
0:59.0	the skim is still working from home for the time being because of COVID-19.
1:03.8	Today, Dr. Yapablay joins me on Skim From the Couch.
1:07.2	She is a scholar activist and cultural consultant
1:10.0	and her work centers on the lived experiences of black women and girls.
1:13.9	She is also a creative producer and native ethnographer
1:17.0	and has created campaigns that illuminate her work,
1:19.6	including the multi-platform digital community and web series professional black girl.
1:24.8	Dr. Blay, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Skim from the couch.
1:28.7	Thank you for having me. I'm excited. We're so excited. We have a standard question we ask everybody I'll now ask you which is can you
1:36.2	please skim your resume for us. Oh skim my resume. The resume is one of those things I hate thinking about and I hate looking at and updating because
1:44.8	it's this moment where you have to be self-centered and talk about all the wonderful things that
1:50.2	you do as a way to, I guess, evidence the things that you can do moving forward.
1:56.4	But my background, it kind of feels aligned
	...

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