2020 Elinor Williams Hooker Tea Talks

A virtual and in-person series | Sundays, February 2 – March 8, 2020 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

"For some of our most important beliefs, we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs."
— 2002 Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman

Belief is a powerful component of human nature that forms our convictions, molds our relationships and informs our behavior. These convictions provide a moral framework that guides our lives, thoughts, and hopes, and governs our societies. Our beliefs can lead us to strive for justice, equity, and inclusion, or they can manifest into harmful stereotypes, racialized beliefs, and prejudices that divides a society.

For the 2020 Tea Talks Series, together we will explore how and why we believe what we believe. Through shared stories and dialogue this series will present ideas and offer opportunities for us to examine our personal beliefs, why we form attachments to those beliefs and how they shape our world.

The winter Tea Talk series, presented by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire (BHTNH) and sponsored in part by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities, is a series of participatory lectures related to New Hampshire’s Black history and African American culture.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2020 (2:00 PM)

Tea Talk #2 | No Neutral Ground: Media and Belief Formulation

The media – television, the press, radio and the internet – plays an important role in shaping public opinion and reinforcing a society’s beliefs. In informing the public about what happens in the world, the media can shape public debate and focus public interest on particular agendas and thus can influence individual actions and implicit associations.

For this panel, presenters will explore how media coverage operates to help form individual beliefs and attitudes around race. They will also explore the potential for media to influence positive social change.

Presenters:
Shelley Walcott
Eric Ratinoff
Howard Altschiller

Watch Video:

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2020 (2:00 PM)

Tea Talk #3 | Medicine, Health, and Race

Racism in medicine, a problem with roots over 2,500 years old, is a historical continuum that continuously affects the health of African Americans and the way they receive healthcare. Racism is, at least in part, responsible for the fact that Blacks and People of Color, since enslavement, have had inadequate health care, poor health status, and poorer health outcomes.

This panel will discuss how myths about racial inferiority and physical racial differences have operated in the fields of medical practice, social work and mental health. Panelists will also explore new theories and methodologies for healthier outcomes.

Presenters:
Shari Robinson
Daphne Robert
Kerri Osborne

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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2020 (2:00 PM)

Tea Talk #4 | Culture and Race in the Public Sphere

Many of our beliefs are passed along to us from our families and communities, who transmit the foundational ideas that shape how we see the world. How the arts and humanities shape their contents also have a powerful influence on how we form particular beliefs.

This panel will discuss the historical role the arts, literature and interpretive spaces such as museums have played in shaping our beliefs and discuss the value of presenting more inclusive stories and diverse representations into the public sphere.

Presenters:
Anthony Poore
Nathaniel Sheidley
Dennis Britton
J. Dennis Robinson

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SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2020 (2:00 PM)

Tea Talk #5 | Racism without Racists: Educating Generations Past & Future

From the moment a child is born, his or her education begins. As the child grows beliefs, cultural expectations and norms are reinforced by teachers, textbooks, and classmates. For students outside the dominant culture, this aspect of the educational system can pose significant challenges for once the brain has constructed a belief, it rationalizes it with explanations and thus becomes invested in the belief.

This panel will explore the historical challenges educational institutions have faced in dealing with diverse student groups and ways to create spaces for more parity and positive learning experiences for all.

Presenters:
Kabria Baumgartner
Mabelle Barnette
Liz Canada
Elizabeth Dubrulle

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SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2020 (2:00 PM)

Tea Talk #6 | New Voices: Our Beliefs, Our Reality

The implicit associations and beliefs we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance.

With a lens on educational institutions, politics and the law, this closing discussion will feature a group of emerging New Hampshire voices that will explore where we are culturally as a state and where we want to be heading.

Presenters:
Funmi Oyekunle
Carlos Cardona
Courtney Dalbec
Jordan Thompson

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