a podcast: for you, about us. you're welcome
ERICKA HART
A kinky, poly, cancer-warrior, activist, sexuality educator and performer with a Master’s of Education in Human Sexuality from Widener University, Ericka Hart has taught sexuality education for elementary aged youth to adults across New York City for the past six years. Her work in sexuality education was catalyzed by her service as a Peace Corps HIV/AIDs volunteer in Ethiopia from 2008-2010.
Diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer in May 2014 at the age of 28, she realized that neither her identity as a queer black woman, nor her sex life as a survivor, was featured prominently in her treatment.
Hart’s work asserts the personal as not only political but a viable part of any conversation on healing. It forces us to see our systems of care as complicit in the perpetuation of illness and contextualizes the experiences of marginalized community; unabashedly centering and sentient such that queer black, brown and femme voices aren’t lost among the drone of scholarly research less skilled than Hart in bringing academia to the places it won’t or refuses to go.
Audiences around the world admire Ericka for her ability to use what has swelled to a cult following on social media among young, queer and trans people of color, cancer survivors, activists, artists, etc. to challenge systemic patriarchy and anti-black standards of beauty. Ericka’s voice, though erudite and rooted in cutting edge thought leadership around human sexual expression as inextricable to overall human health and its intersections with race, gender, chronic illness and disability, remains both radical and relatable, pushing well beyond the threshold of sex positivity.
Pronouns: She/They.
Ebony & Erica
