In this episode I continue my conversation with violis Lisa Whitfield, who went to Juilliard in the 90s and was one of the first students I met who was not in the drama division. We bonded on so many levels because of our insecurities as artists, as women, as black women in that space. She was also the first person that I felt comfortable enough to talk to, not as a faculty member, but as a sister.  It could be because she was a graduate student and she was older than the students I taught, but I really got close to this woman and you'll see that. I get emotional because she is so vulnerable in this interview and she brought that out in me.  I think you're gonna get another slice of what it is to be black, to be female, to be exceptional in a classical space. She’ll talk about institutional racism, she’ll talk about sexism. she’ll talk about classism, she’ll talk about not having the support of her family, which was unusual because everyone has the support of their family, especially when they get into Juilliard, but not for Lisa. This woman had to fight for everything and she not only fought, but she landed on her feet.What You Will HearFreelancing while teaching at Juilliard. Conflicts and truthsRacism, sexism and misogyny at JuilliardParenthoodLong lasting connectionsDrinking and drug cultureAdvice for a young LisaClean and soberLisa’s one regretQuotes“I'll say what I have to say, but I don't feel like I need to shout now.”“I was the first African-American faculty in the drama department and I never felt that my voice really mattered.” - DW“Juilliard name that you talked about….everybody knows that name It's an institution that is steeped in elitism, classism, racism and so breaking down those walls it's a lot.” - DW“I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night.”“You don't like me, you don't wanna sit with me, you go sit somewhere else.  I earned this chair and I'm gonna sit my black ass in it.”“Artists are the first ones to feel a recession coming.”“I am a creative person by nature. It is what I am.”“That was hilarious to me that in all of my struggles, I had managed to create a child who saw Juilliard as just another place.”“if you can survive being a black woman at Julliard in the early nineties, there's very little in the world you can't do.”“I graduated from Juilliard in 1979. I did not step foot back in there until 1992, I couldn't.” - DW“ I think that part of who I am was always going to give a voice to people of color in any community, no matter what community that was.”“I had to fight for myself , as a little kid of color playing the violin.”“I wasn't the first black woman to go to Juilliard to play , a stringed instrument. I know I'm not, because once I graduated, there was this whole community of people who had gone. To major conservator. Some of them Julliard, who knew who I was before I knew they existed and they're the ones that carried me into a new realm musically and professionally, and started to hire me for things.”“The black community embraced me at Juilliard and continued to embrace me.”“Juilliard was definitely a huge factor in the amount I drank. It became that, that social lubricant that helped me get past those anxieties and feelings of not belonging…..it also allowed me to just behave badly and have an excuse, and that is a sad thing that I felt I needed to do that.”“It's a blessing to know that somebody hears you.  that somebody sees you, that somebody believes you when you have been through so many experiences that people today just go,”that doesn't happen. stop complaining, shut up and write, shut up and play your instrument, shut up and dribble.”“It's important that we be seen and...