Benita: Ok the first question is at what point in your life did you decide that you needed to help people?

Laura: Hmmm, I think I grew up with it.  My parents are very religious and there are parts of their spiritual faith that I don’t agree with but a lot of the values that are my core values very much come from my parents’ faith in some ways.  And you are to be a servant to others is something that really got not only taught to me but shown to me: My parents were very good to the people in their lives in a number of different ways.

Benita: Right

Laura: So I don’t think I decided to help people as much as I was taught. You know that quote, “Service is the right you pay for living.”  (p) That’s kind of what I was taught in so many different ways in my childhood.

Benita: Do you try to help people financially ever since you work with disadvantaged people?

Laura: I’ve been really clear on creating boundaries for myself. And I know that is something I had to learn over time. (P)  That it is not my job to impoverish myself (p) in a way of helping other people.  But then it is my prerogative to use my money as I want to.  So there are certain causes that I support financially.  I am really generous with buying meals for the kids that I work with when we are out together

Benita: Right

Laura: I feed the babies kind of thing.

Benita: Yeah

Laura:  In terms of $20 here $50 here, there are two kids who I am extremely close to and they get all the money that they need.And I think in working with people there is sort of a professional (p) line or boundary that you have to have..  You can’t be giving your clients money because it creates this weird power structure.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: So some of that I am not allowed to do as a professional courtesy or as a professional boundary.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: But for the people in my life I help them out.

Benita: (laughs) that’s cool that’s cool.  Do you practice any sort of religious faith? or

Laura: I don’t attend service anywhere.

Benita: Ok

Laura: But I have my own spiritual belief system and my own practices, but a lot of that comes out in the way that I live my life.

Benita: Right.  I ask that question because a lot of people who have committed their life to social change are/is very religious for them.

Laura: And you know I (P) I believe that any sort of external change I want to affect in the world has to begin internally

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: And so a lot of my spiritual belief system has to do with, ‘if you want peace in the world than you got to be peace and you have to be in peace with yourself.’ I see a lot of people especially in social work or more traditional helping professions or jobs (p) never look at their own self.

Benita: Mhmmm

Laura: And so they are trying to “save other kids” when they are actually trying to take of their own screwed up childhood.  It seems to me that if you  do that stuff first, and then you work with other kids, somehow that might work out better .

Benita: Yeah (both laugh)

Laura: and that’s not something that I see a lot.

Benita: Is there a point where you are unwilling to help someone?

Laura: It is not my job to do your work for you.

Benita: Ok

Laura: It is my job to say, “I see something so amazing in you and what do we need to do to have it come out. And maybe it is my job to remind you on Monday that you forget just how amazing you are, but it is not my job to do your work for you.”  (with conviction)  And I think that it is ultimately offensive if I try to because it is saying I know how to live your life better than you do.  People would mind if you say that.  So it is not my job to do the work for people.

Benita: So are you saying that there is a certain point when a person isn’t trying that this is not a time in your life for change? Or

Laura: Um, I think its individual.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: I’ve never given up on a kid or, as a matter-of-fact, a person.  But I have said, “You need to do this, this and this.  I can’t do this this and this for you. But here is what I can do,”  Umm little things like, “You need your GED.  I can help enroll you, I can even tutor you in math, but I cannot take that test for you..”  And that’s kind of a silly example but that sort of ’there is only so much I can do for you and there is a whole lot more we can do together.’

Benita: Do you see some common goals in the different type of organizations that you work for?

Laura: That’s a great question. Um, (P) The last two jobs that I have had have been for leadership development.  In terms of a specific youth-prompted program not necessarily similar.  The last position had a little more grassroots, social justice focus.  Whereas the position before that, my last job in Roanoke was a little bit more about volunteerism and (P) tutoring.  It was sort of more about the helping stuff rather than the social change stuff.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: So there are some similarities in terms of over-arching common goals (P) Maybe very broad ones- serving others. Working with youth very broad, I think that they had different missions and different approaches.    

Benita: So what you’re saying is that when working with you there is not common leadership goals pr leadership skills but…

Laura: The last two jobs I had there it was a leadership development organization so those two were leadership development organizations but one focused more on social justice and one focused more on volunteerism and community service. The two other sort of main jobs that I have had one was the tutoring director and one was the resettlement work, and those maybe weren’t all that similar in terms of approach.

Benita: I think we’ve touched this question before but , Why did you decide to work with youth than any other group?  (P)  I know you did some work with refugees, and you talked before about a feeling that it brings to you

Laura: I think it’s one of the things that I was put on this earth to do.  It’s one of my gifts.  I’m very good at connecting with youth and I love being in their presence..  I’m interested to know when I’m sixty if I’m still working with teenagers or if I’m working with college students.  I don’t know.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: At this point in my life (p) maybe I’ve decided or maybe  it’s just been what I have done because my jobs have sort of  fallen into each other and my background is working with you so I guess those are the jobs that I go for.  I don’t know if working with adults necessarily excites me though.  So I guess it’s a sort of  (unclear word) I have

Benita: (laughs)

Laura: So have I decided or not?  So I guess I have decided at a certain level.  And I think it is because I do love it so much.  And I think that at this point in my life I really prefer working with teenagers and younger kids in terms of professional.  I love being with younger children but there’s something about teenagers that I, I just love!

Benita: Can you explain that more?

(Both laugh)

Laura: I love  the energy and the passion and the emerging awareness that  (P) the moves teenagers have, and that they have their own identity and they have their own look on the world.  And I love being a part of or at least a witness to that journey. (P) I have benefited tremendously from teenagers playfulness and from their innovative ideas.  I think there’s really something fresh and new about so much of what I hear teenagers talking about and I love being a part of that.

Benita: Right

Laura: I especially love the sort of fifteen to seventeen mark where it is a lot of, “Who you gonna be in this world, what are you going to do, how you gonna change it, how you going to shake it up” I love being a part of that.  I think more than anything in my life I’m a really good coach.

Benita: Yeah

Laura: I don’t want to play the basketball game but I’m really good at saying, “Let’s do this, we’ve thought about this.  And if you do this, this might happen.  And that tends to be what I get to do with teenagers.  And they also know I love them so they’re nice to me.

(Both Laugh)

Benita: Well I’m personally scared of them.  (Both Laugh)

Laura: I think that maybe I used to be.  And I think, also, it has been interesting to watch.  I mean I started working with younger children and bit by but by bit they have gotten older as I have gotten older and older.  And I think that there is something.  I once had a friend that said she hated middle school girls.  And I was lot, “All of them, you hate all of them.  Why? How?   And the more we talked she said kids in middle school were very mean to me.

Benita: I think that is like a universal thing. (laugh)

Laura: I mean yeah.

Benita: Middle school was horrible.

Laura: When you were eleven but now you’re twenty-five probably it would be different.

Benita: Yeah

Laura: But I think a lot of us had screwy experiences from middle school and high school so we end up being really afraid of kids that age because of our own experiences, and I think that that is completely legitimate.  And I think I had to look at my own stuff from middle school and high school and the teenagers that I’ve worked with have been really beautiful in that regard because they are cool   Now that doesn’t mean that we constantly get along and they all  have wonderful attitudes.  I mean

Benita:  I don’t know if you can answer this question but, how do you think adults or people my age lose that sense of passion or I don’t know,

Laura: Mmm, keep talking a bit more.

Benita: Like, I don’t know.  I think that, I feel that maybe we’re not as blasé or apathetic to many of the problems that we face.  Maybe because we are, I don’t know, we aren’t at the same level where we can say, “This is what I want to be, I do anything.” We are already being affected by our choices. 

Laura: I think (P) I think you touched on one big part of it, which is the extent that you believe you can make a change.  I think that sometimes the daily demands of living start kind of wearing people down.  I think (P) it’s a question that I have asked myself a lot because I want to be committed to the same things sixty years from now.  I’ll probably approach it differently and I’ll probably look at the world differently.  I mean I hope, lets hope that I continue to grow for the next sixty years , but how and what ways I will be affecting my world them and what I am committed to.  And I, I don’t know why we lose it.

Benita: Ok

Laura: I see it happening.

Benita: I can agree about what you are saying about the demand of life, like when some of those things are taken care of for you, you can be more passionate.  Instead of being like, “I have to pay rent, like…

Laura: Yeah

Benita: It’s straining especially for people who have always had to live that life

Laura: And I think (p) maybe we also lose a sense of community.  We lose a sense of being connected to one another and a larger world.  And people become very singular like, I need to pay my rent, and I need to put food on the table for my children, and that’s ok.  But they become their own little world instead of having the opportunities to make some sort of connection with the community.

Benita: Have you done anything wild or crazy for social change or activism?

Laura: Wild or crazy?

Benita: Or maybe something out of character?

Laura: I went to a Christian bookstore one time and asked where their section on Gay and Lesbian parenting was. (both laugh) but other than that Uh I don’t know about wild and crazy.  I mean I’ve been to peace protests and I’ve done all that good stuff, but I haven’t done too many outland

ish things.  I have friends who do.

Benita: But not you?

Laura: Yeah, I haven’t streaked for peace I have to say.

Benita: Have you read about any current Hollins activism?

Laura: No! Tell me.

Benita: A group of students from a women’s studies class felt that the black students were marginalized so they put, there is like this table where the black kids, well a lot of the, not all of them

Laura: Where they sit, yeah.

Benita: So they put “Whites Only” on their table and “Blacks Only” on all the rest of the tables.  And it was a study on how people would react to that, and everyone well I though that was kind of silly, but people thought it was great like Hollins administration made them take it down after an hour when they realized what they did but most people thought it was great.  And everyone who said it was a mistake they were like, ’you don’t get it.’  So it was some sort of high-level activism.

Laura: Yeah

Benita: Like I think that this takes steps back…. It’s weird I don’t know.

Laura: Black students are marginalized because they sit with their friends?

Benita: Well there’s also like this, a lo of black girls feel uncomfortable sitting at other tables but I feel like that’s more of, “We’re not really friends, and we can try to be friends and it will work out or..

Laura: Honestly the same conversations were happening ten years ago.  When all of the eight African-American students who went to Hollins at the time sat together, and why didn’t they when I use they you know what I’m saying?

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: Why weren’t they sitting with other people and I thought, “Because they are sitting with their friends first of all but secondly why is it the responsibility of African-American students to inter-disperse themselves to the other tables.  I mean why aren’t other people coming to that table saying ‘Hey can I come sit with you?” I am always interested in whose responsibility it is to make things feel better. And according to whom is it feeling better.  But no, that same black table conversation we had it at my time…

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: And by all means there was, there was also a lesbian table, but that’s because that’s who people are friends with.  Not only, but you kind of gravitate towards your people.

Benita: Right

Laura: And that’s not saying that’s the only people you can sit with.

Benita: I mean for me personally for me, I sit at that table, I don’t want to call it the black table, and I don’t want to say those girls aren’t my friends.  It’s the table I’ve been sitting at since I got here and that’s where I want to sit.

Laura: Yeah

Benita: But yeah, so I can understand when people say, “I feel uncomfortable sitting somewhere else.  And maybe they do feel that way, and I can understand any race saying I feel uncomfortable sitting at this table.

Laura: I mean, I think we all feel uncomfortable sitting outside our comfort zone.  The comfort zone is usually described by the people you are most familiar with. 

Benita: Right

Laura:  Do we have any professors of color here yet?

Benita: We have T.J Anderson.

Laura: Who else?

Benita: We have this lady named Adea Harvey, and we have Professor Amatepe who is African.  And not a lot of them our very vocal.  A lot of them are supportive but a lot of the things that happen within the BSA, and the black community.  A lot of people who are African American do not stay here for too long.  They are here for like a year, it’s not for them I guess.  But they are usually supportive until they become disappointed or

Benita: So a lot of them are like, I’ve tried but I want to see you move toward positive things, which we are.  We are doing many positive things and they will be supportive but that can’t support some of the things that we are doing.  I feel like Hollins has come a lot further than when I got here.  Like the Diversity Initiative Action Board and they are trying to figure out what to do but this is a historically white women’s university and they are trying but it’s going to be hard.  Like you said eight and now there’s like (p) when I got here I could name every black person but now it’s like, “I’ve never seen her before, who is she.”

Laura: Really, that’s actually really nice to know. I drove onto the Hollins campus..  I was a transfer.  Do you remember the former KKK.  I don’t know what they call him the Grand wizard or some stuff.  He was running for governor of Mississippi..  Anyways his last name was Duke.    He was running for governor of the state.  Former KKK, not even a member which was bad enough, he was like the grand whatever.  Ok, I go on to Hollins campus my first day.  And I’ve been told all my life by my high-school teachers that, “you don’t fit in in a small town, not just because it was small but because it was really conservative., and really white, and really not everything I needed in life. 

Benita: Right

Laura: “When you go to college it’s going to be different you are going to be so happy.” I drive on to campus go around to the parking lot that is right but the church and I see a bumper sticker that says ‘Duke.’  I drive to my college dorm room at Randolph and burst into tears ‘cause I was like it’s supposed to be better here.  Like somebody wants this person to win, for governor, at the place where I’m supposed to be going to school where it’s going to be different.  And then we get the little, the things they put in the bathrooms, the little Hollins News things.  There has been a two hundred percent increase in African-American enrollment.  And I am like that’s wonderful a two hundred percent increase that’s great.  THERE WERE EIGHT. Benita eight (both laugh)  Eight, eight, eight students who weren’t white going to school with me besides international students.  And I was so sad.  Then I start going to classes and you know- white people taught me and black people cleaned my toilets.  And I had a real problem with that I had a real problem with the fact (P) That’s that is what I was being taught.  Not that I learned that lesson but other people were learning ‘Here’s who teaches you and here’s who mows your lawn, cleans your toilet and feeds you.’  And when I got asked, when I graduated, would you support Hollins this year I said when you have a tenure-track African-American professor

Benita: Well T.J got tenure

Laura: Well they didn’t call me back so I guess they just don’t want my money.  That was part of my discomfort with Hollins especially after I left because I thought everything I knew about race, everything I knew about class, everything I really know about international stuff I basically taught myself.  And even though I’m pretty good at teaching myself  I really wanted professors who challenged me to go further.  And to challenge more of my assumptions, of my stereo-types of my ignorance.  And I got to West-End and the kids did a really good job of teaching me everything else I had to learn.  But that, that was part of my (disappointment) with Hollins because I needed it to be different.

Benita: What did West-End Center teach you about people, or like different races?

Laura: Other people’s experiences.  I’m trying to think of (p)  So there are two kids who I am really really close to.  And Desiree told me once, she used to live with her grandmother, about how she had to go, she had to go across the street for two pieces of bread so she could have a syrup sandwich.  I didn’t even know what that was.  I mean they were that poor.  And I spent my first three years in a trailer park so I am not completely unaware of poverty but that level of poverty I never touched.  I never went to bed hungry, she did.  Teaching me about how that impacts you, just some sort of personal experiences that you’ve had.  Did I learn about race class, as in through people, and then through that race and class.  Shakeem a kid that I’m really close to?

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: Picked up a book in my car said, “You read more about black people than any other person that I have seen in my whole life.”

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: And I looked at him and said Shakeem that’s my job though.  I mean I have to teach myself what the world hasn’t taught me.  And he was like “Oh yeah.”  Because he kept saying why did I have a clue for so many years.  And I said because I ask you questions and you give me answers.  Those kind of things don’t get taught or didn’t get taught at the Hollins I went to.  There are other worlds and they are just as legitimate as yours.  And I didn’t think they weren’t legitimate, I didn’t know what the other worlds were and I wanted to know.

Benita: Well as a person who probably has more advantages than some of the people you  work with, what advice do you try to give them.  Like for life or..

Laura: I don’t

Benita: You don’t?

Laura: In particular situations I give advice but as an overall general here’s my advice no…

Benita: So you’ve never looked at a kids family and thought to yourself  ‘you’re doing this wrong, you should do this differently.’

Laura: I never work with parents.  I don’t work with parents. 

Benita: Why not?

Laura: Well for a couple of reasons- One because I look about sixteen half the time and who I am coming up to you telling you how to raise your kids when I haven’t raised them myself.  If parents ask me questions about their kids I give them advice.  But I really try not to go there.  And working with people of color,  as a white woman saying, “Hey this is what I would do.”  That’s offensive.  I don’t know better, Um, when parent will say, “What do you think about this, you know my baby’s making an F in this.”  Then I will say  well, “there might be this this and this and how can I help you with this but other than that I try to stay out of it.

Benita: (unclear)  So you are just not trying to unless they ask you questions

Laura: I am not the expert and I try to tell them I’m not the expert.  With kids I will tell them about themselves but I wait to be asked and I wait until I develop the kind of relationship with youth where they know just how much I admire them and just how safe they are with me. And then I might thread in on them.  But I wait for those things first

Benita: Well I just want to address what you were saying about Hollins, I think they have come far.  I think they have come a long way because now some of the issues that you had before they address them.  And they don’t really put their opinions in, but they will create spaces where they can be talked out.  And I feel like some of the issues that you had before they are starting to address that.

Laura: Mmmm, I’m glad to hear that.

Benita: And there are a lot of people who are willing to explain to people who rhaven’t.  There are some girls here who are like, I have never been around anyone but a white person until/since I’ve gotten here, which is very different for me coming from DC.  But like

Laura: Yeah

Benita:  And like I feel like that’s good that’s positive.  And I mean they are trying but like, there was an incident where this African girl put a confederate flag on Front Quad in front of Main, no she lived in East.  And there was this HUGE Confederate flag

Laura: The African girl?

Benita: Yeah

Laura: Ok

Benita: Yeah

Laura: That’s awesome

Benita: Yeah so it was this huge Confederate flag.  And everyone had a problem with it but she was like, “I have every right to voice my belief.”  And then it was like, “Don’t make her take it down because Freedom of speech right?  And I mean I respect Hollins for that even though I know the president and a lot of the administration were like ‘Take it down, take it down now’ they didn’t do it.  We had this, I don’t know, talk about what the Confederate flag means and like discussion groups and stuff like that.  And I mean she didn’t take it down.  And then they impose like a rule

Laura: No flags on Main. (both laugh)

Benita: No, after that they were like this wasn’t a good idea.  But I feel like that was good- trying to make her understand why people could be offended by that.  And maybe if she couldn’t understand, she is a smart girl so I know she could understand a lot of the connotations behind it.

Laura: Was it about regionalism for her?

Benita: I don’t know what it was about for her. (both laugh) I have no idea.  I’ve never talked to her about it. (Jokingly) But I really think she,  I mean it’s a pretty impressive flag.  I mean.

Laura: Yeah, It’s bold.

(Both Laugh)

Benita: Yeah, I don’t know.  I feel like she just felt like, ‘freedom of speech’ and I think she is an example of people of different races, what they can do but that is acceptable.  And maybe since she was African not, I mean I don’t know.  I guess people talking about it, that was good and people writing poetry about it in The Album and that was good.    So it was good.  Some of it got a little touchy but for the most part it was good.  (Both laugh)  So I think Hollins has come

Laura: Oh I think Hollins is a very different place.  I mean I graduated ten years ago.  So I really think it’s a very different place.

Benita: Ok, What did you think about the women’s social change conference?

Laura: It was great. LeeRay (Professor from the Anth/WS dept.) really did an amazing job.  And I really think that the morning session, I didn’t get to go to a lot of it because I didn’t get to go to Friday at all.  And then I had to leave right after the afternoon session but  I really loves,, that morning, hearing the four women talk about their experiences.  And I found out a lot about a couple of them since the conference because  I’m very interest in, It goes back to the question you asked earlier about , “How do people keep going about what was important to them when they were younger or how do they not?”   I’m, listening to people who have been activists for twenty, thirty, forty, sixty years talking about what keeps them going.  It was really really important for me.

Benita: So what motivates you to do your work, or who motivates you?

Laura: Hmmm? Desiree and Shakeem definitely motivate me.  They are a huge part of the hope that I have in this world.  Um, they absolutely motivate me. 

Benita: Can you talk a little bit more about your stories about them.

Laura:  I met them both at West End.  Shakeem was eleven.  He was moving down from New York, Staten Island.  And I met Desiree when she was thirteen.  And I’ve known then both now for ten years,  Deza for ten and a half, a little longer for her. And we’re (p) we have a ten year history.  You know they, the kids that I have taken under my wings, we have a very strong connection.  Um, I would take them to things in the community, poetry readings. speeches.  When there was an opportunity for the youth in the community to give a speech it was usually Desiree or Shakeem ho did it.  There was a tutoring award ceremony every spring and I usually put them in charge of being the MCs s and I’ve become a giant pain In the ass because I would make them practice their speech until they wanted to hurt me.  But I wanted to teach them how to do it because I wanted them to know their charisma and how they talked.  People did this number and listened.   I wanted them to know how remarkable they were.  And I wanted a group of people to reflect that back, Because they knew that I thought that they walked on the water but I wanted other people to show them just how impressive they were and I knew in a group of people that would happen.  So we did a lot of that together.  They have gotten a book every year since they ere eleven and thirteen.  Desiree doesn’t like them as much as Shakeem but Shakeem (p) is a pretty veracious reader.  Which is interesting because I was in the hospital with him yesterday morning and he pulled out some book and handed it to me and his wife started talking about something and I opened the book and I heard Shakeem say, “Oh you  lost her now she just got a book.”

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: And I looked up and I said, “This is a good book baby.”  And I handed it back because we were just about to go upstairs to see his son.  And I heard her say, “Why do you read so much anyway.”  And it was really interesting because Shakeem looked at me and he said, “Did you do that.”  And I said “No, you always like to read.” And he said, “I did?” And I said, “I pushed you a little bit nut you always liked to read.” And I had this moment where I think ‘I have known you since you were eleven years old and I am getting ready to go upstairs and meet your son and that’s cool.’  And that’s (p) that kind of relationship.  I almost lost it when I went to see his son, that’s another story.  I mean (p) Every Christmas every birthday every week I talk to them.  I mean they are a huge part of my life and they know how much I adore them. 

Benita: So at what point, I know last time we talked about how much you wont let anyone not let anyone in but keeping a soft heart but trying

Laura: Mhmm

Benita: trying to keep a distance or.  What makes it so different now, is it age or experience or I don’t know like You’re so close to Shakeem but then.

Laura: Uh I. um (p) Two things about that. One is that when people tell me about really horrible things that have happened to them.  I am really good at hearing it.  I mean I’ve heard horrible stories of torture and I’m like, ‘Ok, then what?”  I once heard someone say, “If you lived through it. I can hear about it.”  And that was her way of saying if you can survive horrible torture I can at least listen to that story and take it on as much as I can. 

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: So I can hear really horrible stories things about what happened to people without letting it get to much for me/ But that doesn’t mean I don’t let other people get really close to me.  It’s just that I (p) I don’t take on their suffering for them. 

Benita: Ok

Laura: In terms of Desiree and Shakeem I think they’re my favorites as people.  We’re destined to love in fall of us.  And they were just two of mine, and I got to meet them pretty early. 

Benita: That’s cool. Can you talk about the photography project that you did?

Laura: Mhmm.  I was on the board of the refugee office and the director  of the office handed me a grant and said see if come up with anything that we can do with this.  And I read through it and I was working at Family Service at the time working for the leadership development program.  And I came up with the idea of this photography project and I came up to my boss and I said, “Do you mind of I go for this?”  And she said, “You’re a second year Master’s student.  You just got back from Africa.  You’re gonna have to do ‘this this this and this’ for me this year.  You already have to do ‘this this and this’ for school.  Can you take this on?” And I was like, “I really want to .”  And she said, “Ok.  Do it. You’re crazy, but do it.”  And I love her for that.  She was excellent at saying, ‘You’re going to shoot for the moon, cool.’  And I have the history to know if I completely fell on my ass she wasn’t going to fire me. 

Benita: Right

Laura:  She was a wonderful safety in that way.  So there were sixteen youth maybe.  US born youth and refugee youth got together were trained in photography basics and then with a mentor, an adult mentor would go into the homes of refugee families.  Get to know them a little it, not a lot but a little bit.  Then take pictures documenting their experience.  Then we all got together, picked the best pictures, everybody got two I think, and then they were framed and then they hung.  Have you been to center of the square?

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: You know the downstairs lobby.  The downstairs there’s a staircase going up to the right there re are like these two round things, they hung on those from those.  Then they traveled for a little while and now they are in New York.  But I think one of the things that I loved the most was the opening ceremony.  On the opening night all the refugee families came, all the kids were there, and people from the community were there and I thought if I was to throw a party this is who would be there.

Benita; (Laugh)

Laura:  It was just a really fun night.  We even opened up the art (room).  So the refugee kids could play in that part.  So it was really fun to see families looking a pictures of themselves and saying who they honored.  And having teenagers feel really excited about being artists and having people comment on their work.  It was one of the most things that I was proud of in that job.

Benita: That’s cool.

Laura: It was fun, crazy but fun.

Benita: What was?  How many times have you been to Africa once or twice?

Laura: Just once.  I’m going back in august But I’ve only been once.

Benita: What sort of life experience did you take from your trip from Ghana and how has that affected your social life now?

Laura: I (P) I learned what it meant (p) Two things.  One I was that I I was reminded again of how we really are all people.  And there are similarities and these amazing amounts of connection that we are really universal, that to learn what it is like to be the idiot who doesn’t speak the right language.  And I have refugee friends and I know their experience of being the other on a constant basis but to experience that because I didn’t go with a group.  I mean I was the white girl in the town.  And everywhere I went I was the person that (p) was different, and other, and everything else.  And not that people weren’t really wonderful to me but I didn’t know the rules.  You don’t do anything with your left hand, you just don’t do it.  And I mean those little things that I had to learn and what it is like to be in a group of people and have none of them speak to you for four hours because they are speaking in another language. And all of those sorts of moments of connection and those moments of otherness were sort on invaluable to me, because I know the stories but it is very different when you experience it for yourself.  It creates a greater understanding and a greater awareness. 

Benita: So did you shop in the markets?

Laura: Mhmm

Benita: How did that make you feel, that experience?

Laura: I only went to the market by myself once.  I usually had people with me. 

Benita: Ok

Laura: They would do a lot of the bartering and the transfer for me.  I enjoyed the markets a lot but I was also really sick my last three weeks there so I have memories of just wanting to puke at the market because the smells were getting to me.  Um the fish, when you’re stomachs not feeling good that dried fish is just not a good smell. (Both laugh) You remember.

Benita: I remember the smell as soon as I got off the plane.  I was like (makes disgusted face)

Laura: Did you fly into Accra?

Benita: Yeah.  I fly into Accra and then, I mean when I went I feel like I just learned how to.  I love people, all people, but I’m just very private.  So just being there, people touching you, and heckling you because you look They thought I was white and so they thought I had money.

Laura: Mhmm.

Benita: I went to the market one time with the group and after that I went to the little touristy supermarket place.  I’m not ashamed of that because I couldn’t handle it.  I couldn’t.

Laura: I was really, that’s something I had forgotten about until you mentioned it.  People coming up to me left and right “We need money for an orphanage. Our school needs to be rewired for electricity. “And I actually wrote about this when I came back because it became this really bizarre thing where I’m a graduate student who doesn’t really have money like that but I had my own car. I had my own apartment and I could afford.  Back in the states I had that, but I could also afford to be there.

Benita: True

Laura: And for so many of the people that I knew in Ghana it would be a lifetime and they still wouldn’t have enough to come to the states so I had money.  I had a lot of money but I did not have build an orphanage type of money.   And trying to say I didn’t have money when I clearly did have money just not that kind of money and trying to explain that.  Also because I am white I clearly know everyone in Germany and in Europe.  Not Europe, Germany and England.  I was fascinated by this.  This lady came up to me and was like, “Do you know Gerta?” And I was like, “Excuse me?” (laughs) “Gerta, Gerta?!”  And I was like, “No ma’am I do not know a Gerta.”  “Yes! In Germany”  And I said, “I haven’t been to Germany.  And people very often assumed I was from Europe, which I loved because I was a little concerned about the US thing at that point.

Benita: Yes

Laura: And she said, honestly I can assure you, “Yes Gerta.  You look just like Gerta.”  And I was like, “No baby I never been to Germany I don’t know a Gerta.”  When I was leaving she said, “Tell Gerta hello when you see her.”  She could not get it through her head that I did not know her.  So this whole like, ’every white person you’ve ever met’ thing was also fascinating.  And I mean people were that stupid in the states to.  So it was good to have the flipside of that.

Benita: How, ok, One more question.  Did you give people money while you were there?

Laura: When people would ask me on the streets I wouldn’t. 

Benita: Ok

Laura: Um, when I was leaving I left my friends money.

Benita: Ok

Laura: As part of a thank you but I mean one person was trying to get something off the ground so I gave him, I ended up giving him a lot more than I gave other people.  And one person was trying to pay for school so I left her a lot more than I left other people.  But that was, by a lot more I mean I left them twenty dollars or like

Benita: That’s so much more for them though

Laura: Oh yeah.  I mean I went over there with six hundred and lived off four hundred of it for the summer. 

Benita: Wow, so you were roughing it.

Laura: It was like to eat or to buy that. 

Benita: I know an egg sandwich, 2000 cedis. (Ghanaian currency equaling 35 cents) (both laugh)  I don’t know, when I was there some people came to me, refugees from Liberia, and needed a surgery.  And it was like ten dollars. One hundred thousand cedis and I’m like I cannot say no.  I mean I don’t have money but if I needed a billion dollars for a surgery my family would be there for me. 

Laura: (unclear)  Did you go to the refugee camp?

Benita: No. At our school there were refugees building so they housed them and they had farm land where they could plant on.  And so he just wanted ten dollars.  And I thought he could be scamming me but I could see like the bandages. And

Laura:  Yeah, if he scammed you for ten dollars that’s ok.  No, I think that if I had been in those situations that I would have helped.

Benita: And the Liberian kids were like, (holding hands out) and then when I would see them going back to their parents I was like “Oh no.” (both laugh)

Laura: There was one person once who kept on harassing me for money.  And she wouldn’t stop following me.  And I finally turned around and said, “You need to leave me.”  And it was the right thing to do because I had said no like six times.  And she was getting increasingly insistent .  But as soon as I turned around I thought, ‘she is asking you for fifty cents.  I mean the equivalent of, and I felt like an ass but I thought I can’t

Benita: help everyone

Laura: and I wasn’t helping her.  She wanted an egg.  It wasn’t.  She just wanted a little snack and thought I should get it for her.  And I was like, ‘I don’t know you like that.’

Benita: That’s awesome.

Laura: It was interesting to navigate wealth.  Because clearly I knew I was unspeakably wealthy if I could get to Ghana, and that I have my own car.  But I, I was living of eighteen thousand dollars a year, and I didn’t exactly have build an orphanage type of money. 

Benita: True

Laura: But I interesting even in myself to figure that out.  And culturally, in the States, we typically do not ask people for the money quite the way it is acceptable in Ghanaian culture.  Because it’s just you know. I would come home and I would get this ‘what did you bring me.  What do you have for me?’ And I found it rude because culturally you don’t ask for stuff where I am from.  But in Ghana that’s okay so thinking about culture and how that works and the rules are and what rules you have to apply in the situation and what rules you have to abandon at the airport- that was all really interesting for me and really good for me.

Benita: I agree, they have a strong sense of helping other people. I mean even at the embassy, a guy was like ‘I can go back to Ghana and I’m going to be able to help so many people.’   he was really excited about it.  But I just realized that I couldn’t help everybody.  So I just enjoyed my time there.  How did you feel about colonization and religion there, that was weird for me.

Laura: I remember walking past this white guy who lived in Ghana and he was talking to some Ghanaian workers and I think they were building a road or something.  But he spoke to them in pigeon English

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: Which is the equivalent of, and I remember walking around and I just shot him a glare and I thought ‘Why are you talking to them like that?” I mean it was actually the only moment where I remembered the history of Ghana.  Because for the most part I was so immersed in the community that I was in living in that that didn’t happen.  So that was my one white boy moment of like what the hell. 

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: But I was staying with an Anglican priest, which that is a whole other story

Benita: ok

Laura: But he had just been appointed as the Bishop.  So there was the elaborate ceremony for him to become bishop and he was wearing the pointy hat and robe and all that.

Benita: Did you get along.

Laura: Mhmm

Benita: Ok

Laura: That was bizarre for me. That was completely bizarre to see all of these trappings of Euro-clothing.  You know the pope stuff (jokingly)

Benita: Or like “Jesus Saves Restaurant

Laura: Yeah, Oh yes, yes that was everywhere.  But I was living with a priest who is practicing a European religion.  I think it is okay to practice other countries belief systems.  But seeing all of the European dress and the European, ‘We have our own bishop now and he has his own pointy hat.’  that was weird for me. 

Benita: Do you feel like the marginalized groups can benefit by working with each other and do you feel like this can resolve problems that they face.

Laura: Which marginalized groups?

Benita: Like I know you worked with refugees. Immigrants, African-Americans.  And I know sometimes we don’t really connect.  Do you feel like that could, how do you feel like that could help us, I guess?

Laura: I feel like very often we are all fighting for the same very small piece of the pie.  And I think there’s a lot of complex issues involved in that.  Very often African-American and African immigrants don’t really get along so well.  And that is something that happened when we were resettling Liberians in Roanoke, and I understood it.  They were living, do you know Chapman Ave, Patterson Ave?  They’re on Chapman, they have been now for eight years but suddenly there’s this family who moves in of outsiders who talk funny and all of these people keep bringing them stuff.  In this really impoverished neighborhood there is this one family who is getting a lot of assistance. And it created a lot of resented in the neighborhood of like, ‘Why are these outsiders getting all of this when no one has ever helped me out like that?’

Bernita: Mhmm

Laura:  And there are a lot more examples but that kind of relationship (p) in those kind of dynamics between African immigrants and African-Americans they’re complicated and there are a lot of things that go into it.  And I really think it’s simplistic to say, “Why don’t you all just talk about it.  Why don’t you all just get along?”  But do I think it would help if all marginalized groups recognized the connectedness of the interplay of the repression sure.  But it’s kind of like, ‘Just because you are gay doesn’t mean you have a clue.’

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: There are A LOT of racist gay people.  There are a lot of people of color who have class issues.  And I think we all run the risk of trying to figure out who we are better than.  And I feel that is a lot of what keeps us stuck in this particular society.  So yeah it would help.  But I wonder when it could happen and I wonder how it could happen.  What do you think?

Benita: Um, I don’t know. I think that we all have common issues.  I feel like starting with acceptance and equality.  I feel like that is a socioeconomic more so than anyting else.

Laura: Mhmmm

Benita: Especially with African-Americans.  I and my friends have this discussion all of the time where the, sometimes the black girls or people who feel like they have to perpetuate a certain stereotype to fit in with people.  Then there are black people who feel like they have to deny everything, even if that is not who they are.  Like, ‘I am nothing like this.’ To be accepted by a larger group of people.  I feel like both of those can be burdensome and not help us out at all.   I feel like id there was some sort of in-between, especially since both of these groups are coming from the same background. We’re all here together.  We are all.. Have privilege you know.  I mean we all have different.  I could be lower-middle class and my friend can be upper class but we are still here together.  And I feel like that would help, I don’t know the black community because then we could be together.  And once we’re together going for the same things we can realize that we are still have history we can move on we can go from there.  I don’t know so I’m not talking about re-appropriation of funds or anything like that right now would help because people still need to be trained on how to get to where they need to be.  I think we just need to learn how to stick together.  So we would be ready to join forces with other groups which I know how like there is a lot of talk about black women and how black men are closeted because they don’t get the support from ‘us.’  Which I mean, I don’t disagree with that.  But like, especially with that issue, it is like9p)  I don’t know I just wanted to talk more about that.  I feel like it has become this issue for like African-American closeted people are very (P) I don’t know.  I would never go to my grandmother and be like ‘Gramma im gay.’  And I feel like I don’t need to.

Laura: Yeah

Benita: I could tell my friends but not anyone…

Laura: Yeah

Benita: And I feel like that is a serious issue.  I mean that could be a lot of the reason we have so many problems with diseases and things like that because it’s not something you can talk about.  Like you learn, maybe with the colonization/Christian thing that has been engraved in us that there’s a certain way to be.

Laura: Yeah.  My adopted big brother came out to his mom.  And he was prepared for everything.  H was prepared for I hate you get out of my house.  He was prepared for everything except this, “No you’re not because that only happens to white people.” And he was like, “Ma ma ma, Um” That was years ago but he still tells the story of being like, “I just stood and looked at her because I expected everything else but that.”

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: And I was like (confused) and then finally he said, “No, no no I’m pretty sure about it. I’m gay” And she really was just like, “No no you’re not baby, that happens to white people.  And he said it a couple more times and then finally it sort of maybe seeped in.  But she really just thought that he was confused because (sarcastic) that only happens to white people.  And it took her about five or six month to realize that maybe she could have a black son  that might be gay.  And then she had to start realizing that she had a gay son, because she really thought for the longest time. And I mean she was old school but still I think there is this perception of ‘it’s a white thing.’

Benita: Mhmm

Laura: Combined with a lot of what you are saying, ‘This is how you have to be in the world and you can’t possibly be a man and be gay to.’ (P) Because that means you are not a man.

Benita: Right

Laura: So there’s a lot of that kind of good stuff. 

Benita: And a lot of ‘they still support me let me wait until I am on my own’   I don’t know with like me and my gay friends that is their biggest concern.  They give me allowance and pay for my car and they might not do that anymore.  And there is a lot of denial I think in the black family because they will know, especially with my closest male friend.  His parents will be like, they all know but nothing can be said.

Laura: Yes, which is crazy making.

Benita:  I don’t know if it is like different in a white household or anything like that, it may not be.

Laura: You know I (P) I think that (P) I’m always uncomfortable talking in generalities because there are exceptions to everything and values that I can say about a general group.  But I do think there is something specific about being a person of color, specifically being an African-American and being gay and how that interplays with family dynamics. It can be different than how it is in white families.  I mean it was not fun coming out to my parents.  But I wasn’t letting them down as a person.  Not in quite the same way that some of my African-American friends did when they came out to their parents.

Benita: Can you explain some of those stories?  Can you tell the story about coming out to your parents and then compare it to another story?

Laura:  For my parents it was about religious shame.  Um, They don’t think I’m going to burn in hell.  I mean well they did at first.  But then, I swear to God this is true, my father wrote Billy Graham a letter.  And Billy Graham wrote my father right back and explained that I probably wasn’t going to hell because I had probably at some point been saved.  I found that letter and I was like, “Oh shit, my father had written Billy Graham. (laughs) I mean Bless his heart because he wasn’t being mean he was really sobbing because he thought I was going to hell.  And when your father is sobbing over your eternal soul that’s tough.  If you scream at me saying “you’re going to hell “ I can be mad at that  but when your father is sobbing for your soul it’s a little tricky to navigate that.  So for awhile I was going to burn in hell now I’m not really gay I’m being deceived by Satan.   And that’s the last we talked about it.  I just try not to go there

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: It’s just, “You know really I am gay”     “No you’re not you’re being deceived by Satan.”  “No, I really am gay” “No, no no you’re not you’re being deceived by Satan.”   You can only do that so many times until it’s just not worth it anymore.  I have

Benita: (jokingly) We could put your dad, my friend mom joined a support group

Laura: And my parents, it is shame because in their community people don’t have gay relatives.

Benita: Right

Laura:  I mean they do, clearly they do.  But it’s not talked about.  I mean you don’t say, “Oh my gay child and her partner…”  It’s just not discussed so they have a lot of shame but it is about religious shame.  This frankly ties into white privilege because it doesn’t tie into their seeing me as a good white girl.  That is part of the privilege that I get, my race isn’t tied into my being queer, which is part of it for some of my black friends.  One of the kids that I am closest to right now is in the process of  coming out to her family and (p) she’s letting them down in a way that I didn’t let my parents down- as a person.

Benita: Mhmm

Laura:   She’s abandoning them and everything they put into her and it’s about ‘we’ve raised you different than this.  don’t you bring shame onto this family.  And it’s different, and I’m not going to make gross generalizations about any group of people because of that but I’ve heard similar experiences about the kind of shame you’re bringing amongst family.  And you can’t tell your grandmother it would kill her and some of that is “that only happens to white people, what white girls have you been messing with about that”  There’s a lot of that that I think um, I also hasten to add that the whole (sarcastic) D.L phenomena is not a black male issue.

Benita: I know

Laura It happens in the black community and it needs to be talked about but I’m really annoyed with the idea that it’s a black thing or that it is a black male thing because it is not.

Benita: Right.

Laura: I’m really annoyed with the white queer community for getting so excited about getting to talk about being on the DL.. As soon as J.L King put his book out he suddenly became this speaker at all of these queer events.  (P)If you only want to talk about blackness when it has to do with black men having sex?  It created this sort of ‘the black male libido’ stereotype all over again.  And I was really disgusted with what happened in the aftermath of his book.  First of all I think his book is pretty inflammatory and isn’t based on anything besides his highly inflated ego and his sort of predatory sexual practices.  I don’t think it’s about being on the DL as much as other books that I’ve read or read reviews of.  But the white queer community wanted to talk about black masculinity and black sexuality.  But only under the lens of, ‘these black men were cheating on their wives and giving each other AIDS.’  And that’s pretty disgusting.

Benita: Right.  I mean that’s what perpetuated I think.  I mean that’s what, I mean I haven’t researched what  has been brought to my face.  So I guess that’s what you get I guess

Laura: What do you mean?

Benita: I mean, like what I said before about how like in ESSENCE magazine which says things like ‘black women don’t support closeted men and that’s why they are DL??  They talk about stuff like the DL. Thug. (laugh)

Laura: Oh yeah?

Benita: Stuff like that.  And people trust this when it is mostly someone’s opinion. I don’t know.  I guess when I.  I was raised by my grandmother and my Aunt Michele.  And when we were driving out here she was like, “you know what Benita we never see you with anyone.” (laugh)

Laura: Aww

Benita:  “And so if you are we would like to know because we want to make sure you are happy.”  And I felt like (nods head) “But, I’m not going to judge you.  God will judge you.” (Both laugh)  And so I’m, like, “Ok Aunt Michele, thank you Aunt Michele, thanks for that.”  And she’s frustrated because she wants me to say  I’m living this like luxurious lesbian life but you know, so like I don’t know.  it’s hard.  Maybe it isn’t a big issue?  I don’t really deal with a lot of African-American LGBT issues.  I wouldn’t know if it was a big issue.. It’s just interesting how it is perpetuated.  Ok, do you do any work with older LGBT organizations, or LGBT groups where it’s more political activism?  And where do you think queer people fit into society now?

Laura:  I don’t do a lot of queer political activism anymore than writing my letters or voting the way I want to vote.  I mean I write a lot of letters expressing my opinions on things to politicians but I don’t know if that does a whole lot of good as it is my way of saying I wont be silent about things that matter to me.  But I do that on a wider range of issues when it comes to choice or immigration.  Queerness is one thing on my platform of issues that I care about.  I’m not really hardcore active about ‘queer issues’ because I find it really limiting, and really white, and really upper class in a way that I’m not okay with.  The queer political agenda right now is let me get married.  It’s a little bit about hate crimes it is a little bit about employment issues but the thing you hear most about is marriage equality.  And a lot of queer people are saying that is because the religious rite is forcing this issue so we must respond.  There is some legitimacy to that argument but I also think its limiting.  Let’s start talking about instead of ‘let me get married so that I can be on my partner’s insurance’, which I think should happen, but let’s us start talking about universal healthcare for everybody instead of my right to be insured by my partner.  Let’s broaden the conversation to include everyone and not just the one person.  It is a limited argument.  It’s a limiting perspective and it’s not necessarily something I want to expend a lot of energy on.  Am I for marriage equality? Absolutely.  Will I vote that way? Absolutely.  But this idea that I need to spend all of my energy

To make sure my relationship with one person is validated limit’s the scope of who I want to be and how I want my world to look.  What if I want my best friend and the two friends I’ve been talking about and my adopted brother in the hospital too, why don’t we extend what family means instead of trying to make my relationship legitimate or validated legally.  It’s important but I think that it’s limiting. And it’s limited what’s possible for queer people.  So I’m not real involved in that again because I feel that it is limiting.  I want to be involved in the causes that are of the intersection of race or class or gender, that are of the intersection of different oppressions.  And those causes I’m a lot more interested in and really engaging in.  Where people fit in has a lot to do with other privileges- I’m white, I’m able-bodied, I have a college education , I have a middle class background  My experiences of being a lesbian is a whole lot different than somebody who has a million more dollars that I do and somebody who has  nothing.  So there is, there are commonalities of queerness.   The person with a million dollars can’t get married anymore than I can so there are things that sort of cut across everything but I do think that, especially race and class, really impact people’s experience with being queer. 

Benita:  Do you feel like you don’t wear it on your face and you don’t have to wear it everyday?

Laura: Mhmm.

Benita:  I mean you have to wear your color but you don’t have to wear your

Laura: Um

Benita: Do you let people know on job interviews and things like that?

Laura: I don’t always do it.  (P) I would never hide it.  If someone were to say, “Are you a lesbian.”  The first thing I would say is “Do you know that is an illegal question in the interview process?”  But after I (both laugh) clarified that

Benita: I’ll sue you if you don’t hire me?

Laura: I’d do both.  I always have the privilege of not looking like a lesbian to everyone.  And that’s another privilege that I’ve had.  If I want to blend I can.     There are people who look a lot ‘different.\’ than I do.  Who look a lot more masculine- whatever the hell that means.  And  so I have the luxury of not being read as a lesbian which provides me with another layer of protection.       I’m not going to be the person who walks into the bathroom in the public restroom and people being like “some man is in here.”  So I don’t have to constantly have to say “girl right here.”  I don’t have to be called sir in the grocery store or in the gas station.   And there are dykes who think that’s wonderful and are like, “I got called sir again today.”  And I know people who are like “I got sir again today did they not check out my chest.”  It’s like It’s both.  But for me I have a lot of privilege and I get a little tired of the ‘ain’t it awful?’ with a lot of people ion relation to queer issues because  it isn’t so much you cant read me as queer as it is you cant read me as black.  As much as it is you have to recognize your privilege in life.  And you have to realize that if you are a white multi-millionaire dude with a corporate position your experience of being gay is going to be a lot different.  You can live your life how you want to live it, you are not stuck in your really really small factory job having to be closeted to everyone because it would really be suicide to have it come up to someone.  So I think recognizing all of the other privileges and how that relates to being queer is really important.  I also live in a town where I can hold my girlfriends hand walking down the street.  I live in a really dyke friendly town.. I’m not saying everyone is cool to me but they leave me alone.

Benita: Right.

Laura: Even in Roanoke I did not have that privilege necessarily because of the job that I had.  When you work with youth in the community you don’t really hold your girlfriends hand when walking down the street.  In Durham I don’t really think twice about it.  So it also have to do with where you live.

Benita: Do you think there should be a stronger bond between the queer male/queer female community?

Laura:  Yes, I do.  And I think that- I’m interested to see what the generation coming up behind me is going to do with that.   Because I think that (P)for example a lot of lesbians rallied around men who had AIDS and men who had HIV especially in the eighties in a really beautiful way. The men did not rally behind the lesbians when they got breast cancer.  And those are not equivalent epidemics but breast cancer disproportionately affects lesbian women.  I don’t see gay men bringing the meals the way I saw lesbians bringing the meals to their friends who had AIDS or their friend who had HIV.  So that kind of way of ‘how have we supported each other how do we connect.’  A lot of people do a really good job with that.  But I do see some real sexism within the queer community.  “Mhmm, All those queens.” “Mhmm those man-hating diesel dykes,” I mean there is some of that and it goes on.  It doesn’t come along with my friends because if I like you you’re not like that.  But I hear it, especially from people ten years older than I am, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen younger but  I’m interested in that split because I do think it exists. 

Benita: A student in class talked about how like fiscally the gay male community doesn’t support the lesbian community. 

Laura: That’s true.

Benita: And how a lot, not all of them many of them, are very well off.  And how they help each other but not women I guess.  

Laura: That’s true.  There’s sexism within the queer community, there’s racism within the queer community, we don’t really talk about that we are to busy trying to get married. 

Benita: (laugh) What kind of people do you surround yourself with, like adults?

Laura: Really cool ones.  Um, what kind of people do you mean like

Benita: Like activist, like just chill slacker types, like

Laura: Ok, I got you.  A mix,  I have really amazing people in my life and a lot of them come from the things I am involved in.  But yeah I have hardcore activist friends. I have people who are like, “Hmmmm, no I’m not registered to vote.  Most of the people in my life are engaged in something but I have a pretty wide range and I like it like that.  I don’t feel like we all need to be the same or be doing the same things.

Benita: That’s cool.  Have you experienced any sort of hatred towards yourself or through any group of people?

Laura: I’m sure I have.  Uh (p) I mean have I experienced homophobia or sexism? sure Or do I have some story to jump out and tell you? No.

Benita: Ok.  So what do you think your next step for social change will be?

Laura: (laughs) (enthusiastically) that’s a good question.  I’m going to raise a kid. 

Benita: That’s cool.

Laura: That’s my next step.  I’m actually going to Liberia in august to adopt a child.

Benita: Awesome

Laura: So I think that will be my life long social change.

Benita: (laugh)

Laura: And I’m going to do it by making mud pies.   And what I mean by that is that he doesn’t need to go to protests with me so we can be you know mom and son for peace together.  It’s going to be in how I raise him and what kind of man he becomes.   Not because of me but just because I get to be there shaping him and watching him grown.  That’s the kind of social change that makes me the most happy.  At some point I’ll be a doctoral student, at some point I will be a professor and other things I do for social change maybe on a larger level but the most important thing I do for social change will be raising him.

Benita: Will you talk at all about the adoption process?

Laura: I decided last august.  And I am waiting for a friend of mine in Liberia to find my child for me.  And when I close my eyes he is about two and he is laughing and that’s about all I know. So they will find him for me and then I will go then I will come home and then I will go.  I will send you a picture.

Benita: Definitely. (P) I feel like we covered everything.

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