Ronald Porter and Eliza Bettinger

00:03 Okay, my name is Eliza bettinger. I'm 37 years old. Today is January 26th, 2014. We're sitting in St. Petersburg, Florida and I'm speaking with mind who I just met.

00:17 Set my name is dr. Ronald K Porter. I'm 30 years old. And today is January 26th. 2014. I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida and I'm here with storycorps well-run. One of the questions. I was like to ask people when talk to them is what's the first thing you remember? What's your earliest memory first thing? I remember.

00:42 You know, it's funny because

00:49 Coherent like I can go back to when I was like a baby or whatever whenever there's one memory. I have in particular and it's of my mother at Halloween. So my mother was this fantastic very eccentric woman and you know, beautiful and everything and I grew up in Washington DC and she did many things throughout her life. She raised dog. She worked in different areas she could design so close all that different type of stuff just a really free spirit, you know, and when I started going to school she started teaching as an aid at the elementary school that I went to elementary school. I'm right outside of Washington DC and she would always do these fantastic things with the kids and rather than just teaching the kids and kind of just like shoving knowledge in their brain. She was going to give them an experience. You know what I mean? So I remember when Halloween sheets from somewhere got this huge wizard outfit and you couldn't tell who was inside.

01:49 Wizard outfit was kind of like one of those mascot things, you know, and she came to school and for that was all dressed up like Dracula and whatnot. She came to school and no one knew who she was like all the kids are kind of like, who is she she like don't tell anyone is me don't tell anyone and I remember telling one of my friends like, you know, that's my mom. Right and he's like, no it's not that's about heard everything. You know, it's like a funny memory of like how they just added to, you know our experience of that day. How old were you then it did you see her for her costume together? And yes, I knew like I said, I wish I was with her when she bought the costume. Like I I knew everything that was going on. She was like don't tell anyone that is going to be me, you know, and the kids just loved it. It was great. Did she like the kind of planning planning things to fool people or plant jokes or plan big surprises and things like that?

02:49 But she did like to be around people. She was very gregarious and love to have fun. Love to laugh and just love to see what she didn't take things. Like seriously. Seriously, you know, she just went with the flow of life in a lot of different ways so that it's interesting how that lives on in me. You know, I'm when I encountered it different people who were just kind of really rich. It didn't really kind of controlling and all that different type of stuff. Just kind of that just freedom to just be in to create and you know, if you mess up and someone laughs issue is okay and everything, you know and not just being so self-conscious and whatnot. You know. What was her name is fantastic Melba quintina Veronica Porter the Catholic thing, you know.

03:40 So you said you said you were in school or school like for you?

03:49 School my relationship to school is really interesting because I went all the way through school and got the PHD and everything and it only really took a year off to do that. So school is interesting because I was always someone who really like learning like I was always kind of interested in kind of off-the-wall stuff when I was younger. I don't know why like I was wanted like find out about the Titanic before anyone knew about it, or I wanted to let you know look at these different science and Nature Documentaries and all that different type of stuff, you know self school was just kind of like

04:24 It was a place where like I went and you socialize with people but there was just kind of so much competition and so much clickiness and whatnot that like there were really kind of good times in elementary school and starting in middle school. But then after that it just became this weird competition, you know puberty hits and everyone kind of goes crazy and no one has an effective support system for that because no one wants to talk about sex and education heaven forbid it. So it was it was an interesting. For me and I think subconsciously, you know, and I am gay. So I also kind of had the encounter of growing up and kind of traversing through the school system and trying to figure out my sexuality and all that different type of stuff and then also being black, you know, and in being talented which you know, most of us are talented all of us our town to in our own ways, but you know, just the way that people kind of will grab on to you is like a success story and you don't want to be

05:24 Your Mentor in all that different type of stuff. So long story short. I had a very successful career in the educational system and it has treated me well, but I'm now at a place in my life where I want to go out and create my own stuff. And the funny thing is that as much as I'm skeptical of schooling in the way, you know, people are kind of controlled and manipulated and then, you know, huge amounts of death at the people come out of college with no one that isn't as much as I'm skeptical of that. I love education and I think that education has this way of just enlivening the spirit and helping people live in a different way and I think it was Mark Twain I could be wrong who said, you know, you should never let schooling get in the way of your education, you know.

06:07 Can you think of any times you know, when your education kind of transcended all the clinics in the craziness when you had like transformative educational moment? Well, imma speak on my own personal most recently when I was finishing graduate school. So I was I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley and I was writing my dissertation and I had always kept on that always put the way that my schooling kind of went starting in college and kind of moving more. I begin to kind of become interested in focusing on issues of race and what not. You know, when you really trying to figure out like why are certain people oppressed based upon physical characteristics or cultural characteristics whatever, you know, I've been getting kind of transverse men studying that now was studying that and in graduate school like how that's related to education and how we basically go about defining what it means to be.

07:07 Human, you know so I was doing all that but at the same time I begin to notice that the very people who were Against Racism suppose anyone to talk all about it believed that lets say black people should only do certain things. You know what I mean? Like you should only do certain things that kind of stick to a certain click like that's how you become just involving black culture, you know, or you know, you should live in a particular type of way its particular type of franticness where you're always thinking about race and how race affects do you and all that different type of Stephanie at the level where I walked into a whole foods with one graduate student if she asked me if I felt uncomfortable walking into Whole Foods as a black man, and I was like, that's weird because no more like why would I feel uncomfortable about that? Anyway long story short as I was working on my dissertation. I really started to get into yoga and I've always been somewhat have

08:07 Drawn to Eastern Philosophy for some reason taoism Buddhism Hinduism all these different things and I might begin exercising a lot and you know yoga didn't begin to provide this kind of way of relaxing in my body, you know touching back into myself into my cord needs and all that different type of stuff and I even became interested in bringing it into my pedagogic. Do you know my approach to education? You know, let's get out of the head and start to get into the heart. So I really started take of yoga and teach myself yoga and eventually that year that was on 2011 into 2012. I would take a yoga teacher training course, but as soon as I started to go in that direction is I was open about it with my professors and whatnot. They were like, well, you know, no one's really going to take that seriously or like, you know, I didn't know black people did yoga or whatever oral actually have one Professor say to me like now that you do yoga, you know, you're not black anymore, you know, so it was it was weird because I was kinda

09:07 Why am I being treated like I'm doing something wrong for something where I'm exploring myself and wanting to bring health and healing and hope into the world. Like why is that wrong? It was It was kind of interesting experience, but the beautiful thing is it I transcended that I was like, you know, what you all can say, whatever about what it means to be black about who's going to like me and who's not going to like me or whatever and your little Club but I'm going to live this life James Baldwin said you have to say yes to life and I'm going to say yes to life and I'm happy to say, you know, I took my yoga class that was fantastic and you know, I'm starting to get in the teaching last week. I talked this but not phenomenal class like Lincoln yoga with gratitude and Grace, you know, and I'm I'm desk. I'm just going to keep carrying this into my life so many many instances where I've had to transcend education and claim my own life, but that's the one that kind of sticks out right now. Okay. So how about in your educational system?

10:07 What were the high points of the sort of the the formal education that you got? Were there any good ones? I mean I had so many different opportunities. I've I when I went to an environmental science magnet school and you know got to go to the Florida Keys while I was in high school and study Marine Science and everything and maybe even have some good internships and in working some good places by Chesapeake Bay Foundation and no Amnesty International and I went to Eckerd College here in St. Petersburg and approach to education because they really push you getting out into the world and experiencing things. So I got to go to London and you know got to die did research on human trafficking in Southeast Asia study at the United Nations in New York in Geneva. Switzerland was just a wonderful time and then going to UC Berkeley and living in California, which is also such an amazing time in my life. I had so much fun, and I just did that.

11:07 Is so many Fantastic ways being out there but I will say that the highlight of my educational program was when I graduated and got my PhD the reason why I was the highlight is because my dad was able to fly out from Marilyn when I got my PhD and for some reason like I just kind of felt like he needs to be the only one who comes here. So he came out and I have my robes and everything and then there were two graduations. There was like like an education graduation cuz my PhD in education and then there was this other other graduation at Berkeley called black graduation. That's a whole different story. I don't want to get into but anyway, he was there and he was in the front row the I both graduations and he was just so excited to to see me there and just so happy and you know, my mother passed away when I was around 12 years old and he, you know, definitely watch out for

12:07 Me and made me make sure I grew into a well-rounded and fully develop man, you know, and it was just so powerful because he he was able to be there for that moment. And that was in May of 2012 and I'm then I graduated and then I'm ended up moving home back to Maryland in December of 2012 right when I got home. He fell ill you know, and so I was dinner with him through that whole process through his do, you know transition and all of that different type of stuff and it's just funny how the universe works sometime because I'm just so happy. I was able to finish and he was able to see me do that. You know what I mean? Like it's it's it was it was just really wonderful and it felt really good. You know, it's the same way. I was happy that my grandmother was alive to see are both my grandmothers were alive to see Barack Obama become president, you know what I mean? Like like and of course in the world like you take two steps forward you take one step back.

13:07 Like right now nothing is perfect. But I do think that we're in a time where a lot of things are changing. You know that had that kind of digress right there for a second, but I really just do remember and hold onto that moment. I remember after black graduation. We laughed and I walked outside to meet him and he was just sitting there on the bench and I just ran out and gave him a big hug, you know.

13:33 It was a it was just a really wonderful mom at your dad. What was he like? My dad was was very like go with the flow. Like he definitely likes to have a good time, you know, and and everyone kind of just loved if he just had like a personality. We're just be be there like he's a good guy like, you know, he's just said a wonderful person and what not and he was also an eccentric like he went to school, you know, he worked as a teacher and what not and then he worked as a chef mini work as a teacher again. He did all different types of things and he really really I mean he he was in my life like my entire life, you know, and he would always tell me, you know, he's like Ronald whatever you do stay in your lane and be aware of the games that people play stay in your lane and beware the games that people play because he's like all these people are out here running around trying to get in your space tell you what to do.

14:33 Your life and what job you should have and everything focus on what it is that you want to do because you're the ones you add I Rise with the sun set in this lifetime and then I go out of here. I'm going to rise with the sun rise in this lifetime and then I go out of here with the sunset and that's the journey that I have to take. You know what I mean? That's that's really no one else is Journey. So I really learned that from him and I think I also learned a state of like inner calmness from him that you know, no matter what like things can be challenging but it's going to be okay, you know

15:05 How did how did he help you cope when your mom passed the subject of my mother passing is a very interesting story because my mother was with hiv-positive and she was hiv-positive at a time in the early nineties. We're in the end there still a lot of ignorance and what not. But there was a lot of ignorant there was a lot of stigma and all that different type of stuff and my mother and father had separated and I think during that period when she contracted the virus, but he you know, my mother at that time was I think going through depression, you know over what happened with the situation and I have always thought that she wasn't getting the necessary support needed to really strengthen her to stand on her own and I carry that into my educational process. I'm like, you know, you need to support people so they can be independent and take care of themselves and take responsibility for their own lives, but I'm

16:03 It was touchy because no one talked about the fact that she was positive like she told me and then tried to say it was cancer cuz it was a lot of news for me, but don't know if everyone just pretended like it wasn't kind of happening. So when it happened and she passed everyone was kind of in this weird days and I remember him being in a weird days like like just like and we didn't I mean to be honest like I wish I could tell some story about how he did what everyone else again give me through that situation and physically I think he did because he was able to just keep going and maybe in that moment. All I needed to do was keep going but we weren't going to come back to heal over what happened with my mother until years later when I was in my twenties, you know, and we really kind of had to come together and have some conversations about life like what happened and what did you know and why?

17:03 I wasn't anyone talking to me about it, you know.

17:07 And some of those things they were never really answered and I think it's also because Matt my family and I approached death in different ways. You know, I don't want to go out of here right now, but I see death is more of a transition not necessarily a failure. So for whatever reason that was her time, you know, but it's it's it's interesting how the it's it's taken a while for there to be kind of some type of reconciliation around that and I'll tell this funny story. This is all nasty, but everything comes full circle in this life and right after my dad passed I was at home and I needed to get some underwear for him for the funeral and whatnot, which is so weird that you get underwear for people in the funeral. I mean come on now and I take out the drawer that fine like, you know his underwear, but then I felt like a gun and I'm like, well that just makes sense or whatever. I don't know and then I find you Sly polaroid pictures in this bag or what not.

18:07 And I'm kind of like, okay, what is this? And I look at the pictures in this this naked man and woman in immediately. I'm like, okay, this is my Dad naked please let this be my mother right now cuz I don't think I could take it if somebody Health would you likely enough? It was my mother and it was so weird. I was like his picture of them just like staring into the camera and I was like, this is so weird right now, and I remember because when Matt my dad passed had to take him off the ventilator and I decided to take him off at 11:11, which I think is the sacred number where there's a strong blur between the physical and spiritual realm. So I went to see that found these pictures and not yell down to mouth like guess what I found and I came downstairs and looked at the clock and it was 11 11.

18:55 You know is it in if you want to say like that's that's the continuation of both of their Spirits in my life, you know to be like Leo. Okay, like you just went through this traumatic situation, but please still know that like we're still with you and everything's going to be okay, you know.

19:14 Do what was it like for you when you were twelve and no one was really talking to you about your mom's house. Like she was I kind of went on autopilot a little bit and then I found in this is like the crisis of recognition. I talked about around education and some of my work that I begin to seek out some form of validation through doing really really well in school, you know, which was fantastic because it meant that I was securing the foundation necessary to secure my own Lively her later on but the detriment of that is that you know education Foster's very parasitic relationships that no one talks about inside have these people who would be like, oh here is this fantastic? Brilliant black young man? Like, let's help him less Mentor him and I'd be like look, I want your help, but I don't even have to be your friend. Like I'm living my own life, and I'm quite okay.

20:14 Don't take offense to that, you know, but understand that like that's quite okay. So the backup that kind of took over my life to this whole idea of doing really really well in school, but that may have also been a coping mechanism because I was like, you know, oh shit like my mother basically fell through the cracks and no one kind of caught her. Let me make sure I can catch myself, you know in the situations of life, you know and in a way, that's the last thing that she taught me, you know, it was it was an autopilot situation. It is so weird because you want you want to get out in the world and you want to change things you want to change the path you want to make everything right? You know, but what if we're living in a situation where things really are preordained and things are unfolding in such a way so we can have a better understanding of who we really are at a spiritual level because there's certain things about

21:14 Death that. I was blessed to learn at a young age that I carry with me throughout my life because of that experience. You know, I'm to remember any of your last conversation with your mom anything you learn to the last conversations. I remember she was in the hospital. She's at Howard University hospital and she was kind in the quarantine room or whatnot. So when you walk in and see if she had you had to wear masks and everything so she kept laughing at us cuz we had these masks on and she was just kind of sitting there and what not and then I went back to the hospital again, and she had been moved and she was coughing pretty badly and we were eating I would love to find out what candies we were they were some old-fashioned type of candy and I can't remember what we were eating that we were playing I declare war with cars that my cousin was there and we were just playing and we were playing until she

22:13 She you know, she just you know started coughing and couldn't play anymore and then you know, we left and then by the time I went back to see her she was on the ventilator and she was she was on the ventilator and she was aware of things. So I went in and

22:32 She was just kind of like looking at me and we were communicating with our eyes and I was telling her how like I had these hamsters at the time and I was trying to get the hamsters to like made and everything and I was like, you know, I'm trying to get the hamsters to mate and she just kind of like rolled her eyes up. Like, you know, of course is what you're trying to do right now and then I was like, you know, you just have to fight like you you have to stay strong, you know, and you know, she just kind of like looked at me, you know, and it was it was really it was intense, you know, and then the last time I went and saw her she was unconscious on the ventilator and it was Valentine's Day, and I've walked into the room.

23:18 And I walked in and I couldn't go any further and I do remember just turning right out and walking back to the elevator and I think I walked in just long enough for her to feel my presence because either right when I was in the room or right when I walked out she passed away, you know, it was it was a very intense story but I I've always felt her spirit with me since that time, you know, when people can say it's woowoo and whatever and whatnot, but there's there's more to this world that we've been taught to believe, you know.

23:57 Yeah, can I change topics if that's okay, or is there something else I have you been in love?

24:11 Have I experienced love? Yes going back and forth. It's not my mother taught me a lot about what love is in a way and I think that we we suffer from a sickness in this Society, but we really don't wear afraid to experience love. So to answer your question in terms of like a relationship or what not. Have I been in love the answer is no

24:38 But and I would ask myself like why am I not in a relationship like what's happening? But then I was like, I've never really met anyone that I've been like I really want to spend the rest of my life with you. Like I may want to spend like the next like like 2 hours with you or what not but I don't want to spend the next like, you know, whatever and it's only now that I'm I'm just coming to unlike, you know, cuz you go out there and you look for things like you try to online dating you go to the bars and you go to the cocktail parties and and your life is at this is not working and So lately, I'm just like let me just get squarely into me and and how much I love myself. Let me get into you know my health and wellness my yoga you're taking care of myself cultivating my own relationship building my financial foundations and what not and then when it's time for something to manifest it'll manifest and it'll be a good thing.

25:38 When it comes to love because there's so many Peeps and I'm not saying this to be cynical. I'm not cynical but there's so many people who are just wounded and traumatized because of stuff that happened in their family and stuff. It happened in their previous relationships and we don't have the spaces next there for that to heal. So they'll go out and treat somebody like shit or get somebody all wound up in their confusion in the cycle just continues and I'm just like I'm stepping out of that and just hoping for the best who's the most important person in your life right now.

26:20 You know.

26:22 I have to say in this is going to sound selfish. But you know, I'm a Taurus. So maybe it makes sense. The most important person in my life right now is me, you know, because the truth of the matter is the life that you save is your own, you know what I mean? And it's about me because I have accomplished so much in a very short. Of time. I am only 30. I have my PhD I've been around the world. Like I've had multiple experiences. It's been fantastic. I've gotten these big award is great. But then I'm like that's a pet. That's not everything for me. And you know, there is there different experiences that I want that I want to enjoy there's different types of help that I want to give that may be outside of the norm and what not and I want to find that side of me. I don't want the wrong that was conditioned through the educational system in through whatever and was you know at the same time fighting to maintain his sense of self is is putting down the weapons to embrace.

27:22 Amore just just open way of enjoying life for me. And so the most important port in person right now is me and and the Divine spark within me cuz we I mean the whole piece is special about this time like it's not about looking for a leader anymore. Like we are the ones we have been waiting for and so your teeth do you teach now? So I I'm the director of service-learning at Eckerd College which I love because I operate in the role of an educator and it administrator. So it's just a wonderful experience right now and we develop different programming we develop community-based program in the community locally, you know St. Pete free clinic Casa all these different things. You know, I'm microphone workers in the area where expanding that especially with the schools cuz the schools here really need help schools everywhere need help. But then we also have a pedagogical component Folk.

28:22 Education where we constantly reflect upon what does service mean because there's this whole way of people going out in the world me like I want to help these poor Heathen Savage people over here. Let's just help them and it's like well, it's not about like some parasitic relationship or cultivating a relationship of dependency. That's not going to help us right. Now. We need to cultivate relationships of reciprocity and empowerment. So how do we think about doing that? And we recreate those conversations through having film series through having different Community conversations having people come in from the community have these conversations inviting health and wellness and teaching yoga and that's part of what my yoga practice was about life thinking about. Okay when you're on the mat and you're in war your wine or what not. You know, how are you feeling within yourself? Are you being gentle within yourself? Are you beating yourself up? Because you don't feel like you're properly in the post because that's going to reflect on how you get out into the world and treat people so we have that.

29:21 We just operate as a conduit where you know, there is I see in the young people like like older people are just so like what are you doing? What are you doing with your life in the world is so messed up that they're just like can we just be for a second? And so I say I operate as a conduit, you know, I don't have a political agenda. I have a spiritual agenda in terms of like I want everyone to feel loved and some type of capacity, you know, but I don't care if you're conservative liberal gay straight black white. Asian, whatever like come let's create an experience, you know, let's take that out into the world and maybe it'll make you rethink what your career path is and how you want incorporate more service in your life. Or maybe you don't want to do service at all. And that's okay. You know what I'd rather you be on your pad doing what you feel like you need to be doing than me forcing you into doing something, you know, that's what I do right now.

30:21 A dream about 10 minutes. What kind of educator you use that sounds like you had a serve ups and downs with Educators in your past. What kind of educator do you want to be? Like what kind of role you want to play in in people's lives, you know, they talk about the term role model and they talk about the term leader, you know, imma take someone else said this but it fits perfectly with me. So I'm going to use it right now, but I think I'm a little tired of role models and leaders. I'm tired of the search outside of oneself for the confirmation in the answers. I'm tired of the worshipper mentality. If I call my God this person, they're so smart their leader. Let's follow them. Like I want to be a roll possibility which means that I want people it. It's like this the Buddha want said he who sees me sees the teaching and he who sees the teaching sees me, you know, and if I'm in the world whether I'm doing the service,

31:21 Stop or just walking down the street. I want someone to look at me and see the potential for something they can do in their lives. And that's how I want to experience others as well. You know, because once you have that inspiration, then you can take that anywhere and it can only come in the in a fraction of a second, you know, you can see someone, you know doing some yoga on the field and be like, hey, maybe I should try some yoga and go off and just do that, you know, so in terms of being an educator, I want to be both a roll possibility and a sweet inspiration. What's been your favorite moment of teaching so far.

32:07 My favorite moment is how we are dealing with a a population of young people that are becoming very spiritually attuned is funny cuz I just kind of sit back and let you know young people come in and talk to me, but the way that they are concerned about what's happening in the world in in trying to figure out how do I help and doing all these different projects or the way they're trying to deflect what's happening and falling into alcoholism and all that different type of stuff at SC all of that too and everything, but I would just say every day interacting with the student is a wonderful moment and watching them grow and change and and and figure things out for themselves and in watch them at ass really honest question and especially in a lot of them watch them be alive. The spirit hasn't been taken from them yet. You know, they they haven't fallen into the like you have to be this type of automatic.

33:07 In order to fit, you know, so perfectly into this society and civilization. They still have that wonder that excitement that Curiosity and everything and and so is it's just fun all around but I will say one favorite moment. I just had there was a young woman who came into my office and she thought that I was teaching yoga in the morning. I was doing in the afternoon. That's it. You just want to do a quick Asana practice, you know, she was like, okay, so she pulled out her mad and everything and I just guide her through a quickie. Oh, I had my iPhone cuz you know with this technology you can do things all over the place is fantastic. I put on the music and I just got her through a little practice. You know what she's working on her comprehensive exams and everything and afterwards she was just like you no, thank you so much. I really appreciated that and you can tell that just really made a difference in her day. So that was a wonderful moment. Is there anything else you want to talk about?

34:04 You know.

34:08 2014 is the year of the green horse. And so I'm ready to ride and I'm ready.

34:16 I'm ready to just see what possibilities and potentials are out there. You know, these are very uncertain times and people are going to be afraid you know, and is the hope he said they're going to try to take a river flowing now extremely fast if they're those were just want to like hold onto the shore and hold onto this old pair of diamond way of being in there. Just want to be torn apart and then are those who want to jump into the river and go with the flow of things and exist in the uncertainty and now it's just it's time to exist in uncertainty and see where things take you you know, and you may not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but you get what you need and most of the time that's so much better.

34:59 Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.