Natalie Wise and Sandra Scott

00:01 Hi, my name is Sandra Scott. I am 62 years old. I'll be 63 in January. Today is Wednesday, October 27th, 2021. I am located in Chandler, Arizona. My recording. Partner's name is Natalie wise and I have one step one. Small step, conversion partner is where I'm recording. When recording.

00:36 I write my name is.

00:41 Natalie wise. I'm 41 years old on today is Wednesday October 27th, 2021. I'm in Columbus, Ohio. My recording partner is Sandra.

00:56 And Sandra, I forgot your last name, Scott. I'm so sorry. We are a one. Small, step conversation partner.

01:10 Thank you guys. For the first thing that I would love to have you do is just share with each other. What made you interested in having one small step conversation with someone that you don't know.

01:22 I just thought this would be a fascinating thing to do a 50 Cent's. It's been too cold and all I'm pretty much stuck in my house at this point. So I work remotely. Well. I'm unemployed at this moment, but I've been working remotely so I can stop. This will be a fascinating way of getting to know someone and I probably would never have known whether I'm working or not. So I thought this would be in the reach out to you.

01:56 Yeah, it's it's really nice to meet you Sandra and my mom's name is Sandra. So that's a good. So, that's how can I say that? Wait? Who's who, who is this? Great?

02:22 It's connection there. I love that. Yeah, I like you. I just saw this would be a neat experience because what I thought was going to happen was I thought I would be paired with someone who had the email, a completely different political view, different worldview than me, but I'm not sure. It seems like we might have more similarity, more similarities and differences in terms of our views, but I'm really interested to hear what what you have to say about everything. So,

03:07 The Army has, you know that our age, you know, you do not look for you to. I just have to tell you that right now and you look younger. I thought you was in your twenties, but you're right. So something else that we yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting. So I growing up, you know how I feel like in our country. It's so segregated, you know, I mean, I grew up my my parents never we were not around black people and it's it's it's designed that way has been signed to two separate black people from white people and

04:07 Behavior, you know, we learn it from our ancestors and just passed down and unless we take a proactive stance to come out of that, that learning that the chipper learning. Yeah, we're just going to stay kind of segregated. So I I definitely understand. I definitely agree with you on that. I I'm so glad that I'm talking to you. It it's really hard to have a conversation about this because it's, it's so it's so fragile. I think last year during during covid, Florida, that was just the beginning of my realization of us how privileged I am to be white. I didn't even I was never taught in school.

05:06 Even a college, you know, I didn't I didn't take courses about what our country has done to two black people. I had no idea. So I think, you know, I'm, I'm 41 years old. I'm going to be 42 and June. I'm just waking up to this reality of

05:26 You know our system, so it's it's wild to me.

05:31 So, it's crazy. So I don't know. I don't know if that makes any sense. But a lot of people don't truly understand the plight of a black people until they actually talked to him. And once again, just like you were saying, you live in, where we really still stuck on gave it to the point that are a lot of people are very ignorant to, you know, to the plight of black people. And like I said and then within my culture by so you can tell him and lights and black woman even within our culture. We have this lightning guard thing that's going on that that isn't going on to in a lot of it. Had its stem from I believe slavery where, you know, you have the light skin, beautiful black people in the house and would get old with nice clothes and, you know, nice.

06:31 You got the dark-skinned, you do black people out there in the field. So, you know, once we even came out of slavery, we were kind of segregated ourselves. And so the unrest that you see today, I believe. It's just my opinion. I believe that it is, it is coming from without and within a glycol.

06:56 I truly believe that. So, so when you yeah, yeah, but I just feel like I have been

07:12 Start a stripped of any education, for example, I started a part-time job at the library. And so I work in the Drive-Thru. So so people can go in the Drive-Thru and get their pick up their books real quick. And so I have I have some down time and so they built the library director said, okay, it will go through our website and look at our resources that we offer. And so there's this anti-racist, you know, page of resources. And so there's a Atlantic article by Tallahassee Coates the case for reparations, and I I reading this and I am just it, it's just amazing to me. You know, I'm just so angry and I just feel, I don't know.

08:12 Black people in this country have gone through and I had no idea.

08:24 Oh my God. Songs for guitar. Duncan.

08:34 I'm just so glad I'm able to express in and be real with me cuz like I said, I know I don't like I don't appreciate people who come from a different place. They know they're not coming in and even though I'm black and I know the place that me and my my fellow Americans go through, it is so refreshing to to see because there's some people that just size all. Well, you know, that's not even a big deal slavery happened a long time ago. There's nothing to do with me. But at the same time of does when when you or like in when when Caucasian people are like, most Caucasian people are in

09:25 Hiring positions and stuff like that day, that you know, that the student majority as far as running a lot of things. And then you got some, I like me, he wants to come in and and just get equal equal, pay and equal, you no responsibilities and equal consideration as our white counterparts. And

09:48 Weather is conscious and subconscious subconscious. It doesn't happen, you know, and I'll come across it so many times where I have been qualified or what they say. Oh, well, you're not the right fit because I'm not what you perceive of a fitness has nothing to do with my education, or my patients is just the fact that you look at me and you perceive me as a certain way and you feel I'm not the right this second because they don't even those white people hiring hiring or not hiring. You don't even realize realize it exactly. It is.

10:38 Their nature and because it's their nature. They don't think it's anything wrong. So they can't deviate it until like the Someone Like You comes on February him in. This is not right, you know, this is not and you know, there's good and bad, I can't stand. Is it a lot of times you have to, you can't take people from before face value. You have to kind of know where they coming from. You got to know, you know, how to grow up with, what's the time? They're their personality is, there's a reason why people are the way they are, you know, in and you got no space by there's something behind. And in, once you do that, what you trying to understand that you can kind of, I'm not going to say,

11:38 Accept it, but it doesn't make you angry when you come across and you don't, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I absolutely know what you mean.

11:52 I absolutely know what you mean. I don't know, ask you both really quickly. Just cuz I think that we've established I think race is one thing that is a really different experience for both of you and husband has influenced your worldview. Can you kind of both talk a little bit about the values and ideologies that you were raised in maybe talking about your family or the communities where you were raised?

12:20 Glen Erin Golf course, I was raised. My mom was Catholic. My dad at Methodist. And my dad is a farmer. He still is. And my mom was a dental hygienist. So she clean cheese. He farmed, the family farm and the values, you know, a lot of Catholic values. I don't practice Catholicism now because I think, you know, it's a common thing, you know, you start to question that how at least for me. I started to question how solecism sort of

13:12 Pushed out women and why are, why are why are women not able to be priests? Then? Why is why do we have to make it so masculine? And you know, I don't know. I just for anyways, that was a lot of the the main values of my of my childhood, a farming values of in a work hard.

13:40 You know, work hard and and you know, the reason why we are where we are in life is cuz we work hard. I think that that is a huge value of, you know, this part of Ohio that I grew up. I grew up in northwest, Ohio and its, you know, this very German Catholic and Methodist, very

14:08 You know, play yourself up by your bootstraps being out. Well, I'll just start off when I

14:26 Before I was in kindergarten, my parents actually divorced. So at that time, we were in an all-black neighborhood, all-black school, you know, we didn't even, we never interacted with the white person. Ever saw a white person prior to my mother and father divorce thing. And so, my mother became a single parent in basically, if I'm going to poverty line, we didn't have her car. She moved into the neighborhood. We have, we finally went to the school. So, by the time I was in the second grade, we went to a school that was predominantly white. So that was a very big culture shock, you know, this week. We will never know. So my mother sheets. I'm not going to say she has explained but she her mother and grandmother. I think they were just coming out of that slavery era.

15:26 And if so, they were basing afraid of white people. They were afraid of policemen which you know, a good reason, you know, and reaching out. I was taught that, you know, to, to be afraid of white people to be afraid of policeman in and just to get on your mailman. Just keep your head down. And just as I started interacting with my my white, I mean, you know, that the distressing bowling alley and I never ate, I don't remember or maybe I didn't realize or know what racism was her. I didn't think that I had all my wife. Keep friends were nice to know. They were nice and I never had anybody who undisclosed, me or anything like that. So it maybe it's just because I was in grade school.

16:26 Is it no or whatever yet? But yeah, so it was a culture shock at first, but as I began to integrate with, with my wife are people with my mother is what my mother especially was feeling. I didn't, I kind of grew out of it, you know, to the point where, you know, I mean, right now, I'm at this point. I'm not afraid afraid to interact with white people because we only just people and that's just how I try to look at it. You know, it from my point of view.

17:05 I tried to use that in my writing as well cuz my last book, which is called Aphrodite's, stand is actually in an interracial story of interest to love story and in about how the two people in the book of your deal with racism within the family and the family unit, you know, so I try to just that whenever I can so you're a writer.

17:36 I didn't know that seven books aren't so. Are they mostly fiction or three word? Nonfiction is about my coming out of an abusive relationship in my, my ex-husband was very abusive and I physically and emotionally and he was just. So when I came out of that, I was suicidal and I think I got a low profile but my writing and, you know, I came to, I came to know Christ more intimately during a time of me, coming out of the situation and he was the one who let me to write. So the first three books is mainly about, you know, what I went through and how I overcame the versity of of all that mess.

18:36 Overcoming suicide and everything. And then the last stuff for books, for basically a transition to fiction, but they're all christian-based books. There are

18:48 Yeah, well, that's just great. I love that. I have a so I blog a little bit, I make candles and and then I put that I put my blog attached to my candle website and I just I don't do it for it. You know, I just do it for myself. So there's all it, it's all over the place. Do you know it? It's just I'm just riding. I'm just doing it to be clear about why I'm doing the candle. That is why I am where I am at in my life. And it it just as usually once a month, kind of up saying so a Blog but that's told me that you write. I love that you try to write every day.

19:45 Yes, I try to but lately, since I've been to Arizona, since I've been here for about three years. I get her Miss. I haven't really written a book since. Well, I do have another book but I really have to run into it and I'm actually editing all my books. I read, I'm rewriting them all because when I first started at the age of I was 39% and you know, I just I was at the creative out for me, you know, and so it's all right back. Go through the years. I got better until I can said I wrote my last book which is Aphrodite's stand which is the inter.

20:45 Racial books. And I said, you know, I'm a disco back through it and I would like to and I was just writing not really so much to sell them. I was wasting riding this bike that has an outlet, just published a published and I went to the next looking at the next bus, but now I'm really but now that I'm at 62 years old size 3, I want to go back three, added tighten up story, you know, so I'll really yeah.

21:25 I appreciate that. So kind of you to say that and I would love to look up your books. Do you have a website buying a book thief? Because I'm editing. I met some of them even have a, I don't want to redo everything so but they are on Amazon. If you are, I'm sorry, sweetie, lige. If you were there wanted to know, just look him up there on Amazon, but please don't bother.

22:10 Now that's so cool. I love it. That's a great. That's so cool. Oh sure. Black woman with three children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. I grew up in the low-income single parent household. My most devastating time in my life was when I almost committed, suicide behind a failed marriage where my husband was a narcissistic adulterous abuser growing up. I always felt that blacks should marry blacks white Mary White. I also believe that white privilege Trump's everybody when it comes to the status quo in America.

23:08 Okay.

23:10 I'm nearly on from Columbus Ohio. I have a 7 year old son. My husband is the power secret Rector for the Ohio House Democrats. I work the first eight years of my career and state government and then a 19, I mean 2015. I shifted to staying home with my son, while also begin a small business. My grandmother was a strong supporter of the Equal Rights, Equal Rights Amendment and fighting for equal rights of women, my mother and father's families. Are Democrats working-class husband.

24:08 How did you get out of how did you get out of the, how did you get into that? And how did you get out of that?

24:16 We are kind of going back to my childhood. My my father was an abuser, you know, he was abusing. He didn't abuse me but he you know, he abused my mother and basically he was that was what I just explained that my ex-husband was so I guess maybe it it just kind of passed down but actually this was my second husband died. I married him and I wasn't in the mirror so long that now we thank God. I think we married around 1998 in and then I divorced in 99, but the thing about it is it was

24:59 It was such a concentrated dose of everything that you read, that it was almost like I was with him for 30 years, and it just like that though. But yeah, he was just ignoring, you know, he was a charmer, you know, and, and he really had me food when we got married. And then as soon as we got married is his true colors, came out and

25:24 And I just I just think that subconsciously. I married my father because I did love, my father said she didn't abuse me, but he was this strong really dark skin. My father's very dark, and my mother is very light skinned. So I took out her socks family, but I just love call really dark dark me. And because of my father, and he was that, and I just I just kind of went on his looks instead of on who he truly was. I didn't realize which was a child, but I got us in the meantime. I was in love with him. So I went out, he cheese when he cheated on me. I said that he actually left me for The Other Woman. He married her. So that's where the suicidal came. And, you know, I felt the rejection.

26:24 The rejection are that you just couldn't believe in and it's so bad, basically.

26:34 I really became a Christian at that point. I really accepted Jesus Christ in my life at that point. I was so broken that it took God to rebuild. Can you pick me back up? And I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I'm glad I went through it now. I'm so glad I went through what? I went through, so many things, I learned after that whole situation that, that made me stronger. It made me understand people better.

27:10 In and that's including different races, different people, men women. It it it just it just opened my eyes to a lot of things and it really shines a light on who I was as a person because I was at that point up until that point. I was racist. I do know that I was racist. I did believe that black should only marry blacks white showing where Mary White's Brown, you know, everybody should stay in their corner and they should just be like that, but once I went through that devastating time in my life, I had to

27:50 The Lord show me everything about who I was and I had to come out of that and in it. So like I said, even with you, I don't think I would even have done this. If it wasn't for what I went through with him. I would I wouldn't bother to do this cuz I wouldn't want to know anybody different, you know, do you think that you healed that for your children and grandchildren? Do you think that that they are going to look at your at your what you went through and and say, we're not going to we're not

28:35 Didn't know we're not going to do the same thing because we learned because you went through so much pain. Do you think that it? Does that make sense? And and that's a very good question. I don't know what happened was right after I went through my suicidal face. And in the, in the Lord told me there, certain things you told me to do to start healing, emotionally spiritual and everything. One of the things I did was I created a group called ladies and waiting, and waiting is w e, i g h t, it was more for self-esteem and everything like that, because

29:17 At that point, I wanted to address abuse. That's my whole platform in all my books. There's abuse situation that people have to overcome, but it is. I knew that women tend to get into those type of relationship because they don't feel good about themselves. And in a lot of it has to do with the white, a lot of it has to do with what they look like. And in that they only did they they can only take what they can get in. NM to me. I have fell into that category and I thought that this man was the only thing I can get and, you know, and so that's why I get. So I started this, this group, by the time, I started this group. I have two daughters in the Sun and in my two daughters older than my son in, and they were part of that group.

30:09 So, as I was learning about how to feel better about myself out of town, to come out a relationship with what we need to do, because Here's My Philosophy. If you don't know who you are, or if you don't know who you are and Christ, you're not going to know who the pitch when it comes to your your mate or who not. You don't know who to pick who not to because you know who you are. But as soon as you know, who you are and become that person, you know exactly who you're not going to deal with it when we were going to deal with it. So, for the most part, my my daughters grew up under that they were part of that, that group which eventually evolved into? Yes. I think I did a pretty the nonprofit. Yes. We should answer your apartment stores for poppers woman and children in Kansas City, and they they helped me run it. So

31:08 I'm proud to say that because it is that not only help me and help them as well. My two daughters are married to to you. No wonderful, man, who would never abused them, who are responsible. Love the children. I mean it so yeah, they don't go through that because I want to ask you about being married because I do. I do try one of my books is called you coming home before becoming be coming home before becoming one. Which basically means we're just said about you have to know who you are before. You become one with another person. Tell me. How long have you been married to your husband? And how do you keep that relationship going? How do you how do you sustain that marriage?

32:07 So in December will have been married for 10 years. And so I was Thirty-One when I when we got married and I saw it at 31, you know, I I thought I was I felt so old at 31. I thought it was. I thought I was old but now you know, I'm 41 and is clearly, it wasn't all. It's so it's a wild at the at the time I felt so behind it. I felt like I have to get on 31. You know, I have to get married and I don't know what, you know, 10 years has just flown by, but I think the

32:56 So Nick and Isaac were able to to to do this because Nick he does a lot of of the help and he helps me so much with raising our son. I could not do it. Unless this, man, Nick, I don't even know how he does it. He is so motivated. Sometimes I get depressed. Nothing as I get tired. Nick is just like this machine. He just keep going. Until I, that's the only way I can. You know, what? That's the only way I can keep keep going with me, taking Luca to school, and then picking them up and then, you know, all the things that he, you know, all the, all the daily things that, you know, being a mom requires. So Nick really helps me.

33:48 He's a good friend. I guess that's how we do it. You know, it's I don't even know how how I became what I was really lucky that he was a good person. And so does that answer your question? So when you first met your husband, how did you know that you? This is what's going to be your husband? I mean, what can I do to believe that? Okay, I can marry this person. I think I had been, I think my heart had been broken in at least two times and I

34:31 I was ready for someone who who just who I felt comfortable with not like in not in that, love that I had had before, where it was. You know, they didn't treat me. They did not treat me. Well, they did not, I did not feel comfortable sharing my feelings with them. I I just

34:56 I didn't know how to express my feelings with them. But with Nick, I could just be myself and it felt different, and it felt safe, and it felt like, I just felt different. And so, I just trusted myself at and again, I was getting up there in age. I thought I thought it was and then also, and then also, I got pregnant before we were married and in. So I was like, okay. Well, now that I'm pregnant. So that's push things along to know what happened was, I at 8 weeks. I had a miscarriage. Terrible. I was so happy. It was heartbreaking. And so, and then Nick, after I had the miscarriage, she said, do you still want to get married? And I said, yeah, I do until we got married.

35:56 And then we got pregnant with with my, with my son, Luca and hadn't had him in 2013 and play. But yeah, that's the honest sounds like that. You guys are friends as well as you know, lovers or whatever husband to wife.

36:19 My husband didn't like me. My, I didn't like him, but the same time, my children, you learn and you grow from the steaks. Now, if you keep repeating them, now, you're just stupid. But if you do everybody, you don't learn and grow. When everything's hunky-dory note. It is only through those two states that you, and he was my biggest source mistake, but at the same time, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. And, and

36:59 I am just so grateful that the Lord got me through that and now, like I said, I'm a Christian. You said, you you're not a practicing Catholic. Do you still consider yourself? What do you consider yourself? I don't consider myself Catholic. There has been some abuse in the Catholic Church priest, you know, sexually abused a lot of boys and I just and I don't feel like the Catholic church has

37:34 Made amends with that, you know, my mom, you know, she grew up in the Catholic as she went to Catholic school. So she sent me to a Catholic school. I just feel like the, the patriarchy in the Catholic religion is just I just don't feel like women are given enough respect. That's my feeling, but I don't know what your thoughts are on on on that. So, I mean, it's not very favorable for the Catholic Church. Yeah. I think that for the most part it is a a Dalek religion, you know, and once again, it's just my opinion from what I see. And yeah, with the abuse of the children and stuff like that. It's just not good, but see, I grew up in the bath.

38:34 Which is this is not any better judge the truth. I mean, you you got the Baptist preachers taking advantage of the women married women single. I didn't matter, you know, there's some that rate for the kids too and and, and breaking people of their money, you know, a lot of Baptist Churches. That's what they wanted. That's what they were built is getting taking people's money and it wasn't until you know, like that. I was older and on my own that I became a Christian, you know, where is it is? Not about, it's all about Jesus Christ and in our Lord. And so, yeah, that's that's how I look at it. But I I I do sympathize with you because in a way it's kind of like being an abusive marriage, going through any type of

39:30 Organized system like that. You know, there's a quid pro quo. What is a status up? And you can't fight it because it's so big. The Catholic church is so cute. You know, when is so ingrained into our society that it would be hard to take them down. You could you could not take them down. You just have to walk away from excess. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a really interesting way to look at it. Yeah. I told my mom still practices Catholicism. And then my husband, Nick, his mom and dad are big Catholics as well. So that's probably why we were able to why Nick and I were able to come together so easily because we come from the same, you know, Catholic.

40:26 It's interesting. So so I guess, I mean, I wrote these questions.

40:37 This is an interesting question that made me think twice. Do you ever feel troubled by people with the same beliefs as as you and how they communicate those beliefs to others? That was one of the questions that every religion and every race or whatever. There's there's always good and bad. If you just can't get away from that and some people do take the Christian, they take upon themselves to

41:17 I go above and beyond what Jesus Christ, try to to teachers in the Bible, you know, like okay. I just going back to the Pharisees and the Sadducees in his days. You know, when when you read about them Dayton, Jesus was Jewish. And they were Jewish, but it was like that. They they change. So they became like police to me. They became like the police. They started hunting down people who, who didn't believe what they believe than if it was just a structured. It was just as strict structure of the people coming to the priest.

42:01 And in and knock your God himself, you don't mean. So it became like the priest word. They became God. And in the end, they wanted people to look at them as gods and when they didn't, when Jesus Christ came down and if I started looking at him because he was, he was God, then I'll let you know, then all the sudden, there's a problem. We got the persecution of the Jews are persecuting the Jews, other Jews, killing them, you know, whatever. And even show Jesus, you know, it is 5, okay? Your supposed to be a religious sector but you killing people and then in the claim to be doing it in the name of God, you know, just like the Dark Ages and stuff. People are getting killed slobbering about the right in the name of God. They, they, they took it in a different direction than what God was with one of them.

43:01 So, you do to me, you know.

43:06 Christian Christians are Baptists, whatever we do. We can we can all get on a high horse and and saved her. So we're better than everybody said we supposed to know Jesus and I was in envying, you know.

43:21 We're supposed to welcome everybody. You know, we supposed to welcome, you know, just try kids and we supposed to work on prostitutes with what you do, gay people. Welcome everybody in in, and put them to the fold, but unfortunately, lot of people tend to

43:42 Separate themselves from them in and be judgmental over there. And in the end, and that's not what God's. He only God can judge you. You, you can judge these people you any, but you can say, we are all sinners. Are, we ain't judge each other. All we can do is just supposed what Jesus Christ, came down here to do for us and most people take that Beyond they take their behind us. Now, they're operating their philosophy and their ideology, what, they believe that, you know, religion is. And in a lot of times he would just go too far, far away. Is it in? And they separate themselves May and then they judge other people. And I don't know, people just I just wish people would allow people to be themselves, and that's why I felt I couldn't do going up, you know, in my, in my own home, and even out there in the public eye. I feel like I just can't be who I am.

44:42 Because a lot of people just

44:47 Just don't want to accept the person like me and when I mean a person like me now, it's just that if you ask me something, I'm going to tell you the truth. If you want to know, I'm going to tell you. I mean that's just the type of person I am. I believe until the truth. I believe in telling love but I still believe in the truth. That's all of who I am in. A lot of people. Do they say who I want the truth. They can't handle the truth at. What was that movie? You can't handle the truth to me in a Few Good Men. And that's the reason why I'm a very I don't have a lot of friends. I have just a certain group of friends. I don't, you know, I don't need a lot of friends around me, but the people who do surround me, they know that I'm

45:38 What you see is what you get, you know, I try not to hide behind a mask. And I think this would racism in love is about Friday behind and argue. I think that I'm better than you and and because I'm betting you I can shoot your certain way and I can keep this mess up even though deep down. I know that I'm not better than you, but I'm still going to pretend like I am and that's why I'm going to treat you accordingly, you know.

46:11 So, back at you with answer.

46:22 I think that a lot of people with the same beliefs as me to many of us. We, we just try to go to the suburbs and separating ourselves off from everybody else and I think it is systemic and I think that there's a huge problem in our country of the school system. So everybody wants to send their kids to the best schools, but you know, not everybody can afford it. And so again, it's it's just about a lot of a lot of my, you know, a lot of people that I am trying to buy, are, you know, of course, White and the universe were liberal where where Democrats, but we, we live in the suburbs and I don't live in the suburbs. My son goes to a school that, you know, there's he's friends with it. You know, most a lot of them are, you know, Asian black?

47:22 Let Marty know which is great, but I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say other than I think they having a conversation with you. You're wonderful. You're lovely and I'm so glad that I got you. Some meet you because I thought I don't know why. I thought this was your wife may be Jewish man. I mean for me, I don't know why that I am very glad. I'm I'm talking to you now because I think you are very lovely person. And like I said, we only way we're going to be able to Bro, is if we get out of our comfort zones, you know, just like you were saying, we have to get out of our comfort zone and reach out Beyond.

48:19 What? We were taught, because I said, monks and stuff was just, this is just learned behavior. This is what my grandmother did. And, you know, my great grandpa and, you know, and trickled down to me. And I don't know any different until I choose to know that there is a difference. But until then we, we are going to be in our comfort zone with live, you know.

48:47 But like I said, I got out of my comfort zone a long time ago when it came to whites and blacks and stuff like that. You know, like I said that at first, I once again am I my whole place is going up with that, you know, blast, you marry blacks and watching Bernie whiteson, never the twain show me, you know, but when I, when I, when I was on my own, that's the interesting thing about it. I had to get out of my mother's home in order to think of something different than that, you know, and I remember when I went to school up with a college in there, was this really handsome, very intelligent white, man, and he was one of my teachers and stuff. And I just fell in love with him. And I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know I was thinking, why do I like me? And very funny and stuff. And, you know,

49:47 Be in his office talking to stop and get me one time. He said, he said you don't stand her. If I was not married to my wife. I would marry you in. And that was it. That was just such as I know, it was, it was at first, and then, it was just like an eye-opener because it was at that moment. I was thinking it would be friends that made me realize that, you know what I mean. I had to get into that, that type of experience to be with the two things like that. You know, would you ever consider marrying of a black man or a black man?

50:33 Yes, absolutely, but I came from the same background as you is that my mom. My mom said the same thing that your mom said, keep it separate. Don't don't date. Black people said that racism is so it's there. You know, what was there a like in some type of example or some type of time, when?

51:07 What made you break from that particular way of thinking at your mom's thinking? What when was that? When did that happen?

51:17 You know, I think college and I'm just getting it, just getting a liberal arts education. But still, I wish I would have had more African-American studies. I wish I would have immersed myself in that more and I didn't. So I do regret that.

51:39 You know, Natalie, like I said, I'm I'm I'm a tell you something. Like, I tell, Mike, I'm going to talk to you. Like I talk to my daughter. Is my oldest daughter. She's she's probably about your age, too, but

51:54 You no regret.

51:57 Regretted something that you can't regret what you went through. Okay. I mean, you went through what you went through you, you, you, you went, you get on, you experience stuff that you I don't think there's no regret. It just like it was, no regretting me. I mean, I could regret marrying my abusive husband and I did it. I mean, I wanted. The strike him dead, you know, you know, but once he told me, he said, Sandra, how can you hate something that brought me closer to you, you know, and I have to think about that. And so are all of our experiences.

52:39 Good or bad. I just don't want you to regret anything because you're here. Now, you're on the man. So and there's always the timing for everything there really is. There's always a timely and if you want to immerse yourself into African American studies. Now, maybe maybe you wasn't ready for it, you know, back then but but you're you more than you more susceptible to her every step. I would say do it now and it don't ever regret. What you did. Just just learn from me. Even if it's a mistake. That's the only way we're going to go in and I had to learn that the hard way to my son. I just enjoy everything I do now.

53:28 And and do enjoy meeting new people. And and I just life is just too short for regrets. That's all I can say is just too short.

53:38 Thank you so much.

53:41 Thanks so much for talking. It was so lovely. As a perfect, note to end on.