The Dr. Chandra Richardson Episode Part.2

and then blame it on us. Don't get it twisted on code And we danced for no buttament biscuits. So so the crazy thing is like when you are teaching, especially in like underprivileged areas right from town. You know you're at the schools and you're trying to your best, you know, to to get these kids on the right track. Oftentimes these kids you don't know what these kids are going through at home. You don't know. Kids come to school hungry. Sometimes if they don't come to school, they

will not eat. They come come to school after being assaulted by family members. Um sometimes dirty. Yeah, they come. It's the same outfit where the average person may think, oh, they must really like that outfit. They may not have another outfit, right. And then it's also the peer pressure of that kid who noticed that they're wearing the same thing that might tease them, you know, because that happened

to me. You know, crazy thing. I had a guy in my classroom, you know, he started making fun about my clothes and we started fighting. We gotta suspended three day, came back to school. The first day back, he was like, I'm still gonna talk about you. So we started fighting again.

This time they put us in sack, you know, detention, right, and uh, he was one of those people that I kind of put in that same uh, you know cluster of the tractors that I wanted to get back at when I got paid, right, And so after I got paid, I got to the money. Yeah, I wrote up to I was riding around and Maserati and I'm in I come through the McDonald's parking lot and I see him and uh, you know, I called his name. See this guy, he's like, he looks like a crackhead, skinny, dirty clothes.

I called his name. He turned around teeth on and uh, I called his name, and I said, oh, you said yo, what's up? WILLI D I said, what's up? Man? I say, so you are right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, you need to ride now I'm good, I say, we're here back then. You know, I just started making money, so I want to show off. So I always had thousands of dollars in my pockets, so I probably had about ten thousand dollars in them one of the pockets, and I pulled it out and gave it to him. Wow.

And at first he refused, and I said, no, take it, man, take it. You know what I'm saying, I don't need it. And I gave it to him and I drove off. But it goes to show you about life. I thought that it was gonna make me feel good to snub him, you know, to put it and rubb it in his face. You know that I had made it. Look at me, I'm this big successful look at me. But I felt

sorry for him. I felt really bad, and I felt bad that I even felt that when in the first place like that, I felt like I had to like accomplish something great, you know, to be accepted by a person you know or someone you know. I felt like I had to come back and and and prove that I was worthy, you know, uh of of somebody else's you know, praise, you know, a recognition, like you said earlier, attention. Yeah, you want to be recognized. You want to be known

literally for doing something. Unfortunately, now a lot of young and even some older people want to be known for doing something, and it may not be good that seconds of fame. Everybody just wants everybody just wants that that attention. And you know, it's crazy because you know, I'm gonna tell you something, like I I double salute you for

you do because you don't just you know, teach. I mean you're really ingrained, and like I really like the correction and the rehabilitation of our young people, you know, who are out there who are going through it. That's a tough position to be in because you live with that, you go to sleep with that, you wake up with that,

you know, you eat with that. You know, it's constantly you know, on your mind, you know, so you know it's it's it's a it's a very difficult thing to deal with, you know, especially if if you've already had your own traumatic experiences, right, you know, which which you can speak to. I mean, I don't know if you want to, but yeah, you know so. So you know with the situation with your mother, you know, it came a time when you didn't feel safe around her. Um.

That's why I said dysfunctional family. You get this picture and it it looks great, but you don't know what's on the back side of the picture frame. And as I got older, my mom started to be more I guess you would just say, down right me and abusive because she had been done wrong by so many men. Did you feel like she was jealous of you at all? Sometimes yes, she had made comments about or you, thank

you pretty, we'll mess up your face. I wore glasses and she would say things like break up your glasses. Oh god, I really can't see now. But it's like, okay, just be quiet, just be quiet, don't don't poke the bear, don't don't give it any more energy. I would just be quiet. And I wasn't the kind of young teenager who did stuff to get in trouble. All I had to do was breathe oxygen. All I had to do was be there. And if she had a bad day at work or someone had just literally piste her off,

I was gonna get it. I was gonna get it, and my grandmother would be the one to say, run, get out of the house, and I would run and I would run to my neighbor's house and I would stay until my grandmother will say, Okay, you could come home now. And I grew up with that in my teens, and I didn't think it was abnormal. I thought, maybe this is what everybody goes through. I had nothing to compare it to. But every family has something then, But what is that something? It might be, um, you know

grandparents like my grandparents who took care of you. But when I got older, I understood, Oh, my grandmother Mary and my grandfather because he could take care of her when she was fourteen fifteen years old. That's like you said that nobody would do that. They not normally don't do that here in the United States and other countries. Yoh, yeah, that's quite normal. But who would have thought of that? Who would have pawned her off like that? But my

great grandmother, I know, loved my grandmother hugely. But with my mother, she, according to where my cousins and aunts would tell me, she just had this mean streak in her and the physical abuse that she received just accentuated it. She had one other set of children, supposedly with my biological father, and I say a set because they were twins and they didn't live, so I literally was the oldest and then the only child. But in my twenties

I always worked. I always wanted to work because I want to have my own money, because there were things that I wanted, and she, oh, I'm not buying that, I'm not paying that. And we didn't know allowance. It was just if you ask, you would get if it was feasible, if it was possible. And one particular time, I had a really really decent job. I didn't have a degree yet and Uh, I said, come on, let

me take you out. My mother and my grandmother and we were riding in the car going down to I don't remember where we were coming from, but I said, let's go to the UH, which is now chaos. On six ten. I said, let's go to Bennigan's and sit down and eat, because my grandmother always cooked. And my mother said, I don't. I don't want to go there. I want to go home. And I said, okay. I said, well, to keep her from having to cook, let's go there.

And we get it to go and we bring it home and she said, I told you I don't want to go there. I said, we're not going to stay. I'm just going to buy the food and we take it home to eat. And right about then I heard and she had a gun to my temple and she said, if you don't turn this motherfucking car around, we'll blow your goddamn brains out. And I pulled over the side of the road. My grandmother was hysterical. She was just out of control, crying and telling her, don't do that,

don't do that. Put the gun down. Put the gun down. And she said, no, she's gonna take me home. That's what I said, She's gonna take me home, and stopped the car. I got out and went running down the freeway, yelling and screaming. Somebody helped me. Somebody helped me, and somebody stopped and it was like a bad movie, but I was the star and said, my mother's trying to kill me. I need somebody to call the police. And

someone did call the police. It was like I was just they's a free falling and I couldn't control anything, and it was totally gone from my mind. It was like I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't remember anything. It was just that traumatic for me. And police came to my mother to jail, and we went on took my grandmother home. Keep in mind, we're all living together, me and my mother and my grandmother, so you know, I'm sure she did not. She did not.

Points we voting podcast will be right back back to the point. M M. My mother called, she got her her jail call, and said, did if you still in that house when I get out, I'm still a kid. Yeah, I told my grandmother's act, I gotta go. I was maybe twenty one, maybe twenty one years old. I left and I went and stayed with my No, I didn't. I actually went and stay with my aunt, my grandmother's sister. And not a problem, not a problem. And I paid them pay them rent because I couldn't stay for free.

But they let me come and go. You know. I went to work or not, and then I would go out. But otherwise I was was like a hermit. Was like, no, I'm not trying to do anything to cause anymore issues with anybody. And though I say making good money in terms of what can you pay rent and can you pay your card? Okay, Well it wasn't that kind of good money. So um, my grandmother had started to get real sick, and she said, I really want you to come home, she said. And I talked to your mother

and I told her, you're killing me. I need her to be able to come back home. So like a relationship, you know, where somebody says I'm gonna beat you, I'm gona beat you. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna beat you anymore. I apologize and you come back, and then as they beat you again, Oh, I didn't mean to do that again. It was that kind of a cycle. But I came back and helped take care of my mother. And that's when I went on and got in HCC and got the good job learning how to do the

surgery piece. So that redeemed me. And I helped take care of my grandmother until she succumbed to cancer. But my mother's mind, things had started to change tremendously with her, and I could see it. And if I said something to anyone, and other people would say, oh, you know, your mama was had a crazy way. There are you're crazy, mama? Like my pastor said, you ought to start asking, but why are they crazy? Yeah, we say it flippantly, jokingly.

Why do you think she was acting like that? Why do you think Well, when some years had passed, married, family and everything like that, I didn't realize my mother had really started to go in the wrong direction mentally. She when she went in the hospital this last time, I had not talked to my mother in probably five or six years. She took herself away from us. We didn't take ourselves away from her. I found out my

mother had gone through a homeless stage. She was living in a car, She had lost everything, she had lost her home, house had caught on fire. She didn't want to tell anyone. She didn't have insurance. Um, she had been sick and ended out of the hospital. She was just really in dire straits. But she would never reach out. I would kind of keep tabs on her, like get so close just enough to see and know where she was and how she was doing, but never approached because

I knew that was probably set her off. Yeah, and I didn't want to do that. Ironically, when I was working at another school in the district on the northwest side, I'm a thrifter. I love going to the the drift store. And I was in the thrift store and I saw a lady at the corner of my eye and I was like, that looks no, no, that is definitely not her. And sure enough, I go and see, just go and see. And I turned around and I called her by name, and she turned around and looked at me, and she said,

don't come close to me. I knew it was her, but I knew how she was. I didn't know how she was at that moment. I should say I know how she was previously. I didn't know how she was at that moment. And at that point you hadn't seen it in five years at least. The first thing that comes to her mind, the first words that you you hear her uttered when she sees you, when she laid his eyes on her daughter, the child she gave birth two,

is don't come close to it. And she told someone in the store that latest allowing me because I was watching, and I was and so and so it has to be in the back of your mind. She probably have a gun. So yeah, I am. I'm gonna keep my distance exactly. So I turned and I went out the store and went to my car, and I cried, and I cried and I cried, and I didn't try to get in touch with her. One of my fraternity brothers, he and I would always chop it up and talking

and say, you ever wonder where your mom is? And I said, yeah, but I'm kind of afraid to find out because I don't want to. I just don't want to be in there. I can't deal with that, I really can't. And he said, well, at least just know where she is. And I said to my daughter, I said, with China, you know I've been thinking you. Her name is China. I said, I don't know if your grandmother is alive or dead. And it's on my mind more and more, which means that's that God is trying to

tell you something you need to know. So I reached out to my my frat brother again and he said, okay, let me check and see what I can find out. And he he would talk, you know, every so often, he said, I keep checking. He said, she doesn't want to be found. He said, I'm coming up empty on a lot of my leads. But somewhere in the heights, somewhere over the heights, but I don't know where. And It was the very next week I got a phone call from Memorial Herman over in the Heights, and at

that particular time, I was still at work. My husband answered the phone and they asked for me, and he said, well, she's not here. I can't take a message. And he said, was Marrie Herman. We need to talk to her, and we can't give any information. So when I came in, he told me, but it was too late to call then until I called the next morning, got the social worker and she said, I think we have your mother, but I need to ask you some questions so we

can verify your identity. And they asked me everything and I answered, because I knew all her information, social secure number, everything I knew and she said, well, we have your social Security number. You you really are a NERD can say yes, I know my children? Well, so yes, but I did so I could very investigators, borderline, next job baby, but I told she said yeah, you're definitely her daughter. And we asked her if she had any family and she said no. She said, but we're calling it because

and I said, oh lord, what is this. I don't even know if I'm ready for this. And I was at work and she said, um, your mother is not in good health and we don't expect her to survive. We want to know if you're willing to take on the responsibility and make all decisions for her. And I called, man, what what a phone call? All that week, I had

been listening to gospel music, just getting infused, infused, infused. Okay, I listened to it, but not quite like this, but just every day I would put it on driving past the gallerya bump of the bumper traffic, sometimes get a whole church sermon in. And I said, I know why now, because I was getting built up to be able to handle this journey, because I didn't know what that was gonna be like. So the lady told me. I said, well, yes, man,

I said, I'll be there this afternoon. And I went and asked for the social worker and I said, how did you find me? She said, we went on the computer. She said, your mom. She said, we could tell she's not the kind of person that wouldn't have anybody, but she was adamant she had no family. But the last name was Nick Spatten. It was amazing name, family name, she said, and it's not a lot of people with

that spelling. And you go online and you look and you start pulling up names and he'll say, oh, this person may be associated with she said, and you and your husband's name came up, but not your number, your husband's name and phone number, so that's why they call. And I said, oh okay, she said, what do you want to see her? H yeah, I'm here, so yeah. So we went to the room and opened the door. And I had always called my mother Melanie because when I was small, I thought my mother was my sister,

because my grandmother was raising me. She lived with us, but she was usually gone or gone on the road with the entertainers or things like that. So was she incapacitated when I saw her? Yes, she had just had her kidney removed cancer and she looked at me and her eyes just and she didn't say anything. And I said, it's me. I don't know you. I said, now you know what you know? You know me because I looked just like you. And the social worker said, oh my gosh,

y'all sound just alike. My mother was in her eighties. And the social workers said, you have the same eyes, your voice, it's the same. So how many days that you have her before she passed. I had six weeks. Six weeks and how often did you go to the hospital as much as my heart could stand. Uh. I brought my kids because she had not seen them in years. And what was her reaction when she saw them. She would talk to them like she just saw him yesterday.

Same with my husband. And we were able to get her moved into a nursing home because I could do it. I just couldn't do it. It was so much that she needed. It was beyond anything that I was emotionally able to do. And I call it the nursing home from Hell because I had no idea it was a good one, but then management changed and it became the nursing home from Hell. While she was there, I had

to act like she was destituted, which technically she was. Uh. During that time when she was in the hospital, the apartment complex that she was in, they went and had a court order done to have her evicted. Unfortunately, the apartment people wouldn't tell me anything, but one lady who worked there work the night ship, and she said, I'm not supposed to tell you anything, but I'm going to

tell you because what they're doing isn't right. She said, they're going to court tomorrow and they'll take everything that she owns. You need to go to court. I said, where do I go? And she told me and she gave the information and I showed up at court the next day and I prayed and I said, I'm pleading on the blood of Jesus that this judge will show me favor for my mother, because I had been calling the apartment where my mother lived and they would never

call me back. So when the apartment people came up in front of the judge and he says, there anyone else? And I came up and the apartment people looked at me and they said, do you notice lady? And they said no, and they asked me this, and do you know them? I said, I've seen them because I went. But they wouldn't talk to me. And the judge said, why wouldn't you talk to her? And they said because Ms Max Patton said she didn't have any family. He said,

so you didn't try to investigate to find out. Didn't that seem odd to you? And well, she said she didn't have any family. They had got my mother to sign over everything everything, so um. The judge then said, well, if I give you seven days to take care of your mother's affairs? Will you do it? And I know seven is a number of completion, and I said, yes, sir,

I will. So within seven days, I had packed up everything, moved it away, some of stored, some I gave away to family and friends, and said she may not be able to have it. I may not want it, but I'll be dog on if you get to take it. That's not fair to her. My mother told me she had no insurance, So okay, I still got you. She said, you know I'm dying, don't you. I said, yes, ma'am, I do. I need you to tell me what you want because if you don't tell me, I'm gonna do

what I want to do. She would never but tell me what she wanted. I was able to move my mother out of the the place that just did not breathe life into anyone, and I got her into Harbor Hospice. She survived twenty three hours. And what was the last word she said to you? I always knew you would be okay, and I love you. Man. That is crazy that that sounds like something my mama would have said.

Because my mama was particularly hard on me, you know, she told me one day, like, you know, after beating the hell out of me, She's like, the reason why I'm hard on you because you better, You're gonna be better than the rest of it. And I remember saying, I don't want to be the rest better than the rest him if I got to go through this. Yeah. Um, so after all of that, you you eulogize your mother.

What did you say? Like? What like? What like? What are the most pleignant things that you remember saying during the eulogy? And then you also, I guess you use your money to bury her, right? You know you said she didn't have insurance or whatever. Right. Well, after going through my mother's things, my mother was a hoarder, A horrible hoarder, I could say, a good hoarder. She hid money, she hid money orders, cash enough to give her the homegoing that she wanted and to bless my children. So no,

we're not millionaires. Iss why I still go to work, But I'd brought to go to work anywhere. But I had enough to pay for and I pay for a thing in cash, so there were no extenuating bills. She um never told me I had planned to do the cremation and we had everything set up at the church, and our youth pastor ray Baby, shout out to ray Baby, and I asked him, and I had to tell him my story, he said, because I don't know your mom. And when I told him, he's like, my god, oh

my god. If anybody knows ray Baby, that's something he always says. And he said, yeah, I'll do it for you. And the sermon that he did was entitled Maximized the dash. You get a birthdate, get an end date. What did you do with your dash? Yeah? So he talked about me and the family and how he knew us and that we were the fruit of my mom. Why thought you eulogized that he did, and then I came behind him and I got to speak, and I talked about

tough love and forgiveness, the power that's in forgiveness. Which is why I could do that, I said, because I had to pray. I mean, everybody has to find some kind of way to deal with it. Mindest to prayer. And something that my pastor has said, hating somebody, it's like you drink and drain on hoping they would die. And I never forgot that. That allowed me to just really started to release a whole lot of stuff, a

whole lot of baggage, and to understand that. Like Oprah, I would say, you know, when you know better, you do better. So all these things, Mike, thank you. She was on Oprah show when she said, at that particular time, thank you. Uh. Just hearing all of these things that people have said to give me peace and to be a strong tower to knock coward and be broken down like old beautiful me. I could have been this with my mama. Mm hmmmm. That wasn't in my fiber. If anything,

I just needed to be undergirded to stay strong. I was already strong, I just didn't know it and needed their support. And I talked about mental health and I said, my mother was mentally ill. When you jokingly say, oh crazy and Sally, oh duhn, Uncle Bubba everything, Hey, I got uncle Bubba. Now had you know, everybody's shout un Bubble my favorite uncle. Everybody's family has it. But the question is, but why are they What makes them crazy?

What makes them goofy, what makes them silly in their eyes? And that's what as a as a people, as a people culturally, we like to sweep it under the table and act like it doesn't existest, but having been the the beaten child, it's like, oh, but it does exist because I lived through it and I lived to tell the story. Why did I get to live to tell the story. Because I'm supposed to help somebody. I'm supposed

to help somebody else. Understand that when you start seeing when they say, if it looks like a duck and it's cracking like a duck, guess what. It's a duck. What are you gonna do about it? And a little roasted duck tastes pretty good sometimes, but don't ignore it. The science and symptoms are there. There's so many. I have a granddaughter who's five years old. Smartest could be smart as a whip. Of course I say it because it's my grandchild. But still the teachers at the school say,

she is so smart. She's an old person. She's been here before. She talks like you know, she's seven, eight, nine, ten years old. Yeah, she's been around us. We didn't talk to her in baby talk. We started off talking regular English, where she was walking at nine months. That's scary to have a nine month old that's already walking, and was saying Mama and dad. But otherwise it was

the regular words. But does she have some issues? I could say genetically maybe, so she's and I don't want to say she is, but she's showing a little sign of being hyper. She's got to be busy. So knowing that, I could just say, oh, isn't that cute? Or say okay, let me see what I need to do exactly. How did you meet Maryland Gambrella with no more victims, my dear sweet friend. I was working at Stirling High School.

I've been all over Histy. I was working as a graduation coach, working with kids making them graduate because they didn't seem to want to. And some of the kids would come in and would say, oh, Mama Jesus and Mama Mama G. Who is Mama Ge. We have somebody on this campus, ame Mama Gi. Yeah, you don't know her, No, miss, you need to meet her. So a couple of them they took me to where she was and she was in a conference room and they introduced me and they said, oh,

this is Mama Ge. And I said, I'm sorry, what is your real name? She saw the kids call me that. She said, I'm Marylyn Gambriell. But that's so nice to meet you, Dr Britarson. Chandra whatever you want calling, she said, I am the great Maryland Gambrill, friend of Willie d. I guess she didn't want to run me off on the first meeting, but I said what do you do? And she said, well, I have this program called No

More Victims? So what is that? So she said, well, basically, it's a program that works with students whose parents or family members have been incarcerated. Wow, I never even knew that existed. And what do you do? And in essence, it was an opportunity for for kids to unleash and let it out and let the hurt and the anger

and the pain go in a protected environment. And she would also take the kids to a prison, not to see their parents or anything like that, but to speak to inmates and let them know, this is how your kids feel when you do the things that you do. So they would tell their own personal experiences, and um, I noticed the kids were always they might act a fool out in the hallway, but when they got in there with her, it was like they were different people.

They were calm and lacks. They might be energized and you know, talking loud and stuff. But otherwise they were just so much more piece that's right, that's right, and and and shot salute because you know, it's like they gotta want it right, and they all wanted and and

she has done such a remarkable job. I mean, not for years, for decades with that with that program, and the kids that come through that program, all of them have experienced various degrees of pain and and just being neglected and let down by the adults in their lives.

And to their credit, all of them, I'm talking about every single one of them have just shown like incredible progress and just I mean, if you could tell when from the time that they come in to the time that they get just a few weeks under them, it's like she doesn't give up. And she also empowers them. That's a big part of it too, is she empowers and put them in leadership roles and things like she does. She's really good. I just felt so honored, first of all,

to him met her. But then we were talking one day and she was, you know, kind of laid back. But I would say Maryland is a cry baby. So when something touches her heart, she's just spewing tears like crazy. And I thought, oh, what is wrong with this lady. She's crying every time you turn around. And one day, um, some of the kids. I guess they probably had a conversation with her because I didn't go to the meetings.

But then I got invited to a meeting and I was given the opportunity of telling what I say, is my truth, tell my story. So I told a little bit of my story and the kids were shocked because they know me as Dr Richardson, you know, the the lady who has it together. And I said this, this is like a lucky accident that y'all get to know me this way. I was not the one who had it all together either, and I told him about my mom and stuff that I had gone through, and they

were just really really shocked. And next thing I know, the offer came if I wanted to be sworn in, and as well, I guess, so if that if y'all want me, and they said yes, So I was sworn in and they got on the course that they had a graduation. They even gave me an honor core that I could wear, and I was really impressed. Well yearsually, I moved went to another school and over the last two years, I wound up being at a school again.

I taught it Worthy twenty one years ago, actually a teacher, and now I'm back at Worthy in another role as the coordinator Girl Points Relogal podcast will be right back back to the point. M tell me about these scholarships that you have raised. Uh, how you like, like responsible for raising millions of dollars? Yes, sir, I've been blessed, truly blessed, and I blessed the kids. Uh. Relationships not

just with the students, but outside relationships. And when I tell people what I do, and I said, do you do you have any or does your foundation do or do you recommend somebody? Do you know somebody? And sometimes they say yes. And then for the record, I am a coordinator for college Access, but I say, I'm a coordinator for college, Military and career Access. I cover all the basis literally life access. I come in, I introduced

myself and I tell them my name. I said, but just because I give you that name, that's not who I am. That's just something that I have, something that I've earned, something that I work for. You see the outside cover, but you don't know the inside story. And I tell the story and they look at me in disbelief. I say, if I can do it, I can also help you do it. And I don't care if you go to college. And they look at me like, what she's to college? Lady? What is she talking about? I said,

I really don't care if you go to college. What I care about is do you have a plan and is it a workable plan? Because if you come to me and you got a what a point seven five g p A and then you tell me all this, I want to go to Yale, I want to go to Harvard. Uh, let's let's sit down and look at this realistically. And I'm not gonna tell you no. I'm just gonna say not right now. Let's see what we need to do. And sometimes it maybe started Houston Community College,

I had to go backwards because I messed up. Nobody missed me up. I messed up. I made all those choices myself. But then once I figured out what I needed to do, I got my act together and I graduated, and I was making the Dean's list, and I got what I would call a good job, a decent salary where I could help my family and get my kids to understand you can do whatever you want to do. You have some paper behind you. You said that people are in disbelief when you tell your story. What's the

most remarkable part of your story? That they don't believe that I came up in Sunnyside, that I was born in Third War, or that idea come from a dysfunctional family. That uh, when my mother passed away, that I eulogized my mother, and in that eulogy I talked about mental illness and how it affects a family because my mother

had it. And so what made your family dysfunctional? Because you know from what I heard, you know you had a loving mother, loving grandmother, loving father, and that was the tribe, or at least the immediate part of your tribe. So what what made where did this function comes from? Well, when you look at societies analysis and definition of what family is, family is a mother, father and children in the same house. Well it was a mom, no dad in the legal aspect, and you shouldn't be on welfare,

but we were, and my mother was. And my mother had not graduated from high school, so she was of no help to me. But she was adamant or you're gonna go to school you're gonna go to high school. When it came to going to college, I what do I know about that? Who was I talking to about college other than the people at school or my classmates? And I distinctly remember my councilor Miss Jane Foster from Medicine High School, who said, and what are you going

to do? Where are you going to school? And I said, oh, I'm not going to question why? Uh, because my mother said, we don't have money for that. Uh, well do you want to go? Well, yeah, I guess well if I get you some money, where you go. Yeah. So she gave me papers to take them home, let your mother feel them out. Oh no, ma'am, I can't take this home to my mother. Why because she said, I'm not going girl, take that stuff home. And I took it home when my mother said, I'm not feeling this out

and mess with my welfare check. I'm not doing that. Now. Was your mom? Did she use welfare to subsidize her income? Did she? Did she have a job? But she did? She just My mother was the most talented seamstress in the city of Houston. She sold for all the entertainers like James Brown, Tina Turner, the t s U Toronados Ali head for the wife. The wife is a She did it in Houston, Melanie's fashions. Uh. She was in a shop next door to Ray Barnett's Center Club, the

old Center Club, next to the Palletroyal. Uh. She was at the Continental Showcase. Whatever she wore, it was an original design by Melanie. Her name was Melanie Emmy L l O w n E. Melanie max Bay. And she did it. She was around all the entertainers and she took me to I was ten, eleven, twelve years old sitting in the Continental Showcase with my mother, who had a front and center table. Now, you said, well, that's not normal, but back then a lot of stuff wasn't normal.

But that's what we did, and we had matching outfits and things of that nature. But my mother was in abusive relationships where men beat her. Man beat her, and I saw it. I saw the aftermath. I saw the black eyes, I saw the bites on her face. Um. I was in a car with her once when I was about ten, and one of the gentlemen that she married. I'm being gracious, I'm being I have to be g Yeah, I was shooting at her down the street, driving down

Coloring and Airport. I remember, I remember him shooting out the glass. I remember having glass in my hair. I remember it. And she buried him after my grandfather had passed. As long as my grandfather's last she went there because my grandfather said, no, he was no good for her. But the heart up. Oh my grandfather would have probably did more than that. Well I'm saying, yeah, oh, yeah, I know, and made him disappear after. But yeah, she was in a lot of abusive relationships, but she was

very popular because of her clothing. She was a certified licensed beautician, she was a barber. This was from the woman who didn't graduate from high school. But when I was graduated from high school, trade though, And that's why it's those trades back. We got to take the trades out of the prisons and put them back into the schools exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I learned from her how to do hair, but I didn't want to do it, And I learned from her how to sew.

I didn't want to do it, but my calling was different, still different. Do you think that your mother's abusive relationships had any type of effect on your own personal relationships. Was you ever in an abusive relationship? Well, I'll just say yes. I wasn't beaten, I wasn't sexually assaulted, but um there was a guy that I had dated once in college and he was kind of jealous. But we were always around his friends, which was fine because they

treated me like the sister. In one particular time, I said, oh, well, i've I wasn't ready to go yet or something like that, and and he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back and I used some choice non dr Richardson words on him, and our friends were like, dude, what you're doing. You don't do her like that. In fact, you leave, you leave. And I made the mistake of

telling my mother. And at the time, I was living in Beaumont and working in going to school in Beaumont because remember I hel I couldn't go back to your age, so I was moving around. But my mother said I'm coming. It was like the movie I'm coming and I'm bringing hell with me. And I was like, oh, what I tell her far She goes, that's the one that's gonna kill somebody, and I was like, no, don't. I'm not even talking to him. Anymore. You get one time, so

you shut it down all the way down. Yeah, no, no, what do you call it? No looking back over my shop? Nope, I refused to look back. That's how you do it. And never huge salute to the friends, because that's what it takes. It takes men to educate men. Men listen to me. I mean, you know, you can listen to woman whatever, but most men, you know, uh, they're gonna listen. They're gonna listen to men because they feel like women have an arterior motive. And just like women, women listen

to women. Women feel like if a man go to talking to stuff, it is because he has an arterior motive, he wants something from us, something he's trying to benefit in some way. So men listen to men. And that's why it is important for men to step up when they see their homeboy, their brother, cousin or whatever getting out of line being aggressive with women. Uh, shut it down, we don't do that. We don't do that around here. Bro.

The same thing even with you know, just taking care of your kids, are being neglected, you know what I'm saying, you know, being neglectful. Hey man, hey, we don't do that home boy, take care your kids. Because if a dude will bring a child, be responsible for bringing a child into this world and turn his back on his own flesh and blood, his own seed, I know what he'll do to me. Now. He he may have not done it yet because you know, we haven't gotten to

that point, but that's what he's capable of doing. So yeah, big shot out man. You you resemble who you assemble. M Yeah, beautiful. Dr Chandra Chandra, Chandra, Chira Richardson, I got it, man, Dr Sandra Richardson. Hey, thank you for coming over. We can do this again though, because some other things that I wanted to talk about, but uh, we're gonna talk coming out of abuse when it's the family, coming out of abuse when it's in the family, when it's in the family, and we deal with that at

school more than people would imagine. It's a lot of her kids. It's most people in the world, I think come from some form of abusive you know, family situation, like some kind of abuses that you know, whether it's physical abuse, emotional abuse is something there almost all the time. I just think that a lot of people just don't have the tools to the parent, you know. But everybody got the tuols to have sex, you know, and everybody get horny. You know what I'm saying. But again, thank

you for coming on the show. Thank you for How can people reach you? I can be reached at M well I an email address or something you can gain. Believe employed, I can say, well, yes, I'm with the Houston Independent School District and I'm at Worthy High School and the South Side and the Pride of Sunny Side. Uh there, definitely can reach out there. My email address is Chandra c h A N D R A dot Richardson r I C h A R D s O N at A T T dot net. That is, ladies

and gentlemen. We thank you for your co operation. All right, no more talk. This episode was produced by Aching and brought to you by The Black Effect Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.