“Who is your biggest inspiration?”

“My mom. She’s a pioneer. When everyone else in my family was going to college, she went into the Peace Corps in Niger. It was her first time traveling outside of the country. She met my dad there, who was from Mali. Because of that I have this whole experience of growing up here, but also getting the African experience too. None of that would have happened if she hadn’t have done something different. She’s a teacher and a social worker. I’m a social worker. My husband is Senegalese so it’s full circle.”

“How do you feel as a black person in America since you have ties here and in Africa?”

“It’s interesting. I feel really blessed to know where some of my family comes from. Being a black woman in America, especially in San Francisco, and this is where I was born and raised, is difficult. There’s a lot of wonderful things but there’s a lot of bullshit too.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well I’m a social worker and I work with people who are chemically dependent. We get a myriad of people who come in and get assigned to random counselors. And I’m always aware of race but for some reason at work I’ve never really tripped off of it until I had a patient that said, ‘I can’t work with you because I don’t like black people, and I don’t like black women.’ It was really hurtful. Outside of work my first instinct would have been to say something back, but I was in a professional environment and I couldn’t. I just had to hold that. Being one of the few black clinicians in there it was really difficult to process that.”

“How did you process it?”

“I talked to my mom. I talked to my homegirls. I talked to my therapist. I just went back to my tribe. People at work try to be sympathetic but they don’t understand.”

“What’s one of your dreams?”

“As a social worker a big dream of mine is being able to work with not only black youth, but black folks in general, and create a connection from here to Africa. Being able to take a group of kids and do the DNA testing so they can have an idea of where they come from. What’s over there is so different than what’s here. The love and energy is great!”