All right, thank you for joining me today. Can you please state your name and tell me a little bit about yourself?

My name's Sonia Coleman. I'm 56 years old. I'll be 57 in August. I stand Milwaukee, 26 in Capitol.

Did you grow up over there?

No.

Okay.

Grew up on 15th and brown to lawyers school. But I have five kids, four boys and one girl. And my mom passed, and, you know, and I'm in her house now, so overall, I'm okay.

Yeah. What was growing up like for you?

Growing up? It was just my mom and my dad, well, they got a divorce with out of us, but I had my parents with, you know what I'm saying? Yes. But overall, you know, regular life.

Yeah. What is regular to you?

What is regular to me?

Yeah. What does that mean?

You know, not uppity. And, you know, we wore what my mom went to the goodwill. My dad worked for the city. My mom worked at Sinai. So it was a struggle for us, you know, my mama had seven kids.

Okay.

It was a struggle for her to care for us, but she did what she did.

Yeah. What did health look like in your household when you were growing up? Like, was there an emphasis on health or just kind of eating, like, diet, things like that?

My mom, you know, see how far I am. Yeah. My mom. My mother was a big girl too.

Mm hmm.

But she was the cooking house, and we good girl. So. But now I'm. At the age I am now. I've been thinking about instead of. Cause I don't go to doctors.

Okay.

I don't do that.

Why is that?

They ain't fine. I got em killed, me.

So you're kinda skeptical around.

I stay on TikTok, and I get all these remedies, and that's what I'm. That's what I'm on. Ain't when white people telling me nothing. Am I wrong for saying that?

Speak your truth, okay. I mean, that's how you feel.

I want them to tell me, you got this right here. And okra and water can cure diabetes, okay. I drink it every day. Mm hmm. And I drink the beer root, the bitter melon. I take them every day. And for high blood pressure, I take beet juice.

So you're more on holistic medicine?

Yes. Yes.

When did you start that?

I've been started for, like, six years.

What made you start doing it?

Uh, uh, um. What's his name? Pastor. No, bishop. Pastor, neighbors. He was a diabetic, and they were telling him they had to cut his legs off. He ain't let him cut his legs off. And I've been from there. He passed with you not cutting my legs off.

And I was like, he ain't wrong, but my home girl called me girl. They gotta cut off my cousin breast. I said, that's her dumb ass. She gonna let them do it. You can hear that. Only thing you do is read. I told her, go in and read. I'll be telling to read up on that.

Ain't got a lot of stuff they're gonna tell you. They cut my grandbaby leg off, you know, the amputated her leg. Nothing wrong with her. They said she had cancer, and, no, she didn't. I'm gonna show you a picture of my grandbaby. No, no, no. They sewed my baby legs across these. I know what they did to sell it.

Okay.

My friend, daughter. My friend's son woke up day after thanksgiving. Mama, I can't feel my legs. She took him to Freddy hospital. Grand water amputated his legs, killed him, took all his organs out. Girl, you definitely go there and tell him, mm mm, mm mm. Not gonna happen. Mm hmm.

So it seems like there's a lot of mistrust.

It's a lot of mist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All these doctors and lawyers ain't nothing but the kkkas. That's how I feel. That's me and my feelings.

Yeah. Okay.

I don't have the best of education, but I see what I see.