Interview with Betty Gray, Owner of Alice's Relaxing Bath Shop, Oakland, California
Background
Betty Gray is a small business owner in Oakland who was one of the featured speakers at the Conference on Employment and Women with Disabilities," held 1999 in Oakland, California by Rehabilitation International and the World Institute on Disability. Interviewed at her premises in 2001 by Kathy Martinez of WID, it became evident that Ms. Gray is not just a successful entrepreneur but also a community leader and mentor for many low income women in Oakland.
Interview
KM: Please tell us how you got started in business.
BG: "My business is a business that God allowed me and my six children to get off welfare. I was living in a neighborhood where there were so many drugs and so much violence. I knew I wanted something better for my children and I knew that I didn't know how to do anything but cook and be drunk (I'm a recovering alcoholic). So, I sobered up and I started having bake sales outside my house for three and a half years. I sold marshmallow treats, baked chicken sandwiches and brownies to very ungrateful little children. And when I got enough money together, I rented a store front. We didn't have anything in it for a long time and that was fourteen years ago. I just didn't want to perpetuate cycle after cycle of welfare recipients. And this June, we'll celebrate being off the system for 14 years. "
KM: Before the Oakland conference, did you consider yourself a role model?
BG: "On one level of consciousness, I don't because I'm kind of modest. On the other hand, I get so much out of the fact that women come in my shop and tell me that their lives have changed by interacting with me and my children or by hearing my struggles about how I got from one point to another. So I would have to say that it is a blessing that we have touched peoples' lives by the light that we possess. And I would encourage all women with disabilities, especially my sisters of color who face double and triple discrimination to have faith in themselves and not give up their dreams.
"To embrace each challenge on their journey. If these six kids and I can do it, anybody on the planet can!"
KM: Can you give us an idea of how the shop became what it is today?
BG: "I have had to struggle not only to get off welfare, but to get out of the "welfare mentality". When I first began working at my store, I sold very inexpensive things. People kept coming in the store trying to sell me Black collectables, but I didn't buy them for the longest time because they cost a lot and they were beautiful works of art. For the longest time, after I got off welfare, I didn't think I deserved to have anything nice, especially works of art. Then, I bought my first Black collectable. And I sold it right away. I began to attract different clientele when I began selling higher end items, although I try to keep items in my shop at all price ranges.
KM: How do you pass on your knowledge to other women?
BG: "This coming fall, I'd like to give a class for women who are just getting off welfare. They may have jobs, but they are still programmed from generations of 'not having': they are still thinking in terms of 'lack' of instead of that ' the universe is abundant'. They have no idea about budgeting, saving money or how to invest in an education for their kids. No one that I know teaches this stuff.
" And they especially don't teach how to get off welfare psychologically--meaning that you can't have nice things because either they'll get destroyed, sold, stolen, or the women think they just plain don't deserve to have nice things. They don't know how to take care of nice things.
It took me almost seven years to get rid of that mentality. That was when I started buying more high-end products for my store and myself."
KM: Is there any other message you got from the Oakland conference?
BG: "I liked telling my story at the conference in Oakland because I could see that a lot of women could relate to what it's like being trapped by the system. I think there should be more conferences where women with disabilities can talk to each other in detail and listen to each other's stories. That is the only way that some of us learn, especially if we can't read so well. I hope that if God allows me to have this class, I can use the model that this conference brought up-that is, having women tell their stories in a simple informal way where women just like them could understand what they were talking about."
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