Oral History Interview of Audrey Damare

Title: Oral History Interview of Audrey Damare
Interviewee: Audrey Damare
Interviewer: Selena Piercy
Description: Audrey Damare of Sewanee, Tennessee was interviewed by Selena Piercy, a Sewanee
student, on November 8, 2023 in person. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included discussing Damare’s experience in High School with race as a part of Justice and Equity for Students, a student-led organization on race at her private Catholic high school. We hope that this conversation will assist scholars with a further understanding of race in the United States during the early twenty-first century. Please click on the link to see the full interview.
Transcript: 0:01 Selena: This is Selena Piercy from Sewanee, the University of the South. It is November 8th, 2023, and it is 1:00 PM I am with,

0:13 Claire: This is Claire Damare. I'm a junior here at Sewanee.

0:17 Selena: And where are you from?

0:19 Claire: Raleigh, North Carolina.

0:20 Selena: Awesome. Thank you, Claire, for being here.
0:23 Of course.
0:24 All right, so we can get into the meat of the interview. This is just some groundwork we're going to lay. So you said you're from Raleigh, North Carolina?

0:33 Claire: Yes.

0:34 Selena: Okay. And how is where you currently live in Sewanee different from where you were raised?

0:43 Claire: Yeah, so definitely coming from a big city, Raleigh's, the capital of North Carolina, I would say. I went to a private high school. And so in that sense, Sewanee is pretty similar, both pretty closed off, both predominantly white institutions. And that was pretty influential in my being raised, other than the fact that members of my family, specifically my grandma and my grandpa, my mom's side were heavily involved with the black community and making sure that we as children, like me and my siblings, knew that there were other people out there. So as a child, that's something that I learned pretty early on. And then through high school, my Catholic high school has been actively trying to have a higher black student population. We were the first to integrate in North Carolina as far as private schools. So they pride themselves a lot in that history, but haven't really lived up to it. So now they're really trying to live up to that. And I think that that's where Sewanee is a little different because my senior year of high school there was a lot higher of a black student population. And then coming to Sewanee, I kind of reverted back to freshman, sophomore year of high school within that experience. But yeah,

2:21 Selena: That is really interesting. So you said your high school is actively trying to get more students who are black to attend the school. Would you care to tell me more about that? How did they go about this process?

2:39 Claire: So my junior year was during 2020 in the spring, and that was right around the Black Lives Matter movement was taking hold and getting a lot of publicity, and we created this thing, this committee of students called JEFS, and it was Justice and Equity for Students I think there's 8-12 of us and a teacher. And that kind of gained a lot of traction within the school of raising a little bit of a stink. And our principal at the time, we had just gotten a new head of school and he kind of saw that this was an issue and that it was kind of taking a turn to go public. And people were starting to hear that it was a problem that whenever you toured my high school, they were like, we were the first integrated high school in North Carolina and then they weren't living up to that expectation.
3:47 And so he kind of saw that. And now we're kind of taking it so that we take more black students from public schools and private schools and not necessarily taking that private school pipeline anymore because we know that many black students don't have that opportunity to go to private school for middle school. Also providing a lot more scholarships to students in minority communities, whether that be racial minority, but also poverty driven minority communities as well. And so those are the two, my mom's also a teacher at my high school, so that's how I know this process. But so just using those kind of methods to provide that opportunity and gain more traction. And the reaction from the private school community that's predominantly white has been very partisan, I would say. There's a lot of white people that are very angry that their children did not get into my high school and are seeing increasing rates of black students, minority students in my high school. So yeah, it's a very interesting situation.

5:10 Selena: Yeah, I mean I would love to hear more about that. It seems like a really complicated situation, but it sounds like you did a lot of good work for the betterment of your community, and that's great, thanks. But I'm sorry that some people in the community did not have a good reaction. So where would you say that you find your community today?

5:37 Claire: My community at Sewanee, I would definitely say athletics has a huge part in that. A lot of my best friends are on my athletics team or play a sport at Sewanee. And then other than that, definitely within my sorority I have a core group of friends. And then outside of that, I guess academic minds, people who have connection to my major or my minor or people that have connection to work that I'm doing around campus. So specifically DEI work, I'm sure. Noah Shively? Yes, Duke Richey, Kennedy Clinton. I'm excited to work with her a lot more this semester. She's really awesome. But yeah, I guess that's where I find my community.

6:36 Selena: Awesome. Yeah, you have a lot of people around you. That's great. Okay, let's see. Looking at all the questions, who inspires you and what traits do these individuals have?

6:53 Claire: Wow. Okay. I'm going to say my sister, she's three years older than me. She's 23, she's in grad school right now and she is studying to go to med school eventually. One of the traits that I admire the most about my sister is how driven she is. She'll stay up for four days straight to get a paper done, and she really does care about her work. She's doing a study for her master's program right now on the effects of physical activity and the benefits that it might have for people of this certain kind of cancer that are often the people that the women that have this cancer are often sedentary. And so finding them opportunities to work out and move and how that can benefit their diagnosis and their lifespan, I just think she really cares about what she does. Passion and drive definitely would describe her.

8:02 Selena: That's lovely to hear. I see a lot of those traits in you, so that's really sweet. Okay. And you talked about your grandparents kind of raising you to embrace diversity. So how else have you experienced other cultures in your life than your own?

8:25 Claire: Yeah,

8:27 Selena: Or just international, sorry.

8:29 Claire: Yeah. One, I mean, my dad's a pilot, so a lot of the ways that I experience culture would be through travel, which I don't know if that's necessarily a good or a bad thing. Sometimes experiencing culture through tourism can be kind of jaded or misconstrued, but most of the travel that we've done has been to European countries. And then other than that, I did two immersion programs in Costa Rica in high school, and those are pretty influential. The people of Costa Rica are so amazing and nice and so welcoming to Americans trying to learn Spanish. And that was my first experience of culture shock and fully immersing myself in a culture and living with a family was, I mean, it's definitely one of the best experiences I've ever had and I highly recommend it to anybody. And I learned so much, not just Spanish language, but also how they live. And that's the most important part of an immersion program is learning how a culture lives and how it's different from yours and what benefits that has. I dunno,

9:54 Selena: That's a great take. Yeah, immersion programs seem really, really cool. What got you interested in doing something like that?

10:06 Claire: So I'm a Spanish major now, but so in high school I was pretty interested in Spanish. My mom's a Spanish teacher, and it was an opportunity through my high school to do it. It was the first year we ever did it, so it was a pilot program, and it was really interesting. And the company that we did it through did it in one of the most ethical ways, I think I've seen immersion done. Other kids in my high school had gone on mission trips or service trips, which ended up being problematic or I don't know, just kind of performative. And this was a way for us as high school students to go in and connect with these people and leave them with something of equality. So we took something from them, but we also gave back, and I think we both learned from each other through that experience. And tourism is the number one profit margins for Costa Rica. So the ways in which we did that was supporting their economy. We also did a service opportunity, but we also got something out of it and not forgetting that. But yeah, I just found it really awesome experience to do. Yeah,

11:34 Selena: That sounds really awesome. And it's admirable that you made an effort to not get sucked into that white savior thing that often happens on those trips, so awesome. Okay, so now we're going to get more focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. Okay. So how do you receive the news?

11:56 Claire: Oh, okay. So how do I receive the news? So New York Times the app does this thing where they send you alerts through your phone of different headlines. That's probably the main source of news that I have is just reading alerts on my phone, and usually they're a headline and a little blurb of two or three sentences. Other than that, I'm taking a class right now, Environmental Policy and Law, and we do news of the day every class period, which is really awesome. So I hear from other students of what they're reading, and that's usually local news, so like Chattanooga Times, Nashville, maybe stuff in Sewanee. And then outside of that, whenever I'm driving, I try and listen to NPR. It used to be my favorite radio in high school.

12:49 Selena: Same.

12:50 Claire: So I would listen to it a lot. Yeah, yeah. So when I'm driving I try and listen to that.

12:56 Selena: That's great. And have they talked about social movements, like Black Lives Matter?

13:04 Claire: Yeah, so in high school that was a huge thing. I mean, every morning there was at least one headline about it, especially during 2020 and 2021 a little bit. But yeah, I mean now mostly I feel like a lot of the news that I'm getting is a little bit skewed because of my environmental policy and law class because a lot of it's environmental, but we do get a lot of news about redlining and environmental justice and the effects that large corporations and pollutants are having on minority communities and stuff that we haven't really realized before four years ago. But yeah, I feel like that's probably the most news that I hear about minority communities in general, but also predominantly black communities as well tend to have a larger effect on that.

14:12 Selena: Okay. So in addition, what is your experience with social media?

14:20 Claire: Yeah, I would say some of the news that I get would be from social media outlets. I try and not let that stuff kind of consume me and form my opinions, but obviously it would be stupid to say that it doesn't. I remember in high school, the Instagram campaigns of Black Lives Matter were super interesting because they made everything blow up so fast and gained so much traction. But they also, there is a danger I feel to social media of creating this divide between two parties and knowing that the Black Lives Matter movement gained that much traction through social media, you have to know the other side of it. It can gain so much traction for other movements that could be really, really scary. And yeah, I think that's what my main takeaway and view on social media is, and that's why I try and not let it consume me as much and stay out of it. But I do think it's very good for sharing information if that information you see is correct and from a reputable source. Yeah,

15:38 Selena: Good take for sure. So you've talked a lot about early encounters with the Black Lives Matter movement and 2020 and being in high school and starting a student organization. Can you recall your first encounter with the Black Lives Matter movement?

16:00 Claire: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say it would be from watching the protests in Raleigh, there were quite a few and they were all downtown and seeing on the news different biases almost of are they destroying downtown or are they protesting? And then I do remember when the video circulated of Breonna and the different people experiencing police brutality. Yeah, I do remember watching those. I guess those would be my first experiences with that.

16:50 Selena: Yeah, that sounds like a lot. I had no clue about all of the protests in Raleigh. Did you ever go to any, or did people go to them?

17:02 Claire: Yeah, we had a lot of people that I knew go to them, but it almost seemed as if everybody left before it got scary. I don't know if scary is the right word to put it, but once there was tear gas and fireworks going off, that was when all of my friends would leave. So they would protest during the day, for sure. I never went to one. Yeah, one of my family friends lived downtown in a penthouse, and I remember looking down from the penthouse and I was house sitting for them, and there tear gas rising up from the streets of downtown. So I was there, but I wasn't participating.

17:58 Selena: Yeah, that's wild though. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I need to process that for a second.

18:09 Claire: No, take your time. It is really crazy.

18:12 Selena: Yeah, I could not imagine witnessing that in person, just even from safe inside. Where was the tear gas coming from?

18:26 Claire: I honestly don't know. They're on the 40th floor, I'm going to be honest. And yeah, I was inside, and so I couldn't see anything until I looked outside and saw that there was a cloud. So I'm not sure where the tear gas was coming from. I would assume it's from the police trying to disperse it, because the permits that they had to publicly protest on the streets were only for during the day. So I think they ended at 5:00 or 6:00 PM and then there were curfews put in place because of Covid and stuff like that. Yeah.

19:11 Selena: Wow. So would you say that this was the majority of your community's reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement or I mean, what do you think it would be, if not?

19:33 Claire: I'd say Raleigh. There's two very different communities in Raleigh, and that would be the working class and middle class, upper middle class. And going to a private school didn't really put me in the foot of two different communities. I was more so in the upper middle class one. And a lot of the people at my high school were very removed from that whole movement and wanting to stay removed, especially the adults, my mom and her friends, and my dad and their friends. I remember having conversations with that at the dinner table. I was like, wait, why are y'all not talking about this with your friends? I am. And they just wanted to stay removed from it. And then there was my athletic trainer in high school. I used to see him once a week, and he's a black man. And I remember asking him about it once, and I was just curious. I was like, how are you doing? And also, how's your family? And he was like, yeah, my family and friends are super involved in this movement, and I have a lot of white friends that are also involved in this movement, but all of his friends were working class individuals in their early twenties.
21:05 So yeah, it was really interesting.

21:09 Selena: Yeah, that does sound very interesting. Yeah. I guess your opinion seems pretty in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement. If you wouldn't mind elaborating more on your opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement, just kind of generally.

21:31 Claire: Yeah, I would say my opinion has definitely changed a lot. I feel like I was a lot more radical in high school. I felt a community with the people who wanted to completely restructure the government, which sometimes I'm like, yeah, I totally agree. But also now I feel like I've taken a lot more of a moderate position. The Black Lives Matter class really made me change my view a lot and restructured because I didn't know how ingrained the issue was until you fully study it for a semester. But yeah, now I'm definitely, I've taken a lot more of a moderate position, I think through different policy classes that I've taken. It's interesting to me to kind of trust our government a little bit more and the policies that are in place, while some of them might not work, I feel like a lot of them could work in our favor if we just use them correctly. But

22:50 Selena: What kind of policies?

22:53 Claire: I just think putting a problem on an agenda and trying to get a problem on an agenda through the Senate using that lobbying, I feel like that I feel like those are good avenues and could be profitable avenues that are already in place. And protesting also is a good avenue that the government has allowed and put in place. We do have a right to free speech and a right to protest. I just don't think a complete restructuring of our government. I mean, yeah, I don't know. And positions of power, black people taking positions of power. So becoming senators, becoming Congress people, those are all possible avenues for each to take. Not sure how successful they would be, some more than others, but I do think that there is possible success in all of them. Yeah,

24:09:00 Selena: For sure. Yeah. Which generation do you think was most affected by the Black Lives Matter movement?

24:23:00 Claire: That is a crazy question. I don't know. I feel like I'd be a little biased in my answer because I feel like Gen Z, our generation was very impacted. I feel like it changed a lot of our views. I feel like people who would normally or conventionally be Republican white men who Republican white men who would generically not be pro-Black Lives Matter became that, or at least had these people are being harmed by a government agency or state agencies. And so I think that it had the most effect on us, and we were the most influe or easily influenced. So I think that it did have a large effect on us as a generation. I mean, I don't know if you've heard the news, but people are saying that, that we're the most radical generation. So yeah, I would say for sure. Maybe I'm a little biased, but

25:47:00 Selena: Well, I mean, that's the whole point of an interview. We want to hear your take, so thank you for sharing that. I did not know that people were saying Gen Z is the most radical, but I'm not surprised.

26:00:00 Claire: Yeah.

26:02:00 Selena: Cool. So yeah, I guess also going back to how you talked with your trainer and your family and had different experiences in those conversations, has Black Lives Matter affected how you talk with your friends?

26:24:00 Claire: I think it definitely didn't in high school, but now Sewanee is a different place for that. And I think as I've gotten more moderate, I've stopped talking about it as much. I mean, the most that I talk about it would probably be within my DEI conversations and stuff like that. But yeah, with my friends, I obviously know that my friends have the same views on this issue as me. I'm sure we've talked about it once or twice, but I do actually remember having a conversation with one of my best friend's freshman year who transferred. We were talking one night and she was like, I just don't get why we need to single them out and have them be put at the forefront. And I remember trying to explain it to her and we're not friends anymore, but fair enough. I remember trying to explain it to her and it was talking to a wall no matter what. I would listen to her for 30 minutes and then try and explain my side, and there was just no understanding between either one of us. I mean, yeah, I guess that's the only strong conversation that I've had.

27:56:00 Selena: That is a really interesting take from your former friend from freshman year. How did this conversation get started? What came up?

28:08:00 Claire: I don't even remember. I actually just remembered that now. But we were just talking in the tuck away kitchen and downstairs, it was probably midnight. I was making ramen or something. I just remember her being, I just don't understand why it has to be Black Lives Matter. And I was like, her argument was, it's as if they didn't matter before if you're going to say that. And I'm like, the issue is that we weren't thinking of their lives mattering and we weren't putting that at the forefront. And because it's never been put at the forefront before and they've always been in the back, we have to do that in order to create equity. And she was like, I just don't see that being necessary. And when people are like, I have a black friend, and they seem fine. That was kind of the way, the vibe that it was going.

29:18:00 Selena: Wow. Wow. Yeah, I feel like I've had some of those conversations too with some friends, and it's interesting. Has the movement changed how you interact with people of races other than your own?

29:39:00 Claire: Yeah. I would say for sure. One thing that has stuck with me is the idea of white people needing to use our power to help the movement and help support people of different races. So definitely just in my everyday life classes and stuff, if I see somebody that's raised their hand, that's not me. Even if it's somebody of who's white, but also maybe of a different minority that is invisible. I definitely have been trying to give them the space before myself. And sometimes in conversations I'll hesitate to say things just so that I don't make a mistake while I know making mistakes is fine. Yeah, I guess that's part of my own personal bias, but I just don't want to say something wrong and be caught for it or canceled, which is not, this never happens in real life, but I just try to be cautious.

31:01:00 Selena: So being more sensitive with language and sensitive to other people's needs, for sure. Awesome. How do you think the Black Lives Matter movement succeeded?

31:21:00 Claire: I think it, that's a lot harder of a question than how did it fail.

31:29:00 Selena: I mean, we can start there too, if you have more thoughts about that.

31:33:00 Claire: I think one thing that frustrates me the most about it is it gained such heavy traction for such a short period of time, and now there's no drive, there's no driver passion, and there's no consistency from our generation specifically. There were so many people that were like, yes, we have to do this. And now, I mean, I don't hear anybody talking about it anymore, which is outside of this class, and I think that's where it failed. But the thing that's interested me the most about it that I do think it succeeded in is how many people it gained support of that is the most wondrous thing that creates the most awe for me of the movement is how did this gain the traction of so many people? Movements like that in general also just gain the traction of me, but that's how it's successful. And I don't know where to attribute that to, but I do know that that's what I believe it was most successful in was gaining the support of so many people.

33:01:00 Selena: Awesome. So to clarify, you are saying that Black Lives Matter succeeded most and gaining a lot of support, crazy amounts of support, but not really sure where that's coming from. Not sure why. Or do you have? Yeah,

33:18:00 Claire: I mean, there's possibilities like social media. It gained serious news, traction, yeah, I guess in classroom conversations of our generation. I do remember I was very comfortable talking with my friends about it and talking in class about it in high school. I guess that could have attributed to it, but maybe there was one thing that we just haven't caught yet. But yeah,

33:57:00 Selena: There was definitely a lot going on when the movement started.

34:01:00 Claire: True.

34:03:00 Selena: So going back to how the movement has failed and how they had such heavy traction for such a short period of time, like a little summer fling, and how Gen Z was super amped about it. Why's that? Why do you think that could be?

34:29:00 Claire: I don't know. I just think that people lose energy, start worrying about other things. The next headline is more interesting. Yeah, I'm not quite sure. I think, yeah, that's really interesting idea to explore. But yeah, I'm not sure

34:56:00 Selena: That's so fair. Yeah. Again, tons of stuff going on. So coming to 2023 today, what is your take on the state of race relations in the United States?

35:15:00 Claire: Yeah, I think the violence is still there.
35:22:00 It's just not as seen in general race relations. I've been in a lot of classes that discuss that kind of stuff, especially environmental justice right now is kind of a peak representation of how our government is specifically disadvantaging minority communities because they don't have an accountability system for these companies that are exploiting them. And then I just watched this movie about a Native American, or, well, it was a series of different communities, but specifically Native American reservations in Arizona that are being disadvantaged by oil and electric companies because they're leaving all of their lead and heavy metals on these reservations that they've just stolen land from, and then they're giving it back, but it's land that's unusable. So yeah, it's really interesting. Exploitation is a form of violence, and that's definitely still there and not being taken care of.

36:48:00 Selena: And then this is our last question. We made it, what do you think is the future of the Black Lives Matter movement? Or what hopes do you have?

37:00:00 Claire: Yeah, I would hope there would be some form of government agency, not an agency as in noun, but agency as in adjective or adverb to create some sort of accountability for the government and manufacturers within the us, but also state agencies as well, creating accountability for them. I mean, this all started with the police force and who knows next it's going to be medical professionals, not racism within the medical profession. There's no accountability for them, and the only ways in which they're reversing these effects and trying to cease exploitation is from peaked interest. So medical professionals discovering that, oh, there's this statistic and this is why, and then they're like, all my friends should read this article about it. It shouldn't have to be agency of the people that are holding themselves accountable, which is great, but also we need something that's going to hold everyone accountable. Yeah, I don't know what that is. That's like a dream idea, I guess.

38:36:00 Selena: Yeah. Well, awesome. I really enjoyed hearing all of your perspectives today, and thank you for coming in, Claire.

38:43:00 Claire: Yeah, thanks.

38:44:00 Selena: Thank you.

Part of Audrey Damare