The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday for the next several months, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear Kiana Garius speaking with her former teacher turned close friend Belinda Jones talk about their friendship, racial bias, and the importance of empathy, openness, and paying it forward.
Transcript:
JOHN DAVIS, HOST: Each Monday we're featuring conversations recorded through the StoryCorps Mobile Tour stop in Fort Myers earlier this year. Today, we hear Kiana Garius speaking with her former teacher turned close friend, Belinda Jones, about the importance of friendship, openness, empathy and paying it forward.
KIANA GARIUS: My name is Kiana Garius and I'm here talking to Belinda Jones, my friend. Yeah. Well…
BELINDA JONES: You're not used to calling me that.
GARIUS: No.
JONES: She never calls me that.
GARIUS: I never call her Belinda. I always call her Miss Jones, because she used to be my teacher.
JONES: Exactly, and that's how we became friends. I was a high school art teacher, and Kiana was in one of my classes, and we got to know each other. She was kind of boisterous and outgoing and always happy, always smiling, and ran into a situation one day where we got a little bit closer, and after that, when she graduated, we just became really good friends.
GARIUS: High School is one of those places where it feels like everyone is against you, or it feels like it's just a big, dark room and you're trying to find your way out to the end of the… or when the bell rings for you to get out of there.
JONES: Really?
GARIUS: Yeah, so then like, your room was one of those escapes. So I would always go in your room and just vent about things, and you were always listening.
JONES: That's what I loved about that room and about teaching art. It was one of my favorite jobs in my whole life.
GARIUS: And you were the only person that actually cared. I think you'd ask me, like, “Oh, how was that going? Or, how is that?” and you gave me, what, a comforter for graduation.
JONES: Yeah.
GARIUS: That was a nice gift.
JONES: After graduation she went back and forth and lived with me for a little while then and...
GARIUS: I went to Naples.
JONES: Oh, okay, you went to Naples. That’s right, that’s right.
GARIUS: Yeah. I went to move to Naples, and then from Naples, then I went to Connecticut. Came back, moved in with you.
JONES: Yeah.
GARIUS: Now I'm in Lehigh
JONES: I'm so glad she's back. I missed her so much while she was gone.
GARIUS: I missed you too. I visit all the time. Living with you is interesting, though. I guess, considering, well, it's more white people everywhere than there is black people in Fort Myers.
JONES: I live in a pretty white bread neighborhood, and was brought up in a pretty white bread neighborhood.
GARIUS: Yeah, so we lived such completely different lives. It's so interesting to hear your perspective.
JONES: For sure. I didn't see a Black person until I was well into high school, which is so unusual being that close to Pittsburgh.
GARIUS: That’s crazy, yeah.
JONES: Our community and where I was from was just pure white bread. And when I remember coming to Florida, my grandmother lived down here, and we used to come down to visit. And on the way down, driving through South Carolina and Georgia, there were actual slave houses that were still standing in fields. You could see them from the highway.
GARIUS: That’s insane.
JONES: I can remember asking my parents, like, “What are those little huts or little buildings?” And when my parents told me, I was so shocked, and I think…
GARIUS: That they didn't demolish them all!
JONES: They were still standing. I thought about it so much like, what that would have been like, and what those people went through. And I just really wanted to learn more about it. And I keep learning. It's not that long ago. People think it was way back in the old ages or something. It's really not.
GARIUS: No.
JONES: Segregation was, I mean, they were still fighting and everything into the '60s.
GARIUS: Yeah.
JONES: It’s awful.
GARIUS: I mean, it's still; it's not as bad as it was back then.
JONES: No. No, thank God.
GARIUS: But it’s still under the covers. It still happens, like microaggressions and stuff like that.
JONES: I notice a difference, and we've talked about it to each other, when we're together, how people look at us. And we know it's not because they think we're gay, because I'm too old. And we figured it's just like a mother-daughter. She's my adopted daughter look or something, but we feel it, and we both feel it from the opposite sides. So it's really interesting. It made me understand unconditional bias, like that white people have it. I guess all people kind of have an unconditional bias that sits maybe in your subconscious.
GARIUS: Yeah, but if a lot of people had more empathy, so many things would be so much smoother.
JONES: So different.
GARIUS: It would, it would be so much more peaceful,
JONES: Right. That's the learning curve.
GARIUS: Yeah.
JONES: As you go through life, it just, you learn more and more about all different people. And I love meeting new people. That's one of the reasons I love to meet new people, is I love finding out about them, what their background is and what they do, and it's just so interesting, you know? To try to be as open and approachable as I can be.
GARIUS: That's really important. Having friends, meeting new people, listening to their story.
JONES: So what do you think makes us good friends?
GARIUS: We're both patient. I think we both listen to each other. We talk a lot. We accept each other, flaws and no flaws, whatever it is, I think that's what makes us good friends.
JONES: That’s true.
GARIUS: We don't judge each other much.
JONES: No, not at all.
GARIUS: No.
JONES: I think you probably know my best and worst points, and I know yours.
GARIUS: Yeah.
JONES: And it's not just a tolerance for me. It's kind of like paying it forward. I had people that helped me out in my life that were really important to me, and I think oftentimes, I think, you know, if it wasn't for them, I would have had such a hard time adjusting to life when I got older. If I wouldn't have had that help, it would have made a big difference. It would have made a big difference. I would have been even more afraid than I was of life.
GARIUS: I most definitely am going to pay it forward. I’m sure.
JONES: Yeah, I think you will.
GARIUS: I’ll meet somebody that’ll need home or needs some money to get a place, if I got it, I'll give it for sure.
JONES: I think you will. And do you think we'll ever lose touch?
GARIUS: No.
JONES: I don't either. I'm looking forward to babies on the way someday and babysitting, being Grandma.
DAVIS: That was close friends Belinda Jones and Kiana Garius. Their conversation was recorded in Fort Myers through the StoryCorps Mobile Tour. This is WGCU News.
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