Solutions To Violence | Anti-Racist, Deborah Laporte & Di Kerrigan | 6-13-22

Deborah LaPorte spent most of her adult life in Las Cruces, NM where she taught literature and writing at New Mexico State University. She has also produced plays and published short fiction. Upon retirement, she moved back to Louisville to be near family. She volunteers with the Earth and Spirit Center as a Mindfulness Mentor, sharing meditation and mindfulness teachings in under-resourced communities. In 2020, after the police killing of Breonna Taylor, she joined Di Kerrigan in co-founding listenlearnact.org, whose mission is to listen to Black leaders, learn all we can about racism, and act to reverse it. As part of that mission, she helps coordinate the racial justice program at the Earth and Spirit Center and regularly co-facilitates their Listen Learn Act classes with Di Kerrigan and Reverend Joe Phelps.
Di Kerrigan is a Louisville native but has lived and worked throughout the US, first as a nurse then as a partner in a medical software development company. She returned to Louisville upon retirement. Di teaches mindfulness meditation with the Mindfulness Mentors through the Earth and Spirit Center; she also volunteers with Kentucky Refugee Ministries and the Volunteers of America Restorative Justice program. In 2020, she co-founded listenlearnact.org (LLA) with Debbi LaPorte in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s death. LLA’s mission is to raise awareness of everyday racism and explore the history of how it has been a destructive fabric woven into our society. Di also co-facilitates, with Debbi LaPorte and Rev. Joe Phelps, Listen Learn Act anti-racism classes at the Earth and Spirit Center on a regular basis.