JahNair

Columbia INCITE | Oral History_David Castillo_JahNair Dewalt-3-4-19 Q:

--get started. Today's date is March the 4th of 2019. This is David Emmanuelle Castillo. I'm the planning assistant for the Department of Black and Latino Male Achievement. And I will be interviewing JahNair-- last name, please?

DEWALT:

Dewalt.

Q:

JahNair Dewalt at Sherman Multicultural Arts School. JahNair, do I have your permission to record this interview for the 2019 Art Start Portrait Project?

DEWALT:

Yes.

Q:

Yes, perfect. So just real quick about the Portrait Project, this year we're focusing on young men of color in Milwaukee. Through the Portrait Project, we will provide images where participants can illustrate how they see themselves and how they wish to be seen. In addition to this, it will also include an oral history component that allows our young men to share a little bit about themselves with the world.

Just real quick, some guidelines of our oral history today is the purpose is not to pry. It's to let us know if there's anything you'd like for us to include about yourself that will go along with your portrait once we make that portrait. So here we go. Tell me about the most memorable childhood experience you can recall.

DEWALT:

I would say the most memorable--

Q:

You might have to speak up a little louder.

DEWALT:

I'd say the most memorable time was when I first-- when I got my first pet.

Q:

Why is that a memorable time for you?

DEWALT:

Because I was happy. I was happy that my parents had trusted me that I could take care of something, that alive.

Q:

What type of pet was it?

DEWALT:

A fish.

Q:

A fish? OK. Give me some details about the fish.

DEWALT:

It was a goldfish.

Q:

A goldfish?

DEWALT:

Yeah. It was a small one. I can't remember the name, though. I know it was something like Goldie or Goldfish.

Q:

Goldie the Goldfish?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

OK. You made a comment right now, like you were taking care of a life and able to show you were responsible. Why do you think that meant so much to you? How old were you when this happened, first of all?

DEWALT:

Seven.

Q:

Seven. So why do you think that meant so much to you at the age of seven, being able to show to your parents or whoever bought you this that you were able to be responsible?

DEWALT:

So they could trust me with more things down the line, just know I'm not irresponsible, somebody who just don't care for stuff. And I can actually do what I need to do when it's time, when the time is right.

Q:

OK. Have you had any more pets ever since?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Yeah? [INAUDIBLE].

DEWALT:

A dog.

Q:

A dog?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Want to tell me a little more about that? Did the responsibility get more?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Yeah?

DEWALT:

I was expected to do everything-- wake up, walk him. He's eight months now. And he's a pitbull mixed with a boxer, hyper, brown skin, sharp claws.

Q:

Sharp claws?

DEWALT:

Yeah. He's got a temper.

Q:

OK. You said how many months? Eight months?

DEWALT:

Mm-hmm.

Q:

Eight months now. If you could compare the two, what's the same in taking care of a goldfish to taking care of a pitbull to what's different?

DEWALT:

That they can actually express themself. The pitbull can actually express themself more through body language than if there was a fish. All you have to do is just put it in the water, change the water, feed it at a certain time to where you have to feed the pitbull, take it out, care for it as a normal child.

Q:

OK. What do you mean by the body language? Like give me an example. Like what does he do? Or he-- what is it? A he, a she?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

A he? What does he do?

DEWALT:

He has to go pee or number two, he'll sit down, scratch a [? bin, ?] shake his tail, and pull his ears behind his head. And that's how you know he's got to go to the bathroom. And then he'll make a growling noise when he's hungry. And he'll hop up on you when he's ready to play.

Q:

All right. And that's just stuff-- I mean, the goldfish couldn't do that, obviously. Was there any way for you to know? Just you thinking back to when you were seven, to pick up on certain things about the goldfish. Or, you were just like, it's a fish in the water?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Yeah? OK. I'm going to ask you the next question right now. Who have been the most important people in your life?

DEWALT:

My papa and my dad. My papa because--

Q:

That's your grandpa?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

OK.

DEWALT:

Well, he actually pushed me to do good in school and helped me better myself. Because at that time, I wasn't doing too well. I was fighting the teacher.

Because it got to the point where it was so bad. Because he was like an older teacher. And it was just me kicking and scratching at him. He had to get surgery on his knee. I think he still works here, though.

Q:

You said at that time?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

When was this?

DEWALT:

Like 2010. I was in first grade. Then he was [INAUDIBLE] helping me more to better myself and stop doing that stuff that would actually-- to lead me to the right path instead of going a different way.

Q:

And that's your papa?

DEWALT:

Hm-hmm.

Q:

How about your dad?

DEWALT:

My dad, he just showed me how to show myself as a man, and how to do stuff right for your family, how to provide, how to take care of them and not just be selfish and think about you-think about your family too. That's what he did. Because he gave up a lot of things to take care of me and my sister and my older brother.

Because I'm his stepson. And my brother's his stepson. [? My ?] daughter's-- his only child.

And he actually gave up a lot to take care of me and my brother and my sister.

Q:

OK. How do you think your papa or your dad would describe you?

DEWALT:

Sophisticated and energized.

Q:

OK. Tell me more about that. Why sophisticated? Why energized?

DEWALT:

Cause all I did was read, climb stuff, and run. That's all I used to do. But like now, it's like settle down more. I still like to run, but I just don't like to read like that no more.

Q:

OK. So this is an important question. How do you think people perceive youth?

DEWALT:

As?

Q:

Or young people. How do you think people perceive young people?

DEWALT:

I would say people, like, most people would probably perceive-- like are we talking about like African-American youth, or?

Q:

That's up to you, whatever way you want to take that.

DEWALT:

I will say in general is like, people perceive us is people who going to be like the next, people who stop like world hunger and stuff. Like we don't have the power to do that, but it's just the environment we live in, around, from negative adults like portraying that as an adult thing, showing us the wrong thing to do.

Since we young, we're develop, our mind is developing more, which is more easy to intake.

The outcome of that is a more negative effect due to adults showing us the wrong thing at a young age.

Q:

Tell me more about the negative adults. Where do you see that?

DEWALT:

People like drug dealers, people like gang bangers and all that. Like people, they have nephews, sons, and they try to bring them in that early on, so it's like a little to their legacy.

Cause, one dude, his friend, he actually, a month ago, he actually ran up to his house, because he was the one taking the groceries in, ran up in his house, and his family is on the couch. Shot him in the back of his head, just right in front of his family, next door to me.

It's like a duplex. I live in a duplex. It's like my house, the next door neighbor's house, and the other house over. The house right there, sleeps upstairs. Ran up in his house and they shot him right there.

Q:

[INAUDIBLE] I'm confused. So it was just a random person, you said?

DEWALT:

No, I actually knew his nephew, that got shot. And it was because there was a rival gang.

Q:

So I think that leads into a perfect segue. I asked you how people perceive the youth, and right now you brought up your neighborhood. So I'm going to ask you how do you think people perceive your neighborhood?

DEWALT:

I say it's like kind of cool. But it's like at certain times you can't do what you want to do. Like over the past years, you couldn't. I would say around from 2010 to 2016, you couldn't-- you had to go outside before the street lights even came on. You had like-- you had to go outside-[INAUDIBLE] school year, two hours of play, before they-- especially in the summer. That's when everybody started coming out, start shooting, whatever, whenever. There's a lot of stuff.

Q:

How do you think that makes-- I'm going to ask you two questions. How does that make you feel? Like what you just described, how does that make you feel? So there's two-fold to my question. How does that make you feel? And what do you think-- like how does that make other youth feel in the neighborhood you live in? What's the impact of that?

DEWALT:

It's like--

Q:

And I ask, because he brought up as a solution, something you wanted to solve, you brought up gun violence. I heard you bring that up earlier.

DEWALT:

I would say like what's the purpose of even doing it, like you don't even got an exact reason why. Because the reason the gang that you're in was started between two other people. So you're fighting for somebody else's reason that happened a long time ago.

Q:

Mm-hmm.

DEWALT:

And it makes no sense.

Q:

So how do you think that impacts the young people in your neighborhood.

DEWALT:

They see people they might look up to before they even do it. And then once they do it, they start to get into it, and start to get interested, and they want to try it. So that's when this grows bigger and bigger. And then more consequences come.

Then when the consequences come, they wish they could take it back.

Q:

Mm-hmm. So now, you've kind of seen how this question right here on perception, how it's building. Now bringing it back to what you wanted to talk about initially, how do you think people perceive youth of color in Milwaukee? So you can speak wholly to youth of color, earlier, like you said African-American youth, you could just speak to that.

DEWALT:

I would say most people perceive us as people to feel threatened by, and not to be trustworthy of, trustworthy enough to express ourselves. Because we black and Latino males have been oppressed for so many years by just white people, they've been oppressed.

So they couldn't do nothing, they couldn't speak their mind. But when people speak their minds, trying to show their authority, they can't even express-- they've got to either be quiet or you talk online. You have a gun to your head or something like that. And I just say they assume young African-American, black and Latinos as a target, just a target.

Q:

Tell me more about that. Because there's something that leads you to believe that. If you could kind of talk on that.

DEWALT:

I would say it's like, since our skin is darker than a paper bag or the same color as a paper bag, that we should be treated differently because of other people doing. It's like a diamond in the rough.

Like out of the African-American people, like 10% African and Latino people, like 10% is doing good, still trying to get out. But there are category odds for all the other 90% African-American and Latino people for their wrongdoing. So it's harder for us to do things when we're trying to come up, make it big, and all that, for other people's crimes.

Q:

So you feel like you're held responsible for this stuff other people do.

DEWALT:

Mm-hmm.

Q:

And that's not necessarily who you are type stuff. So with that said, how do you want others to see you then?

DEWALT:

Hmm?

Q:

How do you want others to see you?

DEWALT:

As a leader, not just somebody who throws their life away for 1,000 bucks that's not going to be worth anything later down the line. I want to be seen as a leader, role model, somebody

who will help change the community. And there will be there for people who need.

Q:

So, this may sound like the same question, but what do you want them to see? If you could create a painting of what you want people to see, in terms of you, what would that painting look like? Like, I know you said a leader, right? And like someone who's going to bring change to the community, but what would that look like specifically?

DEWALT:

I would say it's like-- I really can't describe it though. Because I can describe the picture, but I can't say it through words, it's like much more difficult to do it in a picture. I really don't know.

Q:

You take your time with it. I can see you thinking it through.

DEWALT:

I can't really explain it.

Q:

Do you want to come back to this?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

All right. This might help you a little bit. So what are you dreams for the future?

DEWALT:

My dreams for the future is to be my own boss, entrepreneur of my own company, that-- is there any tech companies founded by a black person?

Q:

I'm not entirely sure. I think there's-- I want to say no, and if there is, there's probably very, very, very few. I'll just say, I don't know if you've heard 444, but Jay-Z makes a reference to that in one of the songs.

DEWALT:

I would want to be one of the world's biggest tech company. And we give them free jobs in the community, people looking for jobs, I could help them out, money. Give my mama help, my dad, my brother, sister, take care of my whole family.

Q:

Kind of bringing this back, like you said, like about your community, how do you think you owning, like you said, being a black male, having my own tech company, how do you think that could-- the community you live in now that you just talked about, how would having that here, how would that change your community? How could that impact it in a positive way?

DEWALT:

Because people won't have to worry about their rent, their bills, and all of that. So they won't have to-- they can spend more time with their family, because instead of spending time with their family, they got to go out and work 9:00 to 5:00, countless days, just for a small sum of

money, and the a small yearly outcome.

I could easily make a million dollar company, help them out so they can spend more time with their family, keep them safe. So their family won't grow up, worrying about should I be this set, this [INAUDIBLE], fight for what, to help my family out.

Q:

What inspired you to say tech company?

DEWALT:

I like tech. I like the code stuff. And I just like, I really like electronics, electronic stuff.

Q:

What inspired, what started that? What sparked that curiosity?

DEWALT:

It was like, when I was younger, I had like a robot. It was something called like a tri-bot. I don't know what it was. I broke it. My dad fixed it. So I was like, oh-- I got my first [INAUDIBLE] and my dad, we used to always see who had the better constant-- like, all the electronic stuff. He had a wireless headset headset.

I'd be like, I got a three [INAUDIBLE] ethernet cable, 500 megahertz ethernet cable to have a stable connection. So basically just competing with each other, see who had like the best setup.

Q:

How old were you?

DEWALT:

When I first got [INAUDIBLE], I was like six.

Q:

Six.

DEWALT:

Yeah. But I didn't know much about it, so I was having a wired headset.

Q:

So right now, if I were to give you like a, let's say, like a PS4 that's broken-- I put it in air quotes for a reason-- like, do you feel confident you'd be able to fix it?

DEWALT:

Mm-hmm.

Q:

What would you do? What would that process look like?

DEWALT:

Taking off the thing, slow like--

Q:

Feel free to use terms that I probably don't know about, OK? Don't feel like you got to--

DEWALT:

Taking off the thing, then taking off the screws of the PS4. Taking off the top, grabbing the

motherboard out, see if anything don't-- like how did the PS4 break?

Q:

I don't know. I just threw you a scenario. I'll say this, it fell 10 feet.

DEWALT:

Ain't no saving that.

Q:

Ain't no saving that. Well, what's something that you can't save? What's the scenario you think like, would five feet help?

DEWALT:

No.

Q:

What's a reasonable amount of feet, like two feet?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

All right, so if it fell two feet.

DEWALT:

I could just easily buy a new motherboard. I could like-- I don't know how to pronounce this, but I forgot the word-- it's like a little circuit, like a little white paper that you use until-- I don't remember it, I don't remember the name of it. Probably buy one of those and use it. Reroute the whole thing, basically, take it out, put new parts in and reroute the whole thing.

Q:

Tell me more about that, like reroute the whole thing. What does that-- I guess there's some steps with that.

DEWALT:

I could just-- I could easily just take it out, put a new one in there. Because some people might actually reprogram the whole thing, take it off. But I don't know how to do all that yet. So I could just fix it out, put some batteries in there, put it back into the screws.

And then there's like a fan in there, change the fan. Put new things, make it, like, speed up. I think there's like a box inside of it, shows like the wire [INAUDIBLE] to hook up to a Wi-Fi. Put a new one, a fast one that go into the computer, a fast one in there, to make the speed, connection speed go better, get an ethernet cable, put it in there, it would be cool.

Q:

Does that have any-- does that have the potential to improve graphics too?

DEWALT:

No.

Q:

This is a personal question of mine. I'm a video game head.

DEWALT:

Most people get on TVs, but a monitor is the best thing to do, because it's more smoother.

You can get like a bigger monitor, like 144 hertz monitor. It will run so smooth with the PS4 on the [INAUDIBLE]. But it will run really smoother with an X-Box. Q:

So you're an X-Box fan, I take it.

DEWALT:

I'm PS4.

Q:

OK. I'm PS4 too, so we good. I don't like people that be talking about X-Box, like the super--

DEWALT:

[INAUDIBLE] batteries.

Q:

So I'm trying to figure out how to word this question. This is how I'm going to word it. So that stuff that you know about tech, was that ever taught to you in a classroom, or by a teacher?

DEWALT:

Yes.

Q:

Oh, it was.

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Tell me about that experience.

DEWALT:

Well, it was-- I can't remember their name, but it was like, at my old school that I went to, it was like this-- we had like this little thing. We had a school thing, where we went to programs and stuff. But we had to be good though.

So I just went all the way up there, snuck into a classroom, and watched a movie about coding and all that stuff. So I just stayed up in there. And I went up in there, and I just learned more.

And that's when I just [INAUDIBLE] more.

But then, when I got like a new device, I'd like play a game on it. And whenever I was slower, I lose, I just break the thing and try to fix it. But I couldn't because I didn't have the right things to do it. Like I have a screwdriver to do it. They wouldn't trust me with a screwdriver, because I was clumsy. So just can't fix it.

Q:

OK, coding, tell me a little bit more about that.

DEWALT:

It's just basic multiplication and graphing. Coding, I could say such and so can do this by X50 and Y0, and it can move that, do that, move that body to X50, on a line right there and Y0, stay on the line.

Q:

OK, I'm a former math teacher, so I kind of feel like I get what you're talking about, but not really. Do you feel-- so like you what you just gave me right now was a real world application that relates to math. Have you seen that used by math teachers?

DEWALT:

Mm-hmm.

Q:

Yeah, OK. That's awesome, man, thanks for sharing that. What would you call your tech company?

DEWALT:

I don't know. I haven't really thought about this. I don't know. I really didn't think about it, but I'd probably, I would probably call it like Jahnair Dewalt Technology. That's some basic--

Q:

Jahnair Dewalt Technologies. I like the sound of that, that'd be cool. We're going to kind of be wrapping up shortly in a little bit. What were the stories you heard from your family, or community, or other people, community groups, about the past that helped you understand what you wanted to do when you grew up? So what stories contributed to you wanting to make this decision, I want to have my own tech company one day.

DEWALT:

That I had found out that a African-American had made the cell phone, and that and AfricanAmerican actually invented the light bulb, but it was taken by his owner, a slave owner. And that another African-American made the stop light. It all revolved around technology.

They were limited to certain things because their skin color. But now, since there's like more, I got more freedom than they did, it's more accessible to me, so why not try it, make something big.

Q:

Who are these people and how did you hear about these people that you just talked about?

Where did that knowledge come from?

DEWALT:

It was actually-- it was actually that-- it was actually at school. Was it Thomas Edison that made the light bulb?

Q:

Yeah.

DEWALT:

Yeah, but he didn't make it, because he had a slave.

Q:

Louis Latimer?

DEWALT:

I think so. He had a slave, and that's when his slave showed him a project, how to do it right.

But he just wrote it down. He didn't actually do it. Because he wasn't allowed to touch it. So that's when his assistant had took it, put it together. Thomas Edison took it from him and perfected it. He gave it to somebody else and they said he made the light bulb.

Q:

You learning that, how did that make you feel?

DEWALT:

I was just like, wow, so they just-- they really just-- they really don't tell you history the fullest way, as it is supposed to be. But they just wanted to show you what they think history is.

Q:

So you're saying they don't tell you history the way it's supposed to be. So I'm asking who's they? We'll start there. Who's they?

DEWALT:

The government.

Q:

The government, OK. And I guess my next question is why do you think they don't give you the full picture of history?

DEWALT:

Because maybe it probably cause some worse problems than it should be right now.

Q:

What do you mean by that?

DEWALT:

It's like-- it's all right, because most people who, like historians, they might know, they might be told one thing, but then told other thing that is a conflict, the conflict after they was told wrong.

Somebody else could be, this and that, said this, when this was actually that.

Q:

So what you're kind of getting at, like people are scared of the truth?

DEWALT:

Yeah.

Q:

Yeah, OK. So I'm going to ask you this question, and I'm going to make it real personal. If you think we had a history that really talked about the contributions made by African-American people, or black people, how might that change some of what you see going on in your neighborhood?

Like if kids in your neighborhood knew that there's more to life than what you talked about, being a dope dealer, or you talk about them representing your-- if they knew that there's this person that invented the light bulb, or there's this person, you said the stoplight.

DEWALT:

And the cell phone.

Q:

And the cell phone. How would that change their like view on life and what they can do?

DEWALT:

I'd probably say-- they probably want to do more for themselves or their family if they just pushed in the right direction with their society. So first instance, if I don't like where I live at, and I want to get up out of here, that's going to motivate them even more to not do the wrong thing and excel at what they want to do, and be better, be great, than the stereotypes and the statistics.

Q:

How does your learning about these people, like how-- I mean, we kind of touched on that already, but kind of digging a little further, like how has that helped you or how do you think that has changed your outlook on life?

DEWALT:

That even when though, back in those times where they were getting judge for their skin color, they weren't even considered a third of a human, they still fought their way to get in a zone and do what to do to better the world as of for today.

Q:

Perfect. So I'm going to close out with this question, because I think it ties in perfectly here.

What do people need now to make their lives better?

DEWALT:

Opportunity, opportunity that can actually benefit them and their family, to help them do better and to get away from negative energy and negative people that's going to want to see them-who plan on their downfalls.

Don't want to see them succeed because they're already in that life, so they don't care no more. They lost mostly everything they loved. So people just full of hatred, so they want to see them down. So if somebody had opportunity, they're going to take it to help-- [INAUDIBLE] better themselves or their family.

Q:

With that said, this concludes our interview. I want to thank Jahnair Dewalt. Thank you.

DEWALT:

You're welcome.