blackmattersus.com
Hello Berneisha! Can you share with us what sort of artist you are and what kind of works you prefer to create?
Berneisha Hooker
Well, lately I haven’t been labelling myself as an artist, I’ve been labelling myself as more of a creator because that’s what I do. Anything creative basically, I’m on top of it, whether it’s photography, painting, modelling, even writing my own movies, I’m on top of it.
blackmattersus.com
Do you think it’s possible to change society through art?
Berneisha Hooker
It’s most definitely possible. I feel like it’s one of the more important subjects that can change society today. I think it’s more of the infotainment aspect, it’s getting people’s attention, and by getting their attention, that’s like the start of change.
blackmattersus.com
You studied in a mostly Black high school and one of your activism efforts was to paint a wall with pictures from the history of Black people. Why did you decide to do that? What inspired you?
Berneisha Hooker
It wasn’t just all my creation, I wasn’t the only one with a paintbrush in my hand. It was more of my idea. I didn’t do just African-Americans, I did Hispanics as well because those two races or ethnicities are the majority at my school, and I wanted to command those two together because I wanted to let everyone know that we are all one, we’re all minorities and that if we get together and we build together, we can change something together.
blackmattersus.com
Could you tell us what exactly is painted on those walls and why you think young people should see and know this?
Berneisha Hooker
I think young people should see this because they tend to forget who came before them, where we left off, and I guess as minorities – I put that all together with the Hispanics and the Blacks – we forgot about the things that we’d created before today. And by showing them that, it shows them that we have people who created things back in the day and that with our voices we could put it together and we can be heard. We had Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey. A lot of people don’t really know who these people are because their parents don’t really teach them much, and in our school we get thought European history, we don’t get thought African-American history at all. Maybe a little bit because of the Black History Month program but other than that a lot of people don’t even know who Marcus Garvey is and the change that he made and how it has affected us today.
blackmattersus.com
Has your life always been this active and full of positive emotions?
Berneisha Hooker
Not really. I’ve always had ideas, I never really pushed them forward because I felt that it was just me, and looking at the people around me I wouldn’t have the help that I needed to get all my ideas off the ground, to start change or to create change. I started to get the feeling of power to create change when I went to my dwelling room in Bard, the liberal arts college in New York. They have a program down in New Orleans, that’s how I got in. So I went there and I study there and they taught me how to open up my mind to see different sections of life and how I can be the change I want to see.
blackmattersus.com
Thank you for these words. It is a great inspiration for everyone who longs for changes but hesitates to act. What kind of difficulties have you gone through that have changed your views?
Berneisha Hooker
Some of the difficulties, like I was saying with the liberal arts college I attended, I was top of my class and still was when I graduated my school. But at this particular program, they had different high schools and my school is a C – D ranked school, so I’ve been competing with children from A-listed schools, B-listed schools, and they know more work than I do, they know how to articulate better than I can, they know how to write better than I can, and it was just a challenge for me. Every time I said my opinion or asked a question I got shot down, I felt stupid, but I learned to bear throughout all of it.
blackmattersus.com
And how important do you think education is to a Black person?
Berneisha Hooker
I think education is a good thing for every person, but specifically for Black people, I feel like it will enable us to come together to create change because right now we’re all going online, on social media, all types of media and it’s like degrading us and we don’t see it degrading us. We see it as entertainment and this is the way of life of a Black person. Like I said, Bard changed me a lot. When I went to Bard, I was not really like most people are from my neighborhood, I had my mind all kind of straight but socially, I felt that was a way of being. And when I went to Bard, I saw a whole different world and that’s why I moved more forward to the educational side. I feel that education allows us to think more highly of ourselves and causes us to make change.
blackmattersus.com
Was there a person in your life who taught you the value and importance of knowledge?
Berneisha Hooker
Not really. I would say my teachers, but that’s like part of the job of a teacher. I never really had a life-long mentor, or anything like that. I met wonderful people along the way, so different people, yeah, but not a certain person.
blackmattersus.com
Now to your work, the Evolution of Race, what exactly is it? Is it some sort of program or does it concern somebody in particular?
Berneisha Hooker
The Evolution of Race is my sort of, I guess you can call it take because it’s not that long, but I’m going to work on it more and it will be a play eventually. But the Evolution of Race was based on this guy named James. He went to college, to Harvard and he couldn’t get it together. He had a full-blown scholarship but – not socially – mentally he couldn’t get it together. He would’ve been successful if he was at school, but he had to come back home because his family wasn’t getting it together, his dad was an alcoholic and his mum just couldn’t handle it all alone, so he had to come back home to help out. Basically, it’s just talking about the struggles of a Black man trying to make it but then he’s pushed down by society because Black people just can’t handle it I guess – I don’t really know how to put it into words right now. But then it also speaks on this other character named Jaylo, who’s a Caucasian and is middle class. So he comes down to the hood to hang out with this guy named Joey, who is a Black guy. Joey is from the hood, so James and Joey, they were friends when they were little but then they grew up and then they separated. James wanted to be something and Joey was like, “Hey, it’s not going to work out so we might as well quit.” And that’s what a lot of kids around me feel. I know a lot of them try to graduate high school because they feel like it’s the biggest thing ever. And then they just quit. I graduated high school May 25th, 2016 and I know a lot of kids who aren’t trying to go the next step up at all. So the story speaks on different people. It speaks on white people evolving into this more hippy, I guess Blackish type person, “trynna be” or whatever, and then this Black boy who, to his friends and the Black community, is trying to be white because he’s trying to get an education.
blackmattersus.com
So do you take part in any organizations or protests and movements like Black lives matter?
Berneisha Hooker
Lately I haven’t been. I know there were protests in Baton Rouge, I guess that’s the closest I’ve ever seen one about Black Lives Matter, but no, I haven’t been because I’ve been so caught up trying to get myself ready for school. It’s been a struggle. I want to help my people but at the same time I’ve got to help myself in order to come back to better my people to show them the right way of being. So that’s been the struggle, but as far as socially, on social media, I share my opinions and my thoughts and I feel like social media is great in that way.
blackmattersus.com
Do you think that these protests are helping to change the future for Black people?
Berneisha Hooker
I feel like the protests represent something that’s been going on throughout generations of Black history. It’s taking a turn. At first it was something to build up Black pride, to stop the prejudices of white supremacy but now it’s taken a turn. It’s more violent and stuff like that. And now people are seeing these minorities of people who are being crazy violent and killing police officers as like a part of the whole thing. People, again on social media, general media, television, are seeing this – younger children, children even my age – next to how I understand it. Because again, I went to Bard and I look at every part of it, but they don’t. They look at it and they’re like, “Oh yeah, the police are all bad. All of them are bad. We should kill them. Oh, look at that guy, he shot a police officer. That’s the right way of being.” So then they want to protest Black Lives Matter and it’s becoming something else slowly but surely because people feel like all cops are bad so they have to kill cops. And this minority is growing larger and larger every day.
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