Jah'Nair — See Me Because

“My happiest memory was when I got my first pet, because my parents trusted me to take care of something alive. It was a goldfish. I was seven. I knew that they would trust me with more, down the line.

My papa and my dad are two important people to me. My papa means a lot to me because he pushes me to do good in school and helps me better myself. My dad taught me about taking care of family, providing, how to take care of them and not just be selfish, thinking about yourself. That’s what he did. He gave up a lot of things to take care of me and my sister and brother. I’m his stepson - me and my brother. He gave up a lot to take care of us.

When I was little I had a robot. I broke it and my dad fixed it. Then we started competing who had the better set up for electronics. If a PS4 was broken, I would take out the screws, and first check the motherboard to see if something wasn’t right. I’d ask myself, ‘How did the PS4 break?’ If it fell ten feet, there ain’t no saving that. If it fell two feet, I could replace any circuits and reroute the whole thing. Some people might reprogram it all, but I would just fix it. Then I would check the fan and replace anything for processing to speed it up. To improve the feel of the graphics on a PS4, you could get a 144 hertz monitor. It would run so smooth on a PS4.

My neighborhood is cool, but you can’t always do what you want to do, like play outside. A few years ago there was a lot of shootings. Recently, at the house nearby, someone ran up in my neighbors house and shot someone on the couch. It was gang-related. I say what’s the purpose? The gang that you’re in was started by other people, and you’re fighting for their reasons from a long time ago. It makes no sense. Then it influences younger people in the neighborhood. They want to try it, and it grows bigger and bigger, and more consequences come.

I think people perceive African-American youth as someone to feel threatened by, or not trustworthy. We are Black and Latino males, and we have been oppressed for so many years. When we try to speak our minds and express some authority, we can’t even do that. We have to stay quiet or speak online. It’s like we have a gun to our heads, and we are targets. Me, I want people to see me as a leader, not just someone who throws their life away for a thousand bucks. I want people to see me as a role model, and someone who is always there for people in need.

I want to be an entrepreneur of a tech company, Jah’Nair Dewalt Technologies. I wonder are there any tech companies founded by a Black person? At my company I would give people from my community jobs, pay well, and help them out so they can spend more time with their families and not just work countless days for small sums of money. I could easily make a million dollars to help people spend more time with their families, keep them safe, so they aren’t asking themselves what “set” to be in.

At my old school, there was a program after school for kids that were “good”. I snuck in one day and watched a movie on coding. It’s basically multiplication and graphing. I kept going back. I really like it. But what influenced my desire to own my own tech company is when I found out that African-Americans invented the cellphone, the light bulb (even though his owner got credit for it), and the stoplight. They all revolve around technology. They were limited because of their skin color - not even considered a third of a human, and still they got in the zone and did it. I have more freedom than they did. It’s more accessible to me, so why not try it - make something big. I think if more people in my neighborhood knew about these African-American inventors and real history, they would want to do more for themselves - be motivated to be greater than the stereotypes and statistics. That, and opportunity to get away from negative energy and people, and the chance to do more for themselves and their families.”

Milwaukee, 2019