Keyontae
Portrait with Ken Pao
Description: A teen sits in front of a desk. He wears a sleek casual outfit. Behind him is a computer with a graphic design application opened on it. Sketches and prints are pinned to the wall. One print reads, “Open Your Mind.”
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“In sixth grade, I was in art, and she told us that we can do whatever we wanted to - draw whatever we wanted to draw. I started drawing people. It was two stick people boxing. She was like, “you’re actually really good at it,” and she taught me the basics of it and how to make the facial features, and I just started to get it. I started learning from my friends. We used to always have drawing competitions, like to see who could draw the best out of everybody. I started looking up on Google, searching new ways to make eyes and hands and feet and stuff. It started to make me better. What makes my drawings unique are the facial features. My style. I think that not everybody does it, but I picked it up from my art teacher. I see myself as a graphic designer. If I’m not doing cartoons, I’d be alright designing logos.
My dad made me more socially active than anybody else, and that’s important to me. He was a DJ, and DJ’s are socially active. He introduced us to the people he knew. We used to always be invited to parties. A lot of stuff like that. I have nine brothers and sisters. I’m on the older side. I want them to learn from me, like, that I always try, I was always positive, and I was always funny, but I did my work at the same time.
When people who are not from our community look at us, I wish they would see the positive. What people don’t see is that we have a bond in our community, and the amount of people show support to everybody. We have block parties sometimes, and it’s like, no matter where you are, as long as everybody’s having a good time, nothing can go wrong. And that’s what’s unique about it.
I do want to see better police officers. They should be way more patient. They should know when to react and how to react. But if the cop is a newbie and a person did something bad and he didn’t know what was going on, and his blood was just rushing and he didn’t know what he was doing, and he just panicked and shot - You got to put yourself in their shoes. But you still have to remember that this only happens to the majority of black people. It just makes me sad. But then again, it’s like I’m kind of used to it, because it happens all the time, and nothing ever happens to the cop.
People need to just slow down and be patient. Not just cops, just people in general.
I want people to know that, we young people, once you really get to know us or you really start to notice us, we’re not as bad as we look or as we act. We are very intelligent. We are not mean. We just want to have fun. And we smart. We ambitious, and whatever we want, we go for it. And I guess we just - what’s the word? We’re not dumbfounded. There you go.
When people look at me, I want them to see a leader - a smart leader that knows that he is doing and that watches out for everybody.”
Milwaukee, 2019