Feature Friday w/ Donii Bright
Please speak to the importance of Black history in your life as an artist in the 21st century
I AM black history. I AM the grandson of an immigrant, and a proud resident of the city of Houston. My grandma came here all the way from Antigua to try and give her kids a better life, which she succeeded at, but on her travels here she would tell me about how she would live with people that accused her of being a thief, people looking at her a kind of way because of her skin color, my grandmas mother was a child slave, so i know my roots, yano? Everything I do I do with the intentions of making my grandma proud, making our home proud, and finding ways to sprinkle a bit of my own personal culture into my artworks. As someone that grew up sheltered from “blackness”, not being able to hang out with certain kids because of their appearance, who their parents were, getting to listen to rap music, and always having to be the “uptight and outstanding young man that my mother raised me to be”, because American history tells us that being black is being “ghetto” “poor” “savage”. Without learning about REAL black history like the many kings and queens of Africa they don’t tell us about, The REAL Black Panthers, not what they tried to tell us in school about them being a “terrorist” group, the real reason gangs popped up in neighborhoods, the Tulsa Massacre, The Tuskegee Experiments, etc. I would be walking around this country lost...I WAS that kid that was too black for the white kids, and too white for the black kids. I couldn’t even fit in with my latinx friends, because i noticed the differences in our home lives fast. Without knowing all the tragedies and the beauties of black history i would’ve never known what it really means, or what i think it means to black, yano? Strong, Enduring, Stubborn, Fierce. We were once a proud people yano? We didn’t need phones and flatscreens to be content. We just needed each other, and we’d figure out the rest. We came from the dirt, made it into our homes, created cities, taught our kids how to survive, and we never stopped. Living in Houston, it's prevalent that we are survivors. Day in and Day out all i see are homeless folks, mostly black homeless folks. Not saying there aren't other colors of homeless folks out here, i'm just saying that being black and seeing all these black homeless faces it's a lot easier to picture how they got here, and my heart breaks, yano? These are my brothers, my sisters, my grandma, my mom, yano? begging just for a little change, whether it's for drugs or for food. That's what this person's whole existence has been boiled down to, and it's heartbreaking. it really is...but, somewhere in all of that there is strength. In these situations it could be so easy to give up. what's the point? you have no house, you have no real silver lining, yano? but i think that's it. The point is that there is no point, and they find one. every. single. day. They still find a reason to literally get up and get going. I met a man the other night who told me his situation was just temporary. Whether he truly believed it or not I was proud, because he is right. No matter what that is the mentality you have to have throughout ALL of life's obstacles, because EVERYTHING is just temporary. Who knows? Miracles happen every day! All I know, is I want that same mind set, I want that same outlook, that same amount of courage it takes to beg people for change every single day, rain, sleet, snow, or shine. we will persevere.
What is the role of the artist in social and racial justice activism work?
To me, the role is to report and inform people of what’s really going on, but in a way that digestible, OR NOT, to the mainstream audience. whether its Jim Carreys political paintings, or Black Lives Matter spray painted along the backside of a building. as an artist we give people an outlook on what’s going on in our own personal lives, and we find a creative way to express it. in short, i guess the artists role is to be a voice.
How does your own racial identity influence how and what you create?
It makes me want to go harder. Growing up all i would ever hear is “skateboarding is for white kids.” “Rock music is for white kids.” Why? Why and when did we allow ourselves to get boxed in? Why did we make that okay? If skateboarding is for the white kids, which it's not, then imma be the first black guy to shred it, ya feel? I know i'm not, but that's the mindset i'm coming with. i will not allow myself to be boxed in. I refuse to follow the rules and guidelines set before me. Whether its music, photography, modeling, making magazines, or whatever else i pick up next, if there is not a path laid out for me, then i will cut and carve one out for myself like my ancestors did and i will stand proud over my own city relishing over the beautiful things that i helped to create, and the people helped to inspire.