Humans of USU: Black Student Union president aims to spread love
The Utah Statesman interviewed Jeunée Roberts, a senior majoring in vocal performance from Brooklyn, New York.
Utah Statesman: Where are you from?
Jeunée Roberts: I was born in Trinidad, in the Caribbean, but I live in New York, in Brooklyn.
US: Why Utah State?
JR: I got recruited by the dean in the music college, Dr. Jessop. He recruited four of us. … My brother, Chris, died; he used to go to school here. He died two years ago. So now there’s just three of us. But T.J. graduated, so now there’s just Shalayna and I.
US: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?
JR: I think I wanted to be a teacher? … All I remember is my mother buying me this chalkboard, but it was like a tri-fold type thing, and I just always remember teaching to somebody — nobody was in the room — but I was always teaching. Years later, I found out I can sing. I had no idea. I think I was like, 11, or something.
US: How long have you been president of the Black Student Union?
JR: One year. I’ve been involved in BSU since I started school. I was a member my first year, and then I moved to public relations my second year. My third year, I was vice president and then my fourth year I’m president, so I kind of worked my way up.
US: Why is the BSU important for the university?
JR: I think it’s extremely important because we are the minority, by a great, great number, and I think it’s important that we are here to break the stereotypes. we always make it a very judgement free. You can say what you feel.
US: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?
JR: I really want to go to India. I really want to go. I have a friend on campus, and he’s from New Delhi, and he talks about it so much to Shalayna and I, and we want to go really, really bad. I think it would be beautiful.
US: What was it like to move to Logan from New York?
JR: When I think back to the first time I came here for school, my flight landed at night. My friend came and picked me up, and we were driving. I remember looking to the right and I screamed … because the mountains in the dark looked like a huge tidal wave It took a while, but it was a great culture shock to come from a place that’s always open to a place where everything closes at 10. I had to reevaluate my entire life schedule when I got here. But it grew on me; it’s a place that, I don’t know if I would live here, but I’d definitely vacation.
US: What are your plans after you graduate?
JR: I want to continue my education, definitely. My mother and I have this little inside joke where she says she’s waiting for her Ph.D. She calls it “her Ph.D.” I think the quicker I can do it, back-to-back, would be best. I might stay in Utah and do school, but I might go back home and do school. I don’t know. Or somewhere else. I kind of listen to wherever the Lord tells me to go.
US: What would you like to change about the world today?
JR: I think it would be how people have lost the meaning of love because we don’t have love for each other anymore. Everybody’s like, unnecessary deaths and rioting and marches and stuff, for things that shouldn’t be happening in the first place if we only loved each other. I think what I would change is people’s understanding of that word because without that, we don’t have anything. We have to have love. I want to say the whole, end-racism thing, but I don’t live in an impossible world. I live in a world as close to reality as I can keep it. So, that’s why I say. Love. Because if we have that, I think the world will kind of get back to a little bit of an equilibrium.
I think this year of my life I’m starting to really understand the meaning of loving yourself first. I think that’s a really good place to be, loving myself, and that love will radiate to everyone else.