As a child of both Africa and Europe, Dalilla Hermans is perfectly positioned to give us insights into how it is to grow up in the Old Continent as a person of colour. Born in Rwanda, she moved to Belgium due to the genocide when she was 2 years old. She was adopted by a Belgian couple who raised her with a lot of love and affection. Nevertheless, because of the colour of her skin, she faced many tough situations and has endured a lot throughout her life. In 2014, Dalilla recounted, in an open letter, the verbal and physical abuse she'd been through growing up and living in Flanders, Belgium.The details were chilling.The letter sparked a chain of events that led the now 34-year old to become one of Flanders' most notable activists when it comes to matters of race. Two children and three books later, Dalilla talks to Niels Tulleneers about her career, experiences and the book she wrote to her son: 'Letter to Cooper and the World'.Had you always wanted to be a writer?Absolutely not. As a student, I studied many things but I never finished anything. My longest period in one field of study was journalism but I never graduated. Few journalists actually have; it is often more important to have a critical vision of society. Of course, you have to be able to write so I don't feel as if I am missing the diploma.As a student, I was always doing volunteer work. On top of that, I received a job offer to work fulltime as a receptionist at Het Paleis in Antwerp. I worked for eight years in the youth sector, first as a training assistant, then as a communication officer and in the end, I was a press officer of the Flemish Youth Council. After my open letter in 2014, I was asked by a publisher to write a book. I accepted the offer. You could say that I became a writer by writing a lot and not by studies or career ambitions.During the 2014 elections, you were on the list for 'Groen' (a political party with great interest in nature). Was this linked to your career?No. At the time my work had a lot of focus on youth policy, because of this, I often came in contact with politicians. In addition, political parties are always looking for candidates who reflect the various societies, so several parties asked me regularly whether I was interested in participating.At first, I always refused, but after Cooper's birth in 2013, I started to think about our society tremendously. I wanted a more beautiful world for him and I also wanted to have some control over that world. I was able to see the various party programs and I identified most with the vision of Groen, especially because of their social points of view.I had only become a mother recently and was planning for my wedding which was to take place three days after the elections. This left me with little time to campaign. During the moments that I did campaign, I came to realize that politics is not for me because it is hard to remain honest.Despite this, I am very concerned with politics but mostly at the policy level. I try to influence policy-makers positively.How did you come to the idea to start your book in 2017?After my first letter, I started working as a writer, where I made an interview series, The Race Files. At the same time, I got a phone call from a publishing house asking me to write a book. My first idea was to bring all those interviews together, but the publisher found my own story more interesting and said that I had to write about myself. However, it was difficult to just write down my own story until I read Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a book about the Black Lives Matter movement. The author writes a letter to his fifteen-year-old son. That immediately changed something for me, because it was Cooper who made me aware of all these things in the first place. By writing my child a letter it suddenly became much easier and so I managed to write the book in a very short time.Cooper himself goes to a multicultural school, so he doesn't deal with racism as much, and even if he does, he is too young to recognize it. At home, we always make it an open topic and he knows that he can talk to us about it, if necessary.Read full interview on Qazini