Otholvin Brown
Stories (1/0)
See From Where You've Come
Pride is a fickle thing. It holds you to a standard where you can be happy in your decisions and in your tastes. It can also be easily affected by influences you grow up with, whether volatile and negative or encouraging and positive. I grew up as a black youth in a predominately white neighborhood among almost entirely white students from when I was in pre-school up until the time I graduated. I do not count this as a negative nor do I fault my parents in their decision for where they would decide to raise my sisters and I. I don’t blame the kids who called me names and treated me as something different, because I was innocent enough to the difference I brought and did not realize the way I was treated by my “friends” could be seen as mean. I made plenty of good friends who I still call my brothers and sisters to this day, I go to their weddings and I see them on a regular basis; Or I did before the virus hit. I don’t blame anyone for how my tastes change except for the pride I grew as I learned about the truths of the world and why people had this strange expectation of me, even though I grew up in the same place as them and was the same age. I was 12 years old, why was I expected to swear, do drugs, drink and party? Why does being black mean I have to act like the people in the songs, in the movies, in places far removed from who I was or how I was raised? As I learned what I was “supposed” to listen to, I did everything in my power to find something else. This took me on a musical adventure that mirrored my life’s rising, falling, stagnation and stability that has brought me to one of the happiest times of my life.
By Otholvin Brown4 years ago in Beat