I’ve been a resident of Carlisle for about 10 years. Prior to living here, I lived in Shippensburg, so not too far away. My Grandfather, Grandmother, and Uncle have been residents of Carlisle my whole life. So, when my Grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, my mom decided that it would be best to move closer to our family. Carlisle as a whole was incredibly welcoming to me and my family. I loved it when I moved here and I still love it to this day! It’s bigger than a lot of the other local communities and provides a much more urban and eccentric community lifestyle than most of what’s around us.
I personally love how “artsy” Carlisle is. There is a lot of culture and diversity that resides here. The residents of Carlisle respect each other’s cultures for the most part. Take the Amani Festival for example – we created a streetfair festival that serves the purpose of directly celebrating all the various cultures that reside in Carlisle, PA. We are also incredibly fortunate to have a liberal arts college in our town as well as the Army War College and the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, all of which bring an ever rotating presence of diversity in our community. And overall, I think our town is incredibly progresive – I mean, we have a black Mayor. We are moving forward, and you can see that, and collectively, I feel that we are moving torwards something really good for our space.
However, Carlisle doesn’t come without its problems. Take the high school for example. Within the high school, there always seemed to be a disconnect between the staff and students. Trust me, I was definitely not the best student, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was difficult for me to make school something that I was passionate about because of a variety of things happening outside of school. But don’t you think that’s the type of student that needs supported the most by a caring community of educators? When you are young, having a good teacher is so important because they can really inspire you and stay with you for the rest of your life. I was fortunate enough to have had a few really good teachers that have impacted me and I still keep in touch with them – a teacher like Ms. Park. Overall, I think it’s important that we help the youth because they are our future. If we can reach them and put them on the right track, then hopefully things will be better in the long run.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get as many chances in terms of me “messing up”. I feel like the color of my skin definitely had an impact on that. In 10th grade, I emailed one of the high school principles after reading a study that showed that black students get suspended more and are often punished more harshly than white students. The principle was open to having this conversation with me, and showed me some of the statistics regarding race in our school system, and and in the district, the numbers were still pretty off – the ratios were definitely skewed.
My life experiences as a whole certainly come with its fair share of racism, even from random people that I don’t even know. But I typically just brush it off. It took a lot of learning. Growing up, I assumed that everyone had good intentions, like when I’d hear someone say “you’re not like all the other black people.” One girl said to me once, “I’ve never felt a black person’s hair before.” Have you seen the movie Get Out? That’s very much a real thing, minus the actual mind meld and sunken place part of the movie. The questions that the main character’s girlfriend’s family asked in that movie are questions that I get asked all the time. I laugh about it for the most part because people don’t mean any harm by them; they are all based around ignorance. But as I got older, I realized racism was something that was a part of our everyday culture. It was made very apparent to me the first time I got called the n word. I, like most other black youth, didn’t believe that people still used that word (when my mom told me), and then it happened. And then there’s also this debate surrounding the use of that word – the “you say it, so why can’t we?” debate. I’ve had conversations with white people thinking that it’s okay to say it because they ended it with an A and not an ER. But in reality, why do you even have to say it? Why can’t you just say bro, man, or dude to me instead of the n word? I went to a concert at my girlfriend’s school, and the song being performed had the N word in it, and the majority of the people in the crowd were white. It was wild hearing them say it. But, with rap music being so popular in today’s culture, and with that word being so prevanlent in rap music, where do we draw that line? At what point does that line get crossed?
You quickly realize, as a black teenager in Carlisle, that there isn’t a large space for you to be present. When you look at the overall population of our community and the percentage breakdowns in terms of race, Carlisle is predominantly white, with a small percentage of black, and then a remaining percentage made up of other races. Growing up in our community, you often find yourself being the only black kid in your class. And you end up identifying socially with a lot of your white friends – but as you get older, when you begin to find yourself and start to truly understand who you are, it becomes somewhat of a culture shock because suddenly you are too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids.
With that being said, I am working hard to make my place in Carlisle. I certainly wasn’t the best when I was younger, but as I’ve grown, I’ve developed a stronger sense of empathy for the space around me. I was able to find myself after getting past some of the personal trauma in my life and now, it’s all about not letting people who think that my dreams are too big get in my way.
Professionally, I’m involved with Carlisle’s music scene. I recently went on a small college tour and I have another project soon to be released in collaboration with a local producer and engineer that goes by the name of Diesel Beats. I’m involved with a group called #SS which is made up of other local creatives. The group includes my manager, Jeb Eslinger, SS OGOF Critt, Chris Sneed, JC, Chad, and Devon my DJ. Currently, we’re working on #SS Day which is a local music festival being hosted here in Carlisle. We will be performing along with national artists and will be looking for other local artists to perform as part of the lineup. There was never much to do around here musically, so we are trying to create those opportunities.
Overall, I would love to see the people of Carlisle be more supportive to those that are just trying to do something. You often hear people say, “that can’t happen, you are from Carlisle.” But all we are asking is for your support – who knows what’s going to happen. Someone is trying to do something for themselves, to be better. Why wouldn’t you want to support that? There is a lot of great talent in our community – take for instance my friend Tatum Mann. Did you know she published a book? She should’ve gotten a lot more attention about that (Click here to check out Tatum’s book of poetry). Honestly, how many 18, 19, 20 year olds do you know that are writing books and getting published? If we all could rally around those that are working to make this community an awesome place to be, we could really put this place on the map. And I just hope that we can give that platform to everyone the lives here. – Terrell Brown, Rapper/Musician and Organizer of #SS Day
Check out Terrell’s full length album on Apple Music or Spotify below and be sure to grab tickets for #SS Day featuring performers like PNB Rock, 24hrs, Terrell Brown, SS OGOF Critt, and more!