He was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, where the block-style layout created a “tight-knit community.” However, he also lived in the projects near Williamsburg, which he described as a “paranoid” environment. These experiences helped shaped his view on “the importance of being black,” and making something of himself to influence others.
Brown’s experiences at Eastern District High School also exemplified this juxtaposition of the discordant and uplifting. The high school “was known for its violence and spats between the black students and Dominicans,” where the “gym was ground for... thuggery,” with people carrying knives and guns. The spats were never extreme, but the atmosphere was toxic. When it changed to an “alternative school” named Grand Street Campus, the violence was quelled by placing the Dominicans on separate floors, where classes oriented on English as a Second Language courses. This change mellowed out the school, giving Brown an experience as if he “attended two separate high schools.” However, he said that these changes “didn’t make the education improve.”
Seeing the ethnic tension at Eastern influenced his political opinions, saying “I’m a black male in America, so I’m for anything that can further my group’s image in position in this country, because we’re not past race yet.”
When asked what originally got him thinking about making positive changes in society, he says that “early on in my life, really rappers. Jay-Z, Biggie [a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.].” However, his brother Travis, whom Terrance credits as being a huge influence on his life, has a different theory. Travis says that it was Terrance’s experience growing up in a single parent household that pushed him to make a difference. “He doesn’t want people to grow up in the same situation as him,” said Travis, who feels that Terrance’s desire to “expose things that are corrupt” will mean he will “ultimately end up in politics, in some shape or form.” Terrance himself says he can see himself going to law school, because he sees it as a path that will allow him to make a difference. He worries that the “traditional” journalist path is too focused on observing.
Terrance also has an artistic vision in his life. His writing ranges from short stories and short films, and he even co-wrote a full length comedy film. He directed a short film named “Don’t Make Me Over,” a view of how a young black girl’s hairstyle changes mark her “passing to womanhood.” In the future he’d like to get into playwriting, and possibly start an indie record label. Musically, his interests run a large gamut, from mainstream rap artists like Kayne West and Jay-Z to R&B musician Keshia Cole, and even rock music like Coldplay and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Complimenting his artistic spirit are religious and political views that run in the progressive vein. Of his social views, Brown says “I’m liberal, I’m pro choice, for gay marriage, against the war, and any war unless it’s waged to get oneself out of an oppressive position.” The split in this country between “the haves and the have nots” is what he finds to be the most problematic issue in America. He also reads political columns by Tom Friedman, Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times. Spiritually he says doesn’t “have any real religious beliefs,” but seems to have an agnostic viewpoint: “Do I believe [in] god? I would say no, but I haven’t ruled out the possibility of there being one.” He said “the closest I’ve been to church is Easter when I was smaller.” He found it too much “like cattle... I don’t think one way. That’s why I couldn’t never be in the military, because you’re taught to think one way, and not to be an individual, and I’m totally against that.”
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