A Reflection on the Inward Journey: Eric Brown and the Call to North Nashville

Last updated on: April 15, 2013 at 12:32 pm by Andre E. Johnson

A Reflection on the Inward Journey: Eric Brown and the Call to North Nashville 2013-04-15T12:32:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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by Eric Brown
R3 Contributor

Reflecting on the past week and reading a reader called Pragmatism, my favorite subject, while listening to Big K. R. I. T. has me in outlet mode. I feel I’m called to live in North Nashville.

I don’t use that word lightly, and am not a big fan of spiritualized language. Using such terms never feels concrete in an existential life, but that is my reality right now. Not sure who cares about North Nashville outside the black community without thinking they can make money off the pains of black bodies that are surviving in this area on a daily basis.

I’m bugged by students killing one another over three dollars. I’m bothered that the metro transit rapid bus can connect east and west Nashville but wants no part of “Out North”. I’m bothered of the high percentage of poverty, crime, and food deserts in this area. I’m bothered by busing that transports students outside their community to other parts of time. However, because parents work two to three jobs or lack transportation to go to another side of town to check these school, senators believe parents don’t care about their children and want to take away thirty percent of 187 a month as if these people are getting rich off the government. Though busing promotes diversity, it destroys community emphasis, but that causes resegregation. I think about churches that are disengaged with the people that experience political issues that effect if alleys get concrete or remain with gravel because they are heavenly bound and no earthly good. Of only they knew that to be Christian is to be political. These political issues also determine who gets jobs and who does not.

Then with that being said, I hear stereotype negativity about “those people are lazy, violent, and drug-ridden”. And with all those problems and understanding that I can easily make a successful career outside of Nashville, that supposedly country hick town, it’s at a time like this that I am going into that same neighborhood, partner, and be a apart of those same people that many say are powerless and expect in just a “little while”, that this black side of town will be a successful and powerful place in the Nashville community.

I believe you cannot run from problems or say the problem does not concern you. Ive tried that already. You have to stay in. It’s the same reason I stay in the church, the same reason I continue learning, and the same reason I’m moving to North Nashville.

So going back to those same spiritual terms that bother me, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. An those weapons can’t hurt me based on a community that groomed me to come right back and use that same process to form others.

So with that said, pray with me for a better North Nashville with successful black owned business and education that feeds its people spiritually, physically, mentally, and intellectually. What’s a King and Queen without a crown? I see many in that area of town. They just need others to show them a mirror.

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