Black History Month • Behind The Racquet • Shares A Behind The Scenes With Tennis 10sBalls • ATP’s Dustin Brown (From the 10sballs.com Vault)

 

Editor’s note: 10sBalls thanks Noah Rubin for giving us permission to repost these great stories. We wish him and this endeavor the best of luck. Great seeing Noah wearing K-Swiss and playing Solinco Strings.

 

“My dad’s Jamaican and my mother is German. I was born in germany in ’84 and moved around ’96 to Jamaica. I pretty much have both cultures inside of me. I started out with with speaking German at the schools in Germany and then speaking English in high school in Jamaica. They are both a part of me but at the same time, growing up, I was a little bit of an outsider in both places. A colored kid growing up in Germany, when racism was prevalent, which I definitely had to deal with it often, whether at school or tennis, was very tough. There were maybe three colored kids in our area and weirdly enough a couple were even half jamaican. Also on the other side, going back to Jamaica, where I was a black kid, I was still known as the German boy. My english was good but they still heard my German accent. I was really happy when that went away after a few years. It’s always been a little difficult for me but I’ve been able to adapt. Whether German or Jamaican, which are completely opposite, I change based on the culture I am dealing with. I believe it’s not necessarily being black, it’s what anyone sees as different. They will pick it out and target it.” – Dustin Brown

 

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Twitter | @DreddyTennis

Instagram | @dreddy_ja

 

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