Responses to Brown Brother

Here are a selection of the student responses to Brown Brother by Joshua Iosefo...






"I think that the speech had a big impact on people because of the fact the it was all true, and it relates to a lot of people in many communities. He spoke a lot about how people assume a lot of things just by looking at you. He also talks about the brown statistics and about how most brown Pacific Islanders are truck drivers, fast food eating and box packing people.





Not all Pacific Islanders do those types of things, most Islanders now are rugby players and fashion designers- people can shape their own future and are capable to do anything."





"This poem was very strong because he is standing up for people who are being stereotyped and for all people who think that everyone should have equal rights like not getting judged just because their brown.





This means that when he heard it he knew that we could relate to the poem about being judged or stereotyped, racism and being called poor because of the clothes we wear, the traditions we have in our culture or what we look like."






"Joshua had an impact on people because of words and phrases he sent out to us. Telling us that we’re not stereotypes, were just people with different colour skin to others. “Brown like the bark of the palm tree that supports my heritage.” Joshua made his poem to make people think about their future, or what they’ve got themselves into. Joshua is speaking up and showing what people would expect from us because we're brown. They look down at brown people because of some people making shame of our cultures, making the society think differently about us Islanders. Really it’s about what the society expects from us brown people."