People ask me why I get upset about the people who come on my pages and complain about Brownsville. It's simple. I started Brownsville Living to counter negativity not feed it. When I first started visiting Brownsville back in 2001 I had only known this place from what I saw in the news which was all negative. And all I heard from the people who had grown up here and moved away was how awful it was and how they would never come back. However, I didn't see what they did. I saw something quite special.
My first experiences here were spending holidays visiting my in-laws. I experienced a laid back place with no traffic, close to the beach, unique culture, beautiful resacas, close to Mexico and bustling with small businesses. I could see it needed work but I didn't really understand all the negativity. I have lived in some great Texas Cities including Fort Worth, Dallas, Irving, Huntsville and Austin. All of them had something special to offer and none of them had such a negative self image. Most of the other places I lived had a sense of civic pride. It was shocking to see how little civic pride there was here. In fact it was the opposite, there was sort of a civic hatred. I found it very depressing. I came to believe that the primary reason people didn't have good feelings about Brownsville was because they weren't exposed to the good stuff or they were blind to it because they took them for granted.
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| Photo by: Carlos Nunez |
However, having come here from Austin I was very aware of the importance of local culture, civic pride and small business. Austin does an excellent job of marketing Austin in fact it has turned out to be too good in retrospect. That being said, I felt we needed something like Keep Austin Weird here which was their unofficial slogan. But Keep Brownsville Weird didn't quite fit and that's were Brownsville Living. Be Part of It. came from. It was meant to project a positive feeling and inform people about the good things that happen in our community. It was never intended as a soap box or a place for debate. There are an abundance of forums online where you can express your angst to your heart's content. This group is not it.
The entire purpose of this group was to share positive cultural, business and economic news with the community. And the intent in doing so was to attract people of a similar mindset. The page was never meant for the entire community. Not everyone agrees on what's best for our town, clearly. But most of the people on the page know how to be mature about it and simply ignore the things that don't matter to them. However, our society has become much more toxic and confrontational in the last few years which has made keeping any forum positive increasingly difficult. But this is a mission I have been on for 11 years and I won't stop what I am doing or be derailed from my mission because some people are toxic and/or have different views that they want to impose on everyone else. This group is intended to foster a safe positive place where people who love our community can come together to share good news about our community without feeling belittled or threatened. In order to have that environment we must eliminate the negative people and negative energy. Because without a positive environment not everyone can fully Be Part of It.
Blog Post Written by: Craig Grove
Founder Brownsville/RGV Living
Broker/Owner GRT Realty
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