About | Brooklyn Start

so...what's the deal?

BrooklynStart cannot be described for what it is without first understanding what it is NOT.

It is NOT a vehicle to glorify the played-out Hollywood stereotype of the single, African-American mother.

It is NOT a show about a 'white-savior' teacher coming to an urban school of color to 'make a difference'.

It is NOT a show that romanticizes the profession of teaching, where educators succeed despite a lack of financial and administrative support.

It is NOT a monolithic race-relationship series

(complete with a pseudo-liberal moral at the end of each episode).

BrooklynStart is a comedic-drama and a dissected relationship between an ensemble of characters from different races and cultures. The characters find one another amidst the backdrop of gentrification in "Black Brooklyn" and in the systemic oppression and educational failures that exist in one of the most progressive cities in the United States.

This is BrooklynStart, a show about a conversation that no one wants to have.

SYNOPSIS

A socially awkward, teenage African-American girl who dreams of one day being a theatrical stage manager.

A passionate Jamaican-American teacher dedicated to giving back to the black community where he grew up.

A quasi-liberal white couple who move back to Brooklyn to raise their newborn child and are confronted with the reality of their privileged upbringing as they find a new home in a currently gentrifying neighborhood.

An African-American mother struggling to raise her two children alone after her husband is murdered by the police.

The lives of these five people intertwine against the backdrop of gentrification in Brooklyn and a forgotten performing arts high school in the neighborhood of Canarsie. All are forced to confront the still, very real reality of segregation, inequality, and inequity throughout the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and New York City schools.

This drama/comedy explores the story of white and people of color millennials together in an urban environment, amidst the backdrop of white pseudo-liberalism, institutional racism in the U.S. education system, and an ever changing cultural/racial landscape in Brooklyn.