Sterling K. Brown opened up about a painful moment when his teenage son was called the N-word at a youth soccer game.
Brown is a well-known name in Hollywood, so the revelation came as a surprise to many. In an interview on the TODAY show, Brown recalled the moment his son was spat on and called the N-word, People reported. Although his son tried to resolve the spitting incident through the referees, the outcome was unsuccessful. The competing player proceeded to call Brown’s son the racial slur. The teenager saw no other way to de-escalate the situation, except by walking away. He made the decision to tell his parents once the soccer game had concluded. Brown was admittedly upset, but his son was resolute.
“I was like, ‘Yo, man, how come we didn’t beat his ass?’ And he was like, ‘Because that wouldn’t have solved anything … So I didn’t want to make you any more upset, which is why I didn’t tell you until after the game,’” Brown said.
The Emmy-winning actor admitted the restraint shown by his son surprised him.
“So he’s a more evolved person than me. I would’ve beat his ass,” Brown said.
The moment revealed that despite his Hollywood success, racism reaches into his family’s everyday life. For Brown, it was also a moment of pride in seeing his son choose a path of dignity over retaliation.
That balance of resilience and emotional truth is central to Brown’s career and his latest project, the Hulu series Washington Black.
The historical adventure follows George Washington “Wash” Black, a boy escaping enslavement in the 19th century. Brown plays Medwin Harris, a free Black leader in Nova Scotia who becomes a mentor figure for Wash. In an interview with What To Watch, Brown spoke about the show adapted from the novel Washington Black by Esi Edugyan.
“Medwin was expanded from a minor role in the novel,” Brown said. “There’s something really lovely about the question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?… finding community, finding family, finding a sense of purpose and agency amongst ourselves that is quite lovely and maybe strangely applicable to today, even though the story takes place in the 1800s.”
For Brown, whether in a fictional story set two centuries ago or in the lived experience of his son, the work is about confronting racism while also centering love, growth, and survival.
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