I was born December 21st 1996 I was born
to a blond-haired blue-eyed mother from
Long Island New York and a dark-skinned
father who had emigrated from India 15
years earlier I was born Molony Natalie
Molony coming from sanskrit origins
meaning nurture and Natalie the French
spelling meaning Christmas Day I grew up
dancing on our fireplace mantel to the
Annie soundtrack and Bollywood music in
equal parts I was born and what my
father called a lily-white town in this
town I was white enough to be accepted
by the white students but brown enough
to not be considered beautiful here I
learned to hate my hair because it was
not blond and straight like the other
girls but love my complexion because I
was told it made me exotic it was here I
was told I wasn’t really Indian because
I hope because of how I acted but my
brother was told to go back to his
country when walking home from school
one day it was in this town that dinners
alternated between chicken curry and
meatloaf I was born into a family where
I called my mother’s mother grandma and
my father his mother Debbie G which is
the hindi turn for parental grandmother
when I wasn’t baptized as a baby
grandma cried hysterically and every
Christmas hence I was given a Bible
because she was so afraid that my soul
would end up in purgatory meanwhile with
Adichie I would she would light incense
and I was sitting next to her as she
prayed to Shiva Vishnu and countless
other hindi gods she used to put a black
dot on my face so that the evil I
wouldn’t see into my soul because then I
was less than perfect
at the time I didn’t understand how one
of my grandmother’s could believe in one
God well the other believed in many but
I was pretty sure my soul was in mortal
peril at 14 I moved to Manhattan and
enrolled in a private school on my first
day a girl sat down next to me looked me
dead in the eye and asked so what are
you it was at this school was about 85%
white students and 15% students of color
the majority of the white students paid
full tuition and the majority of the
students of color were on scholarship
here I was too Brown for the white
students because I didn’t share their
primarily Jewish heritage or their
upbringing as one of the Manhattan’s
elite
but I was also too white for the
students of color because I did come
from an affluent family and I hadn’t
shared a lot of the same trials and
rampant discrimination that they had it
was also in high school that I was first
made aware of the immense racism in
America this happened through the
murders of Trayvon Martin Eric garner
Sandra bland and countless other men and
women of color who were wrongfully
killed at the hands of those who were
supposed to protect them during this
time many of my classmates both those
who identified as white and as a student
of color participated in the protests
that were occurring in Manhattan and the
other four boroughs of New York City
however I stayed back I wasn’t sure
where I stood on this issue was I an
ally or was I part of the oppressed
group was I white because of my mother
and my upbringing or was I as person of
color because of my father and the
discrimination I had encountered as an
ethnically ambiguous brown woman in the
21st century it wasn’t until college
that I realized I am both I am white and
privileged when I
urban exploring with friends and I’m
caught by the cops but the only
repercussion is that we are told to go
home but I am brown and oppressed
when I am flagged going through airport
security
we’re often than I am NOT but still have
to plaster a smile on my face to let the
officers know I am of no threat to them
and no I promise those text books are
not bombs that actually even happened
which is sad and for the longest time I
thought I was the only one who dealt
with this issue because for the longest
time I was the only one I knew who did
this past summer I served as part of my
colleges orientation team before
orientation begins the team participates
in many different activities that have
us discuss and confront our own
identifiers it was during one of his
activities that I talked to two other
young women who had one parent who was
white and one of color they too had
faced a lot of the same things I had
growing up they often felt torn between
the two cultures encapsulated in their
families and confused by the varying
beliefs that were that in their
households this realization shocked and
saddened me why had we all felt so alone
before why had it taken nearly two
decades for us to find other people who
shared our experience why had no one
talked about this when we were growing
up it was then that I realized that race
is one of the few binaries we have left
in terms of identifiers and many of our
other identifiers we allow there to be a
spectrum you can be gay or straight or
somewhere in between you can you no
longer have to proscribed
simply being male or female and I by no
means to say that being in the middle of
these spectrums as easy at all
they’re often some of the hardest
identifiers to carry but there is solace
to be found when society at large
acknowledged
is part of your identity and it make
sense we see race this way throughout
the majority of human history we’ve
pitted one racial group against another
which has made people in each group have
to identify more strongly with those
around them however we live in an age
where more and more people who were
mixed race are being born so how does it
make sense to only have two categories
in which someone can belong something
someone of Miss race is all too familiar
with is the assumption throughout my
life I have been assumed to be Hawaiian
Polynesian latina and Italian
among various other racial and ethnic
identifiers this is problem more than
just being problematic because someone
is assuming part of my identity this is
problematic because each one of those
racial identifiers carries a different
weight in our society this and this
assumption leads to the silencing of
mixed-race people because we don’t know
how you perceive us if you think I’m
white how will you respond if I start
discussing my instances of
discrimination if you think I’m a person
of color how will you respond when I
start condemning the actions of white
people some of whom are my relatives
I think this phenomenon does a great
disservice to us all we are at a time of
immense racial tension and many racial
discussions become an us-versus-them
scenario white people versus people of
color these conversations are often
polarizing and leaves people feeling
hurt I believe that by including the
mixed voice the voice that is
experienced but both what it means to be
a person of color and to be white all
will come away with a greater
understanding of racial issues and I by
no means to say I by no means
say that this will solve all racial
issues or that racial Roddick radicals
will fully get behind this but it’s an
important first step in coming to terms
with the different races in our society
and we all have a role to play in this
change my role and the role of many
others of mixed race is to speak
despite the assumption we stay silent
because we’re afraid of something that
may or may not happen and if this does
happen it provides a space for an
important dialogue that illuminates
racial assumption and the role of those
who are not of mixed race is to try not
to assume this isn’t easy we’re
hardwired to assume because it allows
our brain to make quicker decisions and
this was super useful when we used to
only eat twigs and berries and you know
a tire noise in the middle of the night
might be a tiger but we’re not there
anymore
and it’s important that we try to fight
against this nature of ours in order to
have a more understanding society
neither of these roles are easy they’re
characteristically difficult but growth
does not happen in our comfort zone and
based on the cultural and political
status of America it’s very evident that
we are in some need of growth I’m still
learning what it means to be a woman of
mixed race in the 21st century but I
know a few things I know that 99% of the
time when someone’s meat when someone
meets me they’ll call me Malini I know
that for the rest of my life exotic will
be seen as a complement primarily and I
know that a lot of what I thought were
or is is my identifiers or ands I like
chicken curry and I like meatloaf
I like American clothes and I love my
sari I am white and a person of color
and I’m telling you all my story today
in the hopes that
maybe I made someone else feel a little
left alone in their experience and maybe
I’ve helped someone see that they have a
role to play in creating a more
understanding society thank you
[Applause]
to a blond-haired blue-eyed mother from
Long Island New York and a dark-skinned
father who had emigrated from India 15
years earlier I was born Molony Natalie
Molony coming from sanskrit origins
meaning nurture and Natalie the French
spelling meaning Christmas Day I grew up
dancing on our fireplace mantel to the
Annie soundtrack and Bollywood music in
equal parts I was born and what my
father called a lily-white town in this
town I was white enough to be accepted
by the white students but brown enough
to not be considered beautiful here I
learned to hate my hair because it was
not blond and straight like the other
girls but love my complexion because I
was told it made me exotic it was here I
was told I wasn’t really Indian because
I hope because of how I acted but my
brother was told to go back to his
country when walking home from school
one day it was in this town that dinners
alternated between chicken curry and
meatloaf I was born into a family where
I called my mother’s mother grandma and
my father his mother Debbie G which is
the hindi turn for parental grandmother
when I wasn’t baptized as a baby
grandma cried hysterically and every
Christmas hence I was given a Bible
because she was so afraid that my soul
would end up in purgatory meanwhile with
Adichie I would she would light incense
and I was sitting next to her as she
prayed to Shiva Vishnu and countless
other hindi gods she used to put a black
dot on my face so that the evil I
wouldn’t see into my soul because then I
was less than perfect
at the time I didn’t understand how one
of my grandmother’s could believe in one
God well the other believed in many but
I was pretty sure my soul was in mortal
peril at 14 I moved to Manhattan and
enrolled in a private school on my first
day a girl sat down next to me looked me
dead in the eye and asked so what are
you it was at this school was about 85%
white students and 15% students of color
the majority of the white students paid
full tuition and the majority of the
students of color were on scholarship
here I was too Brown for the white
students because I didn’t share their
primarily Jewish heritage or their
upbringing as one of the Manhattan’s
elite
but I was also too white for the
students of color because I did come
from an affluent family and I hadn’t
shared a lot of the same trials and
rampant discrimination that they had it
was also in high school that I was first
made aware of the immense racism in
America this happened through the
murders of Trayvon Martin Eric garner
Sandra bland and countless other men and
women of color who were wrongfully
killed at the hands of those who were
supposed to protect them during this
time many of my classmates both those
who identified as white and as a student
of color participated in the protests
that were occurring in Manhattan and the
other four boroughs of New York City
however I stayed back I wasn’t sure
where I stood on this issue was I an
ally or was I part of the oppressed
group was I white because of my mother
and my upbringing or was I as person of
color because of my father and the
discrimination I had encountered as an
ethnically ambiguous brown woman in the
21st century it wasn’t until college
that I realized I am both I am white and
privileged when I
urban exploring with friends and I’m
caught by the cops but the only
repercussion is that we are told to go
home but I am brown and oppressed
when I am flagged going through airport
security
we’re often than I am NOT but still have
to plaster a smile on my face to let the
officers know I am of no threat to them
and no I promise those text books are
not bombs that actually even happened
which is sad and for the longest time I
thought I was the only one who dealt
with this issue because for the longest
time I was the only one I knew who did
this past summer I served as part of my
colleges orientation team before
orientation begins the team participates
in many different activities that have
us discuss and confront our own
identifiers it was during one of his
activities that I talked to two other
young women who had one parent who was
white and one of color they too had
faced a lot of the same things I had
growing up they often felt torn between
the two cultures encapsulated in their
families and confused by the varying
beliefs that were that in their
households this realization shocked and
saddened me why had we all felt so alone
before why had it taken nearly two
decades for us to find other people who
shared our experience why had no one
talked about this when we were growing
up it was then that I realized that race
is one of the few binaries we have left
in terms of identifiers and many of our
other identifiers we allow there to be a
spectrum you can be gay or straight or
somewhere in between you can you no
longer have to proscribed
simply being male or female and I by no
means to say that being in the middle of
these spectrums as easy at all
they’re often some of the hardest
identifiers to carry but there is solace
to be found when society at large
acknowledged
is part of your identity and it make
sense we see race this way throughout
the majority of human history we’ve
pitted one racial group against another
which has made people in each group have
to identify more strongly with those
around them however we live in an age
where more and more people who were
mixed race are being born so how does it
make sense to only have two categories
in which someone can belong something
someone of Miss race is all too familiar
with is the assumption throughout my
life I have been assumed to be Hawaiian
Polynesian latina and Italian
among various other racial and ethnic
identifiers this is problem more than
just being problematic because someone
is assuming part of my identity this is
problematic because each one of those
racial identifiers carries a different
weight in our society this and this
assumption leads to the silencing of
mixed-race people because we don’t know
how you perceive us if you think I’m
white how will you respond if I start
discussing my instances of
discrimination if you think I’m a person
of color how will you respond when I
start condemning the actions of white
people some of whom are my relatives
I think this phenomenon does a great
disservice to us all we are at a time of
immense racial tension and many racial
discussions become an us-versus-them
scenario white people versus people of
color these conversations are often
polarizing and leaves people feeling
hurt I believe that by including the
mixed voice the voice that is
experienced but both what it means to be
a person of color and to be white all
will come away with a greater
understanding of racial issues and I by
no means to say I by no means
say that this will solve all racial
issues or that racial Roddick radicals
will fully get behind this but it’s an
important first step in coming to terms
with the different races in our society
and we all have a role to play in this
change my role and the role of many
others of mixed race is to speak
despite the assumption we stay silent
because we’re afraid of something that
may or may not happen and if this does
happen it provides a space for an
important dialogue that illuminates
racial assumption and the role of those
who are not of mixed race is to try not
to assume this isn’t easy we’re
hardwired to assume because it allows
our brain to make quicker decisions and
this was super useful when we used to
only eat twigs and berries and you know
a tire noise in the middle of the night
might be a tiger but we’re not there
anymore
and it’s important that we try to fight
against this nature of ours in order to
have a more understanding society
neither of these roles are easy they’re
characteristically difficult but growth
does not happen in our comfort zone and
based on the cultural and political
status of America it’s very evident that
we are in some need of growth I’m still
learning what it means to be a woman of
mixed race in the 21st century but I
know a few things I know that 99% of the
time when someone’s meat when someone
meets me they’ll call me Malini I know
that for the rest of my life exotic will
be seen as a complement primarily and I
know that a lot of what I thought were
or is is my identifiers or ands I like
chicken curry and I like meatloaf
I like American clothes and I love my
sari I am white and a person of color
and I’m telling you all my story today
in the hopes that
maybe I made someone else feel a little
left alone in their experience and maybe
I’ve helped someone see that they have a
role to play in creating a more
understanding society thank you
[Applause]
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