Breaking Out of the Box: Multiracial Identity, Monoracism, and Belonging with Dr. Victoria K. Malaney-Brown

In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Victoria K. Malaney-Brown, a scholar-practitioner at Columbia University and the first-ever Director of Academic Integrity for undergraduates at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, joins us to explore the nuanced realities of multiracial identity. From her deeply personal poem "Outside of the Box" to her groundbreaking research on multiracial college students, Dr. Malaney-Brown sheds light on the complexities of navigating identity, privilege, and belonging. We dive into monoracism, critical consciousness, and the importance of creating spaces where mixed-race individuals feel seen and heard. Whether you're mixed-race, a parent, an ally, or someone looking to expand their understanding, this conversation offers valuable insights and inspiration.

You can find Dr. Malaney-Brown on LinkedIn and on Instagram.

Here's some more stuff to check out:

• Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice
• Preparing for Higher Education’s Mixed Race Future: Why Multiraciality Matters
• Racial Identity and Census Categories
• What is Critical Consciousness?
• American College Personnel Association
• Critical Mixed Race Studies Association (Learn about the membership here!)
• Multiracial and Transracial Adoptee Network (MTAN)
• National Conference on Race and Ethnicity

Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Instagram and new for Season 5, check us out on and YouTube and keep up with True Culture on LinkedIn.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show.

Our True Colors is sponsored by True Culture Coaching & Consulting. Head to our website to find out how True Culture Coaching and Consulting can support you and your organization, and subscribe to our LinkedIn Newsletter, The Culture Clinic, for more great content. You can find us at truecultureconsulting.com where you can also contact us to schedule a free consultation.

Transcript

Intro  

Welcome to our true colors, hosted by Shawna Gan join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in foreign 

Shawna  

Hey, friends, I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Victoria Malaney Brown, a true trailblazer in higher education and multiracial studies. In this episode, we'll dive into the innate challenges and opportunities of multiracial identity, including the concept of monoracism, the importance of critical consciousness and how her personal journey informs her professional work. Whether you identify as being mixed race or multiracial, multi ethnic, or whether you're a parent, an ally or just curious about the complexities of identity, there's something here for you. Let's get started today. I'm thrilled to have Dr. Victoria K Mulaney-Brown with me. She is a scholar practitioner at Columbia University, where she's breaking new ground as the first ever director of academic integrity for undergraduates at Columbia College and Columbia engineering, with a PhD in higher education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she's dedicated her work to exploring the racialized experiences of students in higher education critical consciousness and college student activism. Her dissertation focused on the narratives of multiracial college students navigating historically white institutions, which is absolutely important and timely in today's world. Victoria wears many hats, though. She's a research affiliate at UMass Amherst Center for Student Success research. She is the CO editor of the book preparing for higher education mixed race future, why multiraciality matters, and a former chair of the multiracial network. She's also served as president of the critical mixed race Studies Association, and held leadership roles with the American College personnel Association. And if you did not think that was enough to keep her busy, she's also a mom of two, and she runs her own consulting business, v and b, coaching and consulting. There is so much to talk about. I am super excited to dive into this. Thank you so much for joining me. Dr. Malaney-Brown,

Dr. Malaney-Brown  

thanks. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to speak with you today and then also connect with your listeners. So thanks for the opportunity. I

Shawna  

want to hear about you, but I know that the listeners will be super fascinated to hear about some work that you've done prior to our conversation. Let's just say that. Let's lead in with something you've written. Okay,

Speaker 1  

what I'm going to read is an excerpt from this book called multiracial experiences in higher education. It was written by a couple of different contributors, but edited by Dr Mark Johnston Guerrero and Dr Charlene wintersinger. And the forward was by Dr G Reginald Daniel who are really important names in the higher education space and in sociology for multiraciality. But I want to start with a poem that I wrote called outside of the box, and this is part of the chapter of a narrative that I contributed to this text. So I'll start with outside of the box. I live a fractured existence being asked to prove my race, questions from strangers, peers and classmates, constantly interrogating, asking me to prove what I already know is true. Sometimes I feel as though my voice is muted. Sometimes I feel as though I cannot break out of this structural border that pressures me to stay inside one race box, but when I reflect and remember who my family is, I fight to live outside of the race box. As my roots grow from my multiracial heritages, and I am proud to be me whole, not pieces or fractionalized parts. I so

Speaker 2  

that's

Speaker 1  

a short poem that I wrote from a larger project that I did in graduate school that asked me to connect with my research data in a way. And I use this concept called grounded theory, which helps you put together components without assumption, which is really hard to do as a researcher. And so I had interviewed college students who shared multi racial background, mixed heritage background, and again, you probably heard, as you listen to different episodes, the complexity of how we define these racialized terms. But the students that I interviewed, the themes of what they said in the conversations, took me to that place where I was also to be self reflective and then write a poem based off of what I was reading and interpret. Being an understanding. So I wanted to start with that, because I feel like the good place to begin. Yeah,

Shawna  

actually, that's an amazing place to begin. And I know that you said it's a short poem, but it was just enough words to truly capture the feeling. I will tell you this. Well, actually, first I would like to explain the listeners how I met you. And there is not only a professional aspect to this that's important to me, but a personal one. So I knew about critical mixed race Studies Association, and I've been just through my own research checking things out, but I finally what was it called a teach in.

Speaker 1  

We did a teach in in November, yeah, through a student organization that is at Mount Holyoke College, yeah. So

Shawna  

I got to attend that because I recently became a member. I had spoken with some other folks, and they recommended which folks I'm going to give you links and things to, because you should become a member as well. But I became a member, so that meant getting the notifications. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go, go check this out. And it came at a time that was kind of dark moment for me, just some disappointment and things from the fall, personally, professionally. And I have to tell you, it was so uplifting and inspiring, I literally burst out of my little box and told my husband, like, oh my god, I'm so inspired. I needed that. And honestly, I learned a lot, but it was more about the community. It was about being virtually in a space, even with people who get it. And your poem while it's not very long, it captures it all this feeling of being forced to identify in some way within these boxes. And I always say that I don't, I hate boxes. Don't, don't try to box me in. You know, we'll link the book and everything, because I want listeners to really be able to tap into this in their way, too. But you were speaking there, as well as the current president, and sharing, you know, your thoughts and your research. And I just thought it was so powerful. So just to give some background as to how I got to know you and and to meet you, sure, but yeah, I think that was a very appropriate way to start our conversation, because there are so many folks who just walk through these spaces feeling like nobody really gets it, or they don't get to talk to anybody about it because they feel like nobody gets it. And to be honest with you, my journey is not over, if it ever is. But at the start of this show, five years ago, I didn't even identify at all as being mixed race or multiracial. I usually use the term racially ambiguous, but having learned more about my own ancestry and heritage and feeling comfortable to because also there was a little bit of like, can I even say this? You know, I'm not biracial. I'm multi generationally mixed. So do I have a right? So anyway, I think your poem sets the stage beautifully for a conversation, and I think a lot of folks will relate to that. So thank you for sharing. Yeah, absolutely. With that, I'd like to ask you about your own identity and how it plays a part into your sort of everyday experiences.

Speaker 1  

Sure, so identify as multiracial. That's the general term that I'll use if someone asks me like so the questions, right? So then I'll say more specific. So I usually say indo Caribbean, so Indian Caribbean. I'll also say indo Caribbean, Spanish, white Irish. And I do have African heritage as well. So the my grandmother, on my mother's side, is mixed race, so therefore my mother is too. And then I didn't realize this much until I was probably college student, to be honest, which might sound strange to some individuals, but my mom, her parents, are from Trinidad and Tobago. My mom grew up in Trinidad, and Trinidad itself is a very multi ethnic and mixed Island. And on my my family's story, my grandfather is Indian, like Indian, with his heritage stemming from from what we understand is the southern part of India, and his parents were part of the indentured laborers that were colonized by the British in India and then sent to the Caribbean to cultivate sugar cane for rum production. Yeah, so that's what I understand, is my grandfather's story, at least his parents story, and then his story, growing up in Trinidad was one of some hardship. He didn't actually go to school completely. He finished at a, I would say, from what I understand when probably finishing elementary school to, like, a sixth grade level. And then he eventually, like, found work on his own and became a fishmonger my grade. Mother was of mixed descent from Guyana, also African roots and Spanish. So that's where that Spanish African heritages come from. My grandmother, maternal grandmother, while my father is American, he is Irish, and Mulaney is my father's last name, and so I connect with my Irish culture and heritage, but more so, I feel more deeply rooted and connected to my Trinidadian and Caribbean culture. And I think it has a lot to do with probably my mother, to be honest. And also, while my father connects with his Irish heritage, I feel like it's very different depending on who, which parents, and also, whiteness is part of the dominant cultural component here in the United States. So and then I also recognize that I'm not read as somebody who's white. Walking into a room I might sound white, and some of my features, or maybe my accent, perhaps, which I'm aware of. And I think there are some privileges that mixed and multiracial people have in different ways that are different from monoracial groups, but that's part of my story. Is I grew up more as a mixed person, but not knowing the language to describe what I was experiencing from kindergarten all the way to about high school. I knew I was different. I knew I had these experiences, but I didn't realize that I was part of this larger construct of mono racism until college and so my entire growing up experience in South Florida, where South Florida is pretty diverse. I just deflected a lot of these questions about my race or background in a lot of ways.

Shawna  

Yeah. Firstly, you talked about acquiring language as time went on, right? Because I think that's true for a lot of folks, is you, you can definitely tell something is different, and if you couldn't, people will point it out to you. It very readily, without hesitation sometimes. But I think having the language to explain it and also to process it is super key. And one of the terms that you just used is one that's fairly new to me. Even though I knew this concept, I just did not have this word, and that's mono racism. It's a thing that I've talked about for so long, but didn't use that particular term, and now, knowing it's been around, actually, for more than a decade, probably almost two now, is so key. Could you please just break it down a little bit what it means so folks can also kind of connect with

that word. Sure. So mono racism was defined by two researchers, Kevin Nadal and now Dr. Guerrero, who worked together and created this taxonomy. It's a form of systemic racism that targets people who don't fit a single racial category or who identify as multiracial. So it basically, it's social, it's a system that privileges people and practices that are racially pure, right? So when you think about what mono racism is, the piece around it is if you identify with like one race. So if you are just black or just Asian or any other background, you are part of the norm, the normal way of what I would what's been described as the Ethno racial pentagon, right? The five different racial categories in which people are defined by how the order of racial categories have been created, right?

Shawna  

You say, you say it so intelligently, I call them the census buckets, right?

Speaker 1  

But, but who created it is a whole nother conversation that is true. Why we created it. It's a whole other thing related to power, privilege and oppression. But again, mono racism is privileging people who identify with just one race and who are of one race, racially, culturally, heritage wise, but people like myself who identify with multiple racial heritages, we don't have necessarily a place to be, and we're often excluded from monoracial groups for a lot of reasons, and some of those are reasons that we Never know, because they don't include you in the conversation. So with mono racism, I think it's one of the best terms that try that describes and it takes people, it gives there's a moment where, where people have to really think about, what is it saying and how does it apply to me? Yeah. And with mono racism, it's one of the best terms to kind of start with, in my opinion, to then understand the ways that as a mixed person, you are on the receiving end of oppression too. There's oppression and there's also privilege. And so that's the hard part about the duality of the work, is that as mixed people and as military. So people, we have to recognize our privileges, yes, because our monoracial brothers and sisters are on the receiving end of a lot of targeted discrimination and oppression, and they receive that in a very different way than somebody who's more racially ambiguous, because you can use your privileges of how you talk, sound, potentially look in ways that can privilege you over somebody who is monoracial. And so I say that to say that there's empathy around how people like us who are mixed can apply understanding to monoracial folks who are oppressed, yeah, but at the same time we are oppressed too. It's not about oppression Olympics either, because that's a term that's often used in social justice conversation. Sure, it's not about who's more oppressed, but I think it's important to recognize ways in which mixed people are on the out, like they're not actually a part of the conversation or left out where in life, home, I talked about having a voice that was muted. A lot of the mixed race community feels like there is no community because there's no voice for me. There's a reason for it.

Shawna  

I absolutely agree, yeah. And I do want to ask you a little bit more about the privileges piece as well, because I did a study recently, and one of the questions I asked folks as I was exploring, like, what does it mean to be mixed race at work, there's a lot of sociology papers, there's studies books, lots of things that come from the aspect, the social aspect family, but there isn't much out there. Or there's even things like your work, where we're looking at higher education and so on. But what about when you're in the workforce, and especially for spaces like diversity, equity, inclusion, where even in dei they're excluded. When you think about like affinity groups or employee resource groups, and there's people that are like, Yeah, well, which 1am I supposed to go to because I I'm not this or that, I'm all of this. And so one of the questions I asked was, in what ways do you experience your identity as being an advantage to you. In other words, what privileges Do you have? And what I did not ask in the study, but I think it would be interesting to talk with you about is negotiating both of those advantages and disadvantages, or privileges and the oppression, especially since it's so unique, I'm going to stack a little bit. So that's one thing, but the other thing that comes to mind, as you described mono racism and this idea that it really privileges folks from a monoracial group, even though some of those groups are also experiencing oppression, it made me start to think about how folks also try to negotiate gender. For example, we're so used to a binary, yeah, of man and woman, male, female, etc. And then, as you know, people began to teach us more and more about what it means to be non binary, or folks who are in the trans community, etc, it's hard to wrap your brain around something if you've only been socialized to understand this binary. And I think the same is true for race and ethnicity. If we're used to those five buckets or the Pentagon, as you call it.

Speaker 1  

It's called an ethno racial pentagon. Yeah, I think of it

Shawna  

basically as the same sort of ways we are trying to reprogram our brains to accept ambiguity where we're not used to it. So there's that. But back to negotiating these spaces where you hold both privilege and oppression, especially when you're with folks who are like, how could you possibly know what oppression is like? Do you have any thoughts to share on that for folks who do try to juggle both, or try to hold both of these realities?

Speaker 1  

Yeah. I mean, I think maybe the best example that I can think of at the moment right now, might be related to like traveling. So for example, I studied abroad in Madrid, Spain for a period of time when I was in college. And I remember in Spain, I tried my best just to speak Spanish like the entire time. Try to really immerse myself in kind of the culture language experiences there. But yet, people would make assumptions on how I looked, but then the moment I opened my mouth, they would be like, Oh, we can hear like, there's another accent there. But they appreciated that I could speak Spanish, right? I think there's privilege in some ways, of how I could walk around in different perspectives there, without necessarily being pick pocketed or bothered, in ways that my other American students who might appear different looking like less like their community, there were some privileges there. That's one example, I think traveling. But then when I've traveled abroad, to the Caribbean in particular, and let's say I've been in, I've been in Trinidad a couple of times as a younger person, even not not Now recently, but years ago. I. Remember going to, like, a grocery store and checking out with my aunt, for example, at this local store, and the person there was kind of giving me a hard time. And I'm like, why are they giving me a hard time? It's because they hear my American accent. But then my aunt, like, steps in and kind of negotiates the dynamic there to be able to help me out. And I remember feeling very flustered in that moment because the person made a comment, something about me being American and me, I took a I took a almost offense to it, not about being American, but feeling like an outsider within and that's what I experience a lot traveling, especially in a place where I feel cultural connection to family and what I know and slang, or in things that are being discussed, or things of that nature, but you feel still outward like not part of the community, and that's still very much part of the experience at times. Yeah, that

Shawna  

tracks. I've I've told a story a couple of times about my children who, you know, I'm married to a white man, said my children are a mixed race, and they are read to be white all the time. Both of them identify as being mixed, although my son, my oldest, often says that, just to save time, because he doesn't feel like explaining at all, he'll just, you know, usually will just say he's white unless it comes up in conversation. But when it does come up in conversation, what's very interesting is he also you talked about your mother, he he connects to my side of the family more than my husband's side of the family. Who's Who's white, my side of the family is black family. And there are things that he says or things that he understands or relates when he's in the black community that shock people. They're like, how do you know that? What's that? And he'll be like, Well, my mom, and they're looking at him, you know, with his blue eyes and blonde hair and whatnot and and they're like, Yeah, this isn't tracking, you know. And he has often expressed frustration, especially because he's a drag performer, and a lot of drag artists want to bring their culture out into their artwork. And he's like, I don't feel like I can do that, because then I'd be accused of cultural appropriation, because I don't look like I should be saying these things or knowing these things. So what you say makes sense as I connected to his stories, as he's explained it, right? Like I feel this way I connect with this. I just don't look like it, and that makes it kind of tough when you're in community,

Speaker 1  

yeah. And the thing is, even around Trinidad, like I feel like I could walk around there potentially in the same way, almost like in Spain. But again, as soon as I open my mouth, it gives a dead giveaway that I'm American, right? There's nothing wrong with being American. Of course, I I am American, and that is what it is. And I'm, I have a privilege of being American, I understand that in the context of the global region and world, right? But at the same time, it's, uh, you wrestle with where you belong and where you feel community, right, charm and connection and belonging, which I think is a big part of the mixed race communities. Where do you belong? Yes,

Shawna  

absolutely. I think this would be a good time to transition into the work that you do. I just wonder if you could maybe start talking a little bit about your study and what you gathered just at a high level.

Speaker 1  

Yeah. I mean, I say I think what's interesting about the work that I've done with mixed race and college multiracial students, a lot of them, at the very beginning of figuring out if they wanted to be a part of this study was to share my background as a researcher and somebody doing this work in mixed and multiracial like studies, I wanted to make sure that that was for grounded like in the conversation with them, and I did that in all of my recruitment materials, and as they connected with me, to figure out again, making sure that I honor their voice and their stories first and foremost, because I think that's a really crucial part. So the last study that I did was my dissertation. At this point, it's it's getting a little dated. I feel it's been about five years since I completed my dissertation study, and as a scholar practitioner, I haven't been running any current studies right now in the mixed and multiracial population, because a bigger part of my job is different focused, but my background and research still remains an intent on supporting students. So the study that I did was interviewing students that identified with at least two racial backgrounds, they had to fit the criteria of having some understanding of racial justice or social justice, and I did a two part approach where I did a pre survey that kind of helped me find the right criteria for. Were the study, and it was a qualitative study, a critical inquiry, qualitative study, which that means that the researchers like really intentional and finding the narrative story behind the individuals that you interview. And I interviewed 15 students, and then from there, I individually had conversations with them, and certain groups of students were invited to a focus group, and in that focus group, I focused more specifically on racial justice involvement and student activism. And the idea behind that was to try to get a sense of their critical consciousness, so their awareness of what that is, and I came up with a new definition around multiracial consciousness, but I'll explain briefly what critical consciousness is.

Shawna  

Yes, I was going to ask you to break it down for us.

Speaker 1  

Yeah, so for critical consciousness, it was written originally by the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire. So critical consciousness just relates to how relationships with humans relate to other parts of individuals in the world. The big part of FRES work was to shift intentionally away the focus from a knowledge construct that was more liberating and humanizing, right? So he came up with three different parts of his original theory. There's three levels, the semi intransitive consciousness, where you are basically silent, the naive transit consciousness, where you're like, starting to become aware, so you're a little naive about it, but you start to recognize those oppression and there's transformative, resistant consciousness where you're like, I'm going to resist. I'm going to actually change the conditions that I'm in. I'm going to do something about this. And so in higher education, what I did with this study is kind of look at, how do my students describe this who are mixed or multiracial? Does it describe their experience in any way? And so with the 15 students that I interviewed, you know, I looked at this concept more and developed multiracial consciousness.

Shawna  

Yeah, just like we talked about earlier, the mixed race experience, or multiracial experience, has been largely left out. So I think it's awesome that you explored that has your work somehow contributed to what you've done as a professional in other organizations, your dissertation and so on, but who are president of critical mixed race Studies Association, for example, and a couple of other associations that you've been affiliated with? How do all of these pieces come together for you.

Speaker 1  

The dissertation was like a culminating piece, right? Because that occurred kind of before my presidency with the critical mixed race Studies Association. So I did. I started the presidency there 2022 when I finished in 24 Okay, and so I remember necessarily thinking, Am I ready to be a part of this sensation, this big of a leadership role, right? But I had some really great conversations with the then vice president who encouraged me to apply. That was Kelly Jackson, who's a social work professor at Arizona State University, and she's done a lot of really awesome work as well in the social work field, specifically looking at mixed and multiracial individuals. I guess that culminated in me getting more involved once I finished the dissertation and kind of felt like I've reached some of the professional side of what I was doing. I feel like when you're in academia, there's always, like a constant battle with yourself, of like, Am I ready for this kind of thing? Am I ready to take a stance on some type of leadership component. I think

Shawna  

that's just real life. Yeah, we do that to ourselves.

Speaker 1  

I think as women, that's probably part of it, too, and then we're probably a little bit of imposter syndrome a little bit along the way. But I guess my involvement with the other organizations like the American College personnel association that stemmed through my time in graduate school, okay? And then from there, I kind of moved towards some other professional opportunities within that larger Association, because there's lots of volunteer ways you can get involved with volunteerism there. And then the critical mixed race studies group came at a time when I was looking for something else professionally to kind of connect to. And I had, I had loved the experiences I had at the critical mixed race studies conferences in Chicago when I went for the first time in 2012 and then went every two years after that, presenting my work as a grad student and meeting with people and connecting more. And it was really transformative space before I worked on multiracial consciousness, right? Like I I had worked with the multiracial network, which is now the multiracial and transracial adoptee network, and I did a lot of my initial growth as a leader there. And then you start to realize the circles are small, right? So you meet people in that space. They're also involved in the critical mixed race Studies Association. They might also be involved in encore, the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity and American higher education. And so the same kind of people are on the different circuits in academia. At least, we all know each other as we meet and present each other's like work or critique each other's work too, and write pieces that you start to get to know the people behind the citations of the folks that are doing the work. And you know, little by little, I started to develop connections with everybody. And the critical mixed race Studies Association is the most interdisciplinary one. So I know Higher Education Scholarship really well, because that's my field. But then adjacent mixed and multiracial scholarship is very interdisciplinary. You've got folks writing in sociology, history, psychology, social work, medicine, public health. You know, there's all these different stratifications of how you look at mixed and multiracial people and population. So that's why I think the critical mixed race Studies Group is the best Association. Is the best way to situate yourself as a parent, as an ally, as somebody who's just coming, to reconcile your own identity. It's a great place. There's different caucus group spaces that you can join.

Shawna  

Just about anybody can go and feel like there's something there for them, and I think that includes parents. You know, some of the listeners of this show are folks who wouldn't identify as being mixed race, but they maybe are in an interracial relationship, perhaps they have children who are mixed race or whatnot. So I think it's also important to note that you don't have to identify a certain way to be part of a community and to learn about it. But given that, as we talk about parents, I'd like to ask about you being a mom among all these things that you do, maybe you could share a little bit about what it is like raising children who are mixed race. Just in some prior exchanges you and I have had that that's something that's pretty important to you, to relate to folks. Yeah,

Speaker 1  

I think it's important too, for a lot of reasons, in helping your child at every stage of their racial identity development and their own development as a child, like age wise, like, I think a lot of people think, but when's the right time to talk to my child about race, right? That's a question that I have heard, and also being a part of different like parent groups, I think it's never too early to talk to your child about race. I mean, babies know the different in distinctions between family members and skin tone, but don't know how to actually contextualize or talk about that, right? Because, again, they can't physically like talk yet, but they do know and recognize that there are differences. They don't place that in any hierarchy or good or bad, but it just it is. But as you learn and grow, there's outside messages that your child will receive about how they physically look, and that could come from anywhere from family members, it could come from teachers peers, about what they look like or where they should be categorized or placed, or where they're from, is the question all the time. And so as a parent, it's our job to try to stay as educated as possible and to be as open as possible, to explore the ways in which your child may come to you with these questions about, why is my skin this color like mommy? Why is your skin darker than mine or lighter than mine? Or the same thing for their father, right? So my partner, my husband, is also of white Irish descent, and so my children are more racially ambiguous. They, I think, depending on the time of the year, may look more white appearing right now we are in the thick of winter, so you know, their skin tone is probably getting to is a bit lighter. And then during summer, spring they they're a little bit darker and complexion. And so, you know, comments that I get sometimes are, oh, they're so tan, you know. Or even me growing up, I've gotten comments like, why are you so tan? I'm like, Don't you know that? I'm, like, fixed. I'm not exactly just one thing. But I think as parents, it's good to read books for your children that that connect the dots between mixed race and being mixed. There's lots of books now that parents can access in ways that I didn't have as a child. I don't recall reading anything as a child that was about being mixed, nothing. And I think nowadays there's definitely a ton. There's a ton of books now. Now my children are young. They're at this point, they're four and one and a half, right? So where they're they're going to remember these conversations. I you know, again, it's nothing that we just dwell on, but I think it's important just for exposure, and then over the years, as they mature and they develop, being prepared to have these conversations about race is something that I will have to continuously be prepared. Were in some ways and other ways I won't be prepared for depending on what they experience.

Shawna  

Yeah, it's awesome that there are so many more resources. You know, you mentioned growing up. I'm like, I'm thinking, I can't recall any books either. But the truth of the matter is, I also wasn't looking for them. And I'm not sure that my my parents were looking for them either at that time, I feel like we've gotten to a very interesting place in the US right now, when it comes to talking about race, because there is still a little bit of, I don't want to say taboo. It's more like it's associated with being divisive, so people don't want to talk about it. But at the same time, I feel like the younger generations are so much more comfortable talking about it, yeah, that there are more of these resources available, just for that reason. And

Speaker 1  

the thing is that's important that I've learned about working with young children and families is that the much like an adult working through identifying their mixed and multiracial heritage, you only know what you know right, and that you go through your own process of coming to terms with your racial identity 100% I think the same thing with with children, right? There are some points where they might identify more with their monoracial racial heritages, right? There might be a point where my son identifies more with his whiteness over his Trinidadian culture and heritage, right? That's something that, as a parent, I have to be ready to kind of reconcile with. And as I've had these conversations with some families, they feel a different type of way about that. Well, they're negating me if they don't actually, you know, connect in this way. There are certain experiences that are going to point out to us more, that we are one thing over another, when, in fact, the beautiful part about being mixed is being able to hold those complexities right. It's both and which is what I tell people all the time. And as you describe your children, instead of saying I'm half black or I'm half white, no, I'm black and white. It's just a very simple description that changes the connection between your racial heritages. Without saying I'm a quarter this, I'm a half this, like we're not we're not that, right? And I am this and this and this, or identify this way and this way. Instead of saying I'm half black, I'm half white or half what have you, insert your racial heritages in there. That's something that I, as I meet other mixed families like, try to gently tell them it's this way you should think about it, in this way, as opposed to this fractionalized language. I

Shawna  

love that you say that. I think that that is so important and it's very difficult to reprogram because, for much of the same reason that I am still at this age, figuring out what this means for me and my identity. A lot of it has to do with Hypo descent or the one drop rule, where, as a black family, you know, when I would talk to my mother about it, listeners have heard me say this a million times, so those who have been around a while, but it's so true and it's so important to how I have come to be I keep saying it as if it's over, it's not over. I'm still working through it. But I was raised as a black girl growing into a black woman, and then, like I did, those DNA tests, right? And they come back as percentages. What's very interesting is I used two companies. Neither of them use race. They all say here are geographic locations where your ancestry likely came from, but we ought we, I'm we being me and whoever else has done this automatically connected it to some sort of race, because our society has drilled into us that there's value and hierarchy in some of these. So you're like, Well, what does this percentage mean for me and so on? So to undo that is hard work, and to see yourself as a whole, even though even these companies will say this is the whole you, you still pick apart these fractions, and it's a terrible thing to do to yourself, and I love that you're helping parents not pass that along, so that they're not teaching their children in that same way, because it makes it very difficult to see yourself as a whole person holding all of these things, and like you said, this complexity at the same time. So I can truly appreciate that.

Speaker 1  

And I think the other thing as parents like too, that's important to do is to make sure that your kids connect to the cultural pieces that you can help provide like for your child. So if it's the food that your cultural heritages would specifically eat, preparing food that your children can then taste and understand and know, that's a big part of it. If it's any other like cultural customs, whether that's religious affiliated or um. Um, you know, related to specific holidays that where you know your family to be descendants from your ancestors, from like doing your research, even if you don't personally know your story, but doing this self guided research, or talking to other people as part of the community to help you understand more. What I've often heard from mixed individuals, when one of their parents passes, who was the connector to them, to that cultural place or space, they also feel in that grieving process, a loss of where they're connected to be right. And I think about that when my grandmother passed and when my grandfather passed, who were Trinidadian. Like, my connection to Trinidad is different now. I have aunts and uncles and cousins that are there, and I can still obviously go and visit, and I plan and intend to bring my children soon to visit the island, but I think it's very different now. And so I also say, if you have those family members still with, you talk to them. What was it like growing up where they grew up? It doesn't even have to be different country. It could be just part of the US, sure, like where you grew up, you know, figuring out those stories, thinking about the oral histories of what you do know what you don't know, you can try to fill in with just understanding what the cultural context was or is, and then be on your own journey to figure that out personally, your connection to but with your family that you still have, that are cheer with you in this world. Ask them these questions about their heritage, their culture, what is meaningful to them, how they grew up, like how do they understand themselves in the place and time that they were in that helps place you as somebody who has multiple mixed heritages? Well,

Shawna  

thank you so much for this conversation. They're always so meaningful to me. I learn something every time, and I'm always hoping listeners get even a little bit more as we're starting to wrap up, before we talk about where folks can find you and learn more about the work that you do and so on, is there anything that maybe I haven't asked you, that you think folks should know, or that you'd like to add to the conversation? I

Speaker 1  

mean, I would just say, for me, it was important that in doing this podcast and talking to you, is just to tell people that it's important to think through how you want to learn about the mixed and multiracial community and know that there's avenues to connect. And we did talk a bit about the critical mixed race Studies Association, and I think that that's the best place to start. And I think if I were somebody new to the mixed community, either identifying as multiracial, figuring that out, or a parent of a mixed child, like go to the association, check out ways to engage. I think that's a big part of my story too. Is my own coming to terms with who I am and who I will continue to be and how that connects to me, both personally and professionally, in the multiple, you know, hats that I hold,

Shawna  

yeah, no, I love that. Speaking of your multiple hats, where can people find you and what are you up to? Yeah,

Speaker 1  

so I work at Columbia University, as was named earlier, but where you can really find me is in my consulting space, if you're interested in connecting more so either through your organization or through higher education, if you've come to find out more about me, but you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn just under my name, Victoria Melanie Brown, v and b Coaching and Consulting is under Instagram or on LinkedIn through my name.

Shawna  

Thank you again. This was super valuable, and I've really enjoyed it. I appreciate you coming on. Thank

you for having me My pleasure.

Shawna  

Hey, y'all, this conversation was packed with insights and perspectives that I'm sure will resonate with so many of you. Dr. Malaney-Brown's reflections on identity, belonging and community remind us of how important it is to explore the stories that make us who we are, no matter who we are. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to check out the show notes for all the resources and links we talked about. You can connect with Dr. Malaney-Brown on Instagram or LinkedIn and learn more about her consulting work through VMB coaching and consulting. As always, I love hearing from you. There's a link in the show notes where you can message me directly with your thoughts, questions or suggestions. Let's keep the conversations going. Also, don't forget to follow the podcast on Instagram for more updates and behind the scenes content. And hey, if you haven't already, check out my website, at trueculture consulting.com and join the email list to stay updated on exciting news, including the upcoming launch of my book. I'll also be sharing more of my own journey through my Instagram page, so follow along there too. You. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected and keep embracing your true colors. Spread the Love y'all. I'll talk to you soon.