What about the Children? Five Values for Multiracial Families with Nicole Doyley

Episode Description:

Nicole Doyley’s life and writing centre on one key question: What about the children?

In this episode, Nicole reflects on growing up in a biracial family, her evolving racial identity, and the parenting values she developed as a result. She discusses transracial adoption, the impact of Black History Month, how culture shapes resilience, and why awareness and humility are essential for any caregiver.

Nicole shares her family’s story, from her parents’ marriage in the 1960s (when their marriage was still illegal in some states) to her own cross-cultural marriage to a Jamaican man, and how these experiences shaped her understanding of race, belonging, and what it means to be “seen.”

Key Themes

• The power of bilingual and bicultural identity
• Leadership lessons from aged care, finance, and suicide prevention
• Changing minds: how experience reshapes perspective
• Balancing data with lived experience in policy work
• Grief, care, and learning from family

Guest:

•  Nicole Doyley is an author and podcast host whose latest book, What About the Children? Five Values for Multiracial Families draws from her personal and professional experiences. Nicole grew up in a biracial family, served as a campus pastor, and now helps parents and communities navigate race, identity, and parenting with honesty and cultural awareness.

Host: 

• Dr. Tony Pisani: Dr. Tony Pisani is a professor, clinician, and founder of SafeSide Prevention, leading its mission to build safer, more connected military, health, education, and workplace communities.

Referenced Resources (Timestamped):

• Nicole Doyley – What About the Children? Five Values for Multiracial Families
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – The Danger of a Single Story
• The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
• Lecrae – story of racial identity, healing, and therapy
• U.S. Census – changes to allow multiple racial identities (2000)
• Nicole's podcast – First a Man: growing up in a Black nation (featuring her husband Marvin)

Tony: Welcome to Never the Same, a podcast that explores how influential people and their ideas change over time. Today, I am happy to welcome Nicole Doyley, the author of "What About The Children?: Five Values for Multiracial Families". Nicole is a wise and thoughtful person, one of the most articulate people I've ever met.

The conversation is very practical and also went deep and personal at times, touching on aspects of interracial relationships that are not often discussed. Finally, I'm a faculty member at the University of Rochester. This podcast is separate from my work there, but part of the same mission to bring useful research and resources to the public.

So, please listen to my conversation with Nicole Doyley. Nicole, you have written this book: "What about the children? Five Values for, Multiracial Families", and I'm grateful that we could have a chance to talk about this book, as well as your whole varied and interesting career. But I wonder if we could start with, if you could just explain what do you mean by multiracial families?

Nicole: I'm thinking about any family where mom and dad are different races. So mom could be Black. I just talked to a couple where mom was Black Trinidadian and dad is Chinese. Or, a couple who's white and Korean, or Black and Hispanic, or just where couples are two different races, two or more different races.

There could be a biracial mom and a monoracial dad. Two or more races coming from two different cultures.

Tony: Okay.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: Now, I know that part of this interest comes from your own experience. And I saw from the book and know, but from our own friendship that you grew up in Brooklyn.

Could you share about that background that motivates you?

Nicole: Yeah. So my dad is deceased, but he was Black and my mom is white. He grew up in Harlem, and she in small town Pennsylvania, and just through a lot of different weird circumstances, they met in Colorado Springs and married in 1962 when it was illegal in half the country for them to be married.

And they actually left Colorado Springs because of racism. They received death threats once they were married and they moved to Brooklyn, which is where I was born. So my birthplace really has everything to do with race. So I was born in the mid 60's–I'm giving away my age–and, I, my parents received some advice that they were worried that the name of the book is What About the Children? because that's what my mom asked when my dad proposed, was like, "What about the children?" And they received some advice that, well as long as your kids are loved, they'll be fine. And so that's how they raised us. We knew we were loved, but actually love is not enough. And my parents did a lot of wonderful things, but they did not intentionally talk to my sister and me about race and racial identity.

Tony: Before we go on, I just have to follow up on the...

Nicole: yeah.

Tony: "Through a lot of weird circumstances they met in Colorado Springs."

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: Can you say a little bit about that?

Nicole: Yeah. My mom had moved to Colorado Springs. She had some really close friends, family friends there. She was fleeing a negative relationship.

And my dad was in the Army and he was stationed at Fort Carson. So they met, I think my mom was a YMCA clerk, and I don't know, they met and they started dating and a lot of their dates were at the Black Elks Club because they weren't really welcome other places. So that's where they happened to meet a biracial young man and my dad had proposed and my mom was like, I don't know, because of this whole thing of what about the kids?

And so they talked to this biracial man and my mom was like, what is it like being biracial? And he said, as long as your kids are loved, it'll be fine.

Tony: Was there a word for that, biracial, at the time?

Nicole: I think so? I mean, there, right. There's been a lot of different iterations. The old school negative iterations is Mulatto.

Mulatto is most Black and white kids don't wanna be called Mulatto, 'cause in Spanish it means mule, half horse-half donkey. And you know who gets to be the horse and who gets to be the donkey? So a lot of, most Black-white kids have rejected that. But, so I actually don't know what, was the norm in 1962, but...

Tony: Yeah. And, related to that, this is I'm sure many people who are watching or listening have a family member or a friend, or if they're not themselves, in a multiracial family and my understanding is, and I think I've seen some numbers about this that is increasingly common.

And so I'm wondering from your perspective, one of the, one of the things that we explore on this podcast is how things change, called Never The Same. What do you see changing in just based on the fact that this is just much more common?

Nicole: Yeah. It's, mixed race people are the fastest growing demographic. So I'm the future face of America, this racial

Tony: That's a good sign.

Nicole: Yeah. Sort of this racial ambiguity. So yes. So some things are changing and some things aren't changing fast enough. That's the book. So I think the things that aren't changing fast enough is that, generation after generation of parents are thinking that love is enough.

And so even though I was born several decades ago, and things have changed, there's mixed-race people still feel there's a high rate of anxiety about racial identity. Feeling like they have to choose one parent over another. Not knowing, sort of feeling like they're on the outside looking in at life.

So, part of the motivation for writing the book is like I said, love is not enough, and here's some suggestions. I think one of the things that is changing is that even though some worry about, okay, do I, am I Black? Am I white? Do I have to pick one parent over the other? There's a growing movement of mixed-race people saying I am both or I am all. And the 2020, 20, no? 2000 or 2020, I can't remember–census finally catch, it was 2000 census, caught up with that and finally had mixed race as a choice because up until then you had to pick one or the other, or other.

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: So.

Tony: I've definitely seen that, we do a lot of work in schools.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: And do these kind of school-wide assessment surveys. And there is, it does the prompt does say, you can check more than one, but they don't always read those instructions. And almost every single classroom people are like, I'm not just one of these. Which one is it? And sometimes it makes me think are these categories really that useful? And even when we go to analyze these data, I think it's very difficult to make heads or tails of some of these categories when for example, we report number of people who are Black. And then number of people who are more than one race but a big portion of those who are more than one race are also Black.

It's kind of like,

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: What?

Nicole: Yes. Yes.

Tony: It's, I feel like there's some updating needed or?

Nicole: Yeah. I think a lot of that comes from this one drop rule.

Tony: Yeah, say more about that?

Nicole: Yeah, so America is a wonderful place. But it is not a perfect place. And the way I think of America is like a tree where I don't know if this is biologically possible, but a tree where part of the root system is great and part of the root system is rotten.

And I think the rotten part of the root system is white supremacy. So this idea that white people and white culture is superior. And once you have an idea of a superior race, you wanna keep that race pure. So in 1920 when there were, there've always been mixed-race Americans because a lot of rape happened on slave plantations.

And in 1920s, okay this is 50 years after the Civil War. Who exactly is white and who exactly is Black, if this person is light skinned? And this desire to keep the white race pure basically led to if you have, "one drop of black blood, you're Black." So that means if you have any African American features, hair texture, skin color, nose, whatever if you have any Black features, you can't be white because white has to be pure.

You have to be Black. Or if anybody knows that your great-grandmother probably, it would be mother, great-grandmother was Black, then you have to be Black. So it all came out of this desire, white could only be pure European which was ridiculous too because of all the rape on the slave plantations a lot of white people had a Black great, great-grandmother. But so this desire to keep the white race pure, I think led to this "If I'm white and Black, I have to be Black. If I'm white and Hispanic, I have to be Hispanic." So it led to this, you had to choose, you took the lower status, the lower social status. Yeah so that sort of is the root of the problem in a lot of ways.

Tony: Okay. So just to dwell here for just one more minute on these terms? Because I think people are genuinely confused about that. Also not sure, I think people also get nervous around this topic. You don't wanna say the wrong thing. So for you, do you consider yourself black?

Nicole: Yeah, I consider myself Black. I consider myself biracial. So I think of myself as Black and white. I'm trying to get away from the sort of pie chart like 50/50 because it's...

Tony: That seems kind of silly.

Nicole: Because we're not pie charts.

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: But if I have long enough in a conversation, I would say I'm Black and white or sometimes I just say I'm a Black woman because I am a Black woman who is also white.

Tony: Yeah. And biracial.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: So I think it's helpful to say that, as we're talking, in a certain way these are not categories. They're when depending upon the perspective or the context, a person might be speaking about themselves or another person, pretty almost, not interchangeably but these, you might look at yourself or a child from one of these perspectives or another.

That in a moment you might say, I'm a Black woman or you might wanna say I'm a biracial woman or you might say... woman. It's not really have to be either or?

Nicole: Yes. Yeah.

Tony: And I think that can be helpful I think, as we go forward into the conversation that you know, people who are viewing or listening aren't getting stuck in that, and what did she mean by it? So, going back to growing up, in your book you described some of the I guess ways that growing up in that environment shaped you. Can you talk about that?

Nicole: Yeah. So like I said, my parents loved us but they weren't intentional about talking to us about being Black women or biracial women and talking about what that meant and when I, we grew up in a big apartment building in Park Slope, Brooklyn and that was full of African Americans, Latin Americans, and white Hippies. This was the sixties.

And so when I was outside playing with the Black kids they let me know very quickly, well you're not really Black, you're not Black enough. 'cause my mom, typical White woman, did not know how to do our hair so it was always a hot mess. And I started playing piano and I loved classical music. And they were like, what kind of White music is that? And I just didn't fit in with the Black kids.

And so when I was old enough I started hanging out with white friends who lived in the Multi-million dollar Brownstones surrounding our apartment building.

I started hanging out with those white kids and that was fine, they didn't seem to talk about race they seemed quote-unquote, colorblind. I didn't really feel like I fit in with them because we were very much working class and they were wealthy but they didn't make me feel like I didn't fit in, until adolescence happened and we all kinda got boy crazy and boys entered the

scenes and the boys were like, I'm not dating you. And then all of a sudden I'm like, "I'm not white enough either". So I'm not Black, I'm not white. I don't fit anywhere?

Tony: Do you remember like a specific moment about that?

Nicole: Yeah, I remember having a crush on a white boy and just it and he specifically, 'cause you never know if when somebody doesn't like you back, you never know exactly the reason?

But he specifically,

Tony: especially at that age.

Nicole: Yeah especially at 14 or 15, whatever it was. He specifically said, "I like you but I could never introduce you to my parents." So, let's not do this kind of thing. So I knew that was the reason. Yeah.

Tony: That's so painful to hear.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I think you know at that age, adolescent angst and crushes and people not liking you back of course is, difficult. But I think when the reason has to do with the skin that you're wrapped in, it is particularly deep because it's affirming what America is screaming anyway which is that white is better. And if you're not white you're not as good. So when somebody doesn't like you because you're not white it sort of affirms that, white supremacy.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. Now your path has taken you to many different kinds of environments. I think one of the rich things about your perspective and the wisdom that you bring is that you've moved in many different spaces. So I know that Brooklyn was one of them but so was Dartmouth College. Can you talk about your experience there?

Nicole: Yeah. So that was a wonderful thing. This Brooklyn kid getting accepted to this Ivy League school and that was really wonderful and...

Tony: And for those who don't know or are listening internationally, Dartmouth is one of the, one of the best colleges in the country.

Nicole: Yeah and it's in Lily White, New Hampshire. But typical of colleges, especially elite colleges, Dartmouth draws from all over the world. And so it's very it's this diverse pool, oasis in a very white state. And so, when I went there, I started to make Black friendships with people who didn't care that I liked classical music, they did too. And they also liked gospel music

and R&B and you know, so they didn't have this sort of monolithic idea of what if this is what it means to be Black, and if you're not, that you're not Black. It was much more expansive. As a matter of fact, one of my close friends, Black friends was a Chinese major and she spoke fluent Chinese.

And I still use the Bible that she gave me where she inscribed a message in Chinese characters. I think she gave it for a birthday present so, it said something like, "happy birthday" or what, whatever? But so a Chinese speaking Black person, so all of a sudden it's not oh, you don't braid your hair or you don't know how to jump Double Dutch or so you're not Black?

No, Black is much bigger than that. So just this acceptance from Black peers and I sang in the gospel choir surrounded by beautiful Black women and I was like, man, I started to feel proud of being Black as well as beginning, I took African American literature. I was an English major, took African American literature classes and started to read, Frederick Douglas and Malcolm X.

And I was like, these people were brilliant. So a pride began to grow in me- that I was happy that I'm black.

Yeah.

Tony: And were those things that you talked about with your parents?

Nicole: Not really. This was obviously before the internet. So I had my weekly conversations,

Tony: Yeah, call collect.

Nicole: on the payphone, the dorm payphone with my mom or dad but we didn't really get in into that. I think they saw that as I went home for Christmas or whatever, they saw changes in me but I don't think anybody ever articulated what those changes were.

Tony: When did you start talking with your parents about either your feelings growing up or some of these things that you were discovering?

Nicole: I mean unfortunately I never, my dad died right after I graduated from college so I never had an opportunity to talk to him about race as far as I'm concerned. I mean he did, we would spar over the dinner table when I was a teenager about Martin Luther King and, he went to the March on Washington, so he would tell me about that.

So we had conversations about being Black in America and but he, it never went very deep in terms of he grew up in Harlem in the 1940s and I have no idea, I could imagine what that was like but I have no idea what that was like 'cause he never talked about it. And my grandparents never talked about being Black in the 1920s.

I think sometimes with that generation of Black people there's so much pain. And I think it's not just Black people, I think immigrants who immigrate from War - Torn Countries or just leave in under harrowing circumstances. There's so much pain there you just wanna leave it behind and I think that was certainly the case with my with my parents and I think to large extent to my dad too. So he would watch Muhammad Ali boxing and talk about how great he was and stuff like that. So there was some Black culture in our home but talking about Black identity and racism just didn't happen very much.

Tony: So, what next after that eye-opening and rich experience at Dartmouth?

Nicole: Well, umm I wound up staying in that community for almost 20 years.

Tony: It was that good.

Nicole: It was, there was different, it was full of angst in lots of different ways but I joined the staff of a church and I became a campus pastor. It was, that's for another day, that journey of, going from English major to full-time ministry.

But I became a campus pastor and led outreaches and there were visiting professors from other countries and we started teaching English as a second language classes for the visiting profs and for their wives. It was usually wives. So, you know I wound up on that church staff for a long time and so I, because it was a diverse community I always had white friends but

I also always had Black and other friends of color because there were always, even as I got older there were graduate students and there was faculty and I wound up marrying one of the faculty but anyway, that's, we could get to there,

Tony: Okay.

Nicole: later. But I grew up in a politically liberal home and Dartmouth is a liberal place and the church was conservative and at there was, so there was always like my white Brownstone friends, a sense of acceptance but not really feeling like I'm totally one of you. With my white Brownstone friends it's 'cause I wasn't rich enough and now it's 'cause I'm not conservative

enough. So it was just skirting around conversations and but I think over the years, a growing discomfort with, well if I'm a Christian why do I have to be a Republican and that was the days of apartheid and demonstrations at Dartmouth to divest from South Africa and I was sort of on the pro- divestment side and a lot of people were on the anti- divestment side.

So, that was the years of Rodney King being beaten by police and I remember thinking, okay I understand being passionate about the baby in the womb but can't we also be passionate about Rodney King being beaten up by police? And so it's just this a kind of a growing, a slow boil. On the one hand feeling like this is where I'm supposed to be, I’m doing good.

But on the other hand, I don't totally fit here, either. So, but I didn't wind up leaving until I met my husband and he got offered a tenure track position at the U of R so,

Tony: That's the University of Rochester where we are here.

Nicole: University of Rochester. Yeah. Yeah.

Tony: Okay. So did you discuss that with the people at the church at the time?

Nicole: Sometimes. So you know I remember having conversations with the senior pastor. I remember I would preach Sunday sermons too sometimes but I remember with one of his sermons, I can't remember what the topic was but he talked about the 1960s as sort of a sermon illustration. He talked about the 60s in a very disparaging ways, the sex, drugs and rock and roll part of the 1960s. And I talked to him afterwards and I said, so do you realize there's a whole other side of the 1960s?

And I talked about, the March on Washington and the Edmund Pettus Bridge and if it weren't for what happened in the 1960s I probably wouldn't be here. And that was just eye-opening, he had never considered that.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah,

Nicole: There were some really important things that happened for black people and not just Black people. The Civil Rights Act really helped a lot of people.

Tony: For our country.

Nicole: Yeah, for our country. So yeah it sort of, I think I had a lot of conversations like that. Sort of trying to drag people out of the conservative evangelical mindset into there's another way of looking at our history.

Tony: Yeah. There's a lot that I want to unpack there. One of them is that, speaking of like Never The Same, one of the things that has really just been in the last couple of years, I guess I don't know ashamed to say, is that I only recently started thinking about and realizing that those things that you just described as happening are part of like 'my history'.

And maybe it was because it was taught as like part of Black History month. And so, I don't know maybe just as a without, before I started thinking about these things it just got put into a category that Martin Luther King is part of Black history and I've just more recently through some experiences that I've had internationally actually, started realizing that's part of my history, that's part of our country's history.

It's part of what I am so grateful happened and there's more, it's not that everything's all,

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: done. But that is, but that's American history rather than Black history. Not that it isn't.

Nicole: Yes. No, I understand.

Tony: I'm not trying to

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: take it over or something.

Nicole: No, no.

Tony: But I just wonder [00:27:00] what your reflections on that are?

Nicole: Oh gosh, I feel really sad right now because I feel like a hundred years ago, Carter G. Woodson wrote: "The Mis-Education Of The Negro", and it was a book about how all these Black children are in school learning about how happy the slaves were and you know that it wasn't really that bad.

And, that everybody in America has the same opportunities and it's meritocracy. And so all these Black kids are learning this false history. And he started advocating for Black History Week, which finally became Black History Month. And I think Black History Month is a good midway step, but it's not the final step.

Having a month where what it's morphed into is having a month where if they're lucky kids learn about the same Black heroes, every Black history month and okay that was nice and then moving on to the really important stuff. So it is relegated to the margins and I think you're right,

I think the final step would be if this became our history. And it was infused in you know, not just in a month's worth of lessons or not just one production in the assembly but it's infused into, so you have Black invent' when you're teaching about science or whatever you're gonna talk about Black inventors.

And when you're talking about literature I mean, my oldest son is a senior and I could recall two books in all his K12 experience that were written by Black authors. So you could easily conclude subconsciously, that white people write the important books and do the important things, which...

Tony: Which they have done but, not all of them.

Nicole: Right, white people have done important things and written important books but still have Black people

Tony: yeah.

Nicole: and so have Hispanic people and so have Asian people. So, like I said, this whole thing of white supremacy that really, the important books are white people and the sort of marginal books that maybe will slip in if we have time are non-white people, it just creates that illusion.

Tony: Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, most of the time things like that start with the right direction and intention. Like Black History Month. It, seems like with something that has such a long difficult and complex history, like almost anything that you do could probably have the right direction and some wrong things in it, we wouldn't wanna like necessarily undo all of that but I think just for me that was definitely part I think part of... or another example of this, I just heard last month and it's what made me realize oh yeah, I've really changed in this regard.

I was in New Zealand and was talking with somebody who's a European New Zealander and who speaks very good, Maori. Te Reo Maori is the language that's spoken by the Maori people there and I asked him like, how did it get so good? And he's this language is part of my history here as a New Zealander, as a somebody from Aotearoa, New Zealand.

And I was like, that's what's been happening for me. With respect to our history too. And I think it's important for, I think in reading a book like this too, if your immediate family maybe is not, does not multiracial or it doesn't consider itself so, to still sort of take this on as something of your own too?

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: I don't know what section of the bookstore this is going, actually what section of the bookstore is this?

Nicole: It's written from a, I don't know. I think Parenting and Family Life? I actually don't know, I should know. I'll find out.

Tony: Alright. Yeah, you could let us know. We will have a link to the book

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: in the episode notes here and we could see at least on Amazon where

Nicole: Yeah,

Tony: where does it fall? But, yeah.

Nicole: It might be Christian living 'cause I am a Christian. It's from a Christian perspective, although I do make a sort of caveat or a qualifier in the beginning saying if you're not a Christian, these five values are very germane for you too.

Tony: Oh, yeah.

Nicole: I try to say yes, I'm running from a Christian perspective but that doesn't mean that you're gonna read this and think this has nothing to do with me.

Tony: Right, yeah. So those five values and we can jump into them a little bit. One of them, they're awareness, humility, diversity, honesty, and exploration. That definitely will resonate with people who are Christians but yeah, definitely our values that are broader than that. I'm curious about the humility one. But before I ask about humility, I did wanna bring up one other bit of context that could be really relevant to some people who are listening or watching and that is, adoption?

So one of the ways that people may have somebody of another race in their family is through adoption. Could you talk about that and how these things may apply what you had in mind about that?

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: Just maybe talk about that.

Nicole: Yeah, I should have said that in the beginning when you were asking me about the title.

But yes, multiracial families can become multiracial through interracial marriage but also through transracial adoption. And 90% of transracial adoptions are white couples adopting non-white kids. I always am, I wanna always say that there's a misnomer that Black people don't adopt kids, and that's not true.

There's, Black people have been taking in my sister's kid, my cousin's kid, my grandchild for hundreds of years. We had to, on slave plantations take in other people's kids, as they were sold. So taking in children which are not biologically your own is very much a Black thing.

It's just that formal adoption is very expensive and in general, unless you adopt through foster care and so that's just not been something that Black people do. So 90% of transracial adoptions are white parents with non-white kids. And so for one of the part of the thesis of the book is that your kids have to be proud of their ethnic heritage. And so if a child, if it is an

interracial couple and, mom is, Black and dad is Chinese, the children need to be proud of their Black heritage. They need to learn about their Black heritage. They need to learn about Black cultural values.

Mom needs to feel free to infuse that into her kids and they also need to be proud of their Chinese heritage and learn Chinese cultural values so that they can bounce back and forth between those two worlds. That if they're in a room full of Chinese people, they feel comfortable. They get the inside jokes, they know the cultural innuendos, they know the nuances,

they know how to be, they know the food. And if they're in a room full of Black people, they know how to be. And that's not gonna happen if one parent is dominating the infusion of cultural values and the other parent is kind of passive.

Tony: Yeah. That's a tall order.

Nicole: Yeah. So sorry, getting back to your question about adoption, if both parents are white it's even harder, because you can't depend on your spouse to teach your if, like it's a white couple who's adopted Black children, there's no spouse who could infuse Black culture and Black cultural values.

So the need to live in a diverse community and intentionally foster relationships that could help mentor, You and your kids is I can't say the importance of that enough. And I think too often white couples adopt Black or Korean or Chinese or Hispanic kids and continue to live in an all white world.

And there's one writer who said that's really cruel and I tend to agree. Obviously they love the child, they're not trying to be cruel

Tony: no.

Nicole: they're not being malicious but it is short-sighted because that child is Korean. They have Korean grandparents somewhere and they're wrapped in Korean skin and they have Korean ethnic features so they are not white. And yet if they're inside, if they're a white person wrapped in a Korean body, they're gonna not feel comfortable anywhere and it sort of sets them up to always feel like they're on the outside looking in.

Tony: Yeah, it does seem like you said especially challenging? It might be that nobody that they or is in their family has ever been to that country.

Nicole: aha.

Tony: I guess how does some of these values apply in that setting since we're talking about that now?

Nicole: Yeah. You asked about humility and I think part of it is realizing, John Donne the poet said "No man is an island, entire of itself" and the Bible talks about you know, and he talked about the Bible talks about our interdependence, like we need each other. So that the humility says, I do not know how to raise this child in and of myself, I need other people. And also my values aren't the only values, there are other values out there that are equally good to mine.

And so if I'm white raising a Black child and I want my Black child to be comfortable around Black people and to be proud of being Black, they have to understand, they have to understand Black people and I can't do that 'cause I'm not Black. So who can I have in my inner circle? Who could we have over for dinner all the time?

Who could tell me where the good Black barbers are? Who can mentor me what, in terms of what should I read, what should we watch together as a family, so that I could raise a healthy Black child who's not gonna subliminally wish that they were white?

Tony: Yeah. It seems in some ways that maybe that sort of positioning the child to have a choice when they get older about how they wish to, how much they wish to identify with the different cultures because it might be that somebody becomes an, they were exposed to that, they went to Korean language school and they had people over and they were in a church and all these things. But maybe later on they feel like although I appreciate my parents exposing me to that's, I'm not, I don't feel that but you given them that option. And so I wonder for families where this is maybe like a new idea that you're saying, that it could be helpful to think about that as increasing options for the child later? Because it would be, it's harder to start like acculturating yourself when you're 30 and realize that, right? Compared to if you just grew up around that.

Nicole: Yeah. Regarding adoption, I don't think the child does have a choice. I think if the child is Korean, they're Korean. I think they might marry somebody white which is fine obviously, they might have mostly white friends but if, the child is basically like, I don't wanna be Korean, that's not really an option.

Tony: Yeah, I guess, but people of all, may identify more or less right, it's probably a continuum?

Nicole: Yes, that's true.

Tony: And that gives them sort of options within that continuum actually, that is what their physical features are, that is the...

Nicole: If you scratch the inside of their cheek, that's what's gonna come up in. Yeah?

Tony: But, I guess you know, we all identify more or less with that with our different cultures or you can correct me if I'm wrong about that?

Nicole: Yeah, no I think that's true. I mean you're Italian, right?

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: So you can't choose to not be Italian and it would be a shame if you didn't like Italians, and wish that you weren't Italian and didn't know how to act around Italians, but you're also American. So, you can code-switch back and forth, you could go back and forth between the two Anglo Americans and Italian Americans.

You know how to be, I assume in both circles? But if you distanced yourself from your Italianess that would be sad.

Tony: Yeah, but there might be, I know people who do that.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: And there's certain parts of that, that I would.

Nicole: Yeah. There's parts of the culture that like, no, I don't want that.

Yeah. And no culture is perfect and just because culture is made up of people

Tony: yeah.

Nicole: and there's parts of every culture that, I don't want that.

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: So you pick and choose and that's actually the beauty of especially mixed race kids where you could have the best of both.

Tony: That's right, yeah I think that's the richness that

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: I think that and that, that sort of exploration, value that you have there too.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: Also speaks to that, I appreciate that. Your reaction to my question makes me realize that probably the idea of having a choice about identity comes from more like a white privilege kind of situation because in maybe my own biases because I was thinking, oh, because I can choose in a way, well how much Italian I wanna be. But somebody whose features or skin color is

where they're living and doesn't have that choice. And so maybe even just embedded in my thought was my own

Nicole: Right.

Tony: privilege as a white person.

Nicole: Yeah, and there are some mixed people who sort of have the same privilege in terms of they might be white and Asian and look and, appear white? There so genes are a funny thing, they're capricious. You never know how they're gonna tumble out.

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: So in that sense, if she's a woman she could choose to identify as white but I still think that is sad

Tony: yeah.

Nicole: because she has a parent and grandparents and let's say from Korea and there's so much beauty, obviously no culture's perfect but there's so much beauty in that culture and there's so many stories back there

Tony: yeah.

Nicole: of how did grandma, what was it like when she immigrated here and couldn't speak a word of English and the things that she had to overcome and the courage to do that? And just all that pride or even if the stories aren't positive

Tony: or known?

Nicole: Korea is a beautiful country with a beautiful history and so to embrace that and to be proud of that, even if to an appearance, you couldn't tell. Yeah.

Tony: So I think, you know, one of these five values for multiracial families, which are probably values for other families too

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: Is Honesty.

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: Could you talk about that value in this context?

Nicole: Yeah. So the importance of being honest with yourself and honest with your kids. So in terms of honest with yourself, realizing, confronting, how did I grow up? Were my parents racist? Were, did I grow up learning a Nigerian novelist talks about the single story where you have a single, all black people are this way, or all Hispanic people are, that it's really stereotypes, but sometimes it gets wrapped prettier than a stereotype.

But that's what it is, so. She's Nigerian so when she came to America, she was confronted with the single, the American single story of Africans, that Africans are all poor and dying of aids and of course that's wrong and to reduce somebody to a single story is really to rob their dignity, because all people are multifaceted and multidimensional.

So anyway, did you grow up hearing the same drone about Black people? That they all live in the inner city. They're all poor, they're all, single parents, the same story about Black people. Is that what you grew up hearing? Or, Hispanic people or whatever? And even if you consciously rejected that, if you're in a racial marriage, you did consciously reject that but that's still what you grew up hearing.

So is any of that still in me that needs to be confront that The honesty piece? That's the honesty part. Do I still, do I think that my husband is the exception to the rule? Do I think that he's the outlier and that really most are that negative thing or have I done enough work where I know that there are millions of Black men who are excellent and doing well throughout history

and even now? Have I done enough work so that I can, because what's in outta the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what's in my heart is gonna come out in the raising of my kids. So how am I gonna talk about Black people around my kids? So it's just an honesty with yourself in terms of any latent racism.

And also if it's more, not so much Black, but maybe an immigrant family. I have a friend who's Korean and white and her mom escaped Korea during the war and really was so traumatized from the extreme poverty and hunger of what Korea was at that time that she wanted to forget it. So she raised her daughters to be white, to not, she didn't teach them how to speak Korean. She didn't, she learned how to cook American food. She didn't

teach them how to use chopsticks. There was no Korean culture in their family and yet her daughters look Korean. So being honest, am I trying to escape something? I think especially, I don't, I think it still happens currently, but in previous generations it was for Black men who married white women,

some of that was trying to escape blackness. Some of that was trying to have lighter skinned kids. Some of that was trying to elevate their social status if I have a white wife, my social status will be elevated, which was not true. Having lighter kids was true, but being elevated was not true. So is that why I married this person or had a child with this person?

Tony: Or a little part of it?

Nicole: Or a little. Or even a little part of it? All of our motives are complex and mixed. Yeah. So being honest with yourself and not running from that but doing the work.

Tony: Those are really hard questions.

Nicole: Yes. Yes. Right 'cause you don't want to say I partly married you. And, similarly immigrants come, Asian immigrants or, Hispanic immigrants and some again, you perceive the social strata in America that it's better to be white. So if I can't be white, I could at least marry white. And have kids who look more white than Asian or Hispanic. So again, if any of those motives were there, being honest about that.

Tony: Yeah. Can I ask you, because you're saying some things that I think would be like, for some people be like, Ooh you're being really honest. I wonder, as you've been talking with people about the book, at book signings or other things like that, what kinds of maybe surprising or strong, kinds of reactions have you been, getting? This is a very loaded topic.

Nicole: You know, sometimes a subtle defensiveness. I don't go this deep at a book signing.

Tony: Right, that's true.

Nicole: So, but I was at one book signing and somebody did buy the book because their son just married an Asian woman, they were white and they bought the book and but they instantly turned it around, turned it into, while there's racism everywhere and it's flattened it to be this, it's almost like it's not a big deal 'cause there's all different kinds of prejudice and they just they wanted to dampen and water down the pain of racism.

And it, so it was interesting talking to them and I saw it happening. Well, this is sort of like, you know how people who are overweight feel, or short how short men feel, or it's no, it's not quite like that. The racism.

Tony: There's some things that are similar,

Nicole: there's some things that are similar, but racism is its own beast.

Tony: Yeah. And what's interesting about what you're offering to people is that there are, you are challenging people to take some pretty specific steps. And I wonder if that's something people might wanna distance from because it is, it might feel overwhelming? It might feel like, is that really necessary?

Or maybe somebody has already raised their children. I wonder what you would say actually to somebody who maybe they've already raised their child or maybe a child who had been adopted and they didn't take these steps. They, like you said really loved this child and didn't know, and out of that not knowing didn't do these things. What would you say to them?

Nicole: In some respects, it's never too late so, I did talk to a woman who's Black and she's divorced, but her ex-husband is white and they have two kids, two adult kids. The girl is, the daughter is doing really well, she's a light-skinned, biracial person. Really beautiful, has not experienced a lot of overt racism.

Thus, the son is dark and experiences a lot of racism and a lot of profiling and has been stopped by the police many times. And her ex-husband downplayed racism, did not ever have the talk with their son. He couldn't really, but the talk meaning, this is how to respond if you're stopped by the police, this is how to respond if you're profiled.

That never happened so this young man grew up without any preparation. So when he became a teenager and it's happening for the first time, it's scary. It's off-putting, it's infuriating. It's like, why, are you treating me like this? and so he was never equipped. And so the mom just feels bad that she's got a happy daughter and a very angry son.

And we talked about the importance of her realizing these things so that maybe she could interject some truths and some help helping her son now to deal with this anger. We talked about therapy. I talk in the book about the hip-hop artist, Lecrae who when he started, first started experiencing, when he started rapping about racism, and his white audiences stopped

coming and just how painful that was, he started going to a therapist and he's what got, he's a Christian hip-hop artist and he turned his back on God, angry, stopped performing, and he found a therapist who happened to be a white woman, this five foot, nothing short little white woman who maybe 'cause he couldn't find a Black therapist. I don't know that story,

but. She did the work. She, so, tell me, what did Michael, Brown feel like? What did that feel like for you? What did Trayvon Martin feel like for you? And he would say things and she would go back and research and look things up and, read and, then come back to the next session having done that research and ready to talk again.

And he said she really helped him, to, to confront some things and helped him with that anger and with that disappointment. So there's so many obstacles to overcome because you've known probably more than I do, just, there's stigmas about therapy and, especially among African Americans, especially among African American men?

I think it's, especially among non-white men in general. I think it's probably true in Hispanic and Asian culture too. There's stigmas about therapy. So you have to overcome that but I would just say that for the parent to educate themselves so that they could, interject little truths, little bits of encouragement, little bits of relief in their conversations, and to encourage, you're really angry. Do you want me to help you find a therapist?

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. So I, think this idea that it's never too late is pretty, pretty interesting one. You could imagine parents if they were hearing this and oh my goodness, we didn't do any of this stuff and maybe they, maybe even their kids are just fine?

But, but they're sort of realizing that, it seems like? I wonder if they could say that, we always, in, in our, teaching about working with people, who have suicide concerns, one of the kind of core principles, like your honesty one, is when in doubt tell the truth.

Yes. And I wonder if that's, if, oh gosh, I didn't do any that. I'm just saying, I, I've just been listening my, I picked up this book by Nicole Doyley or just listening to her on a podcast, I've realized, we never did anything related to, that culture of origin or about, when we raised you and I'm kind of interested in learning about it now,

Nicole: yeah.

Tony: what do you think about that? And maybe, the person will be like, nah. But, say, I'm gonna learn anyway.

Nicole: Yeah. I'm gonna learn anyway. And, or there's this, Netflix series about, I just watched one called Chenko, I think that's how you say it, but it's about Korea during the war and Japanese occupation and stuff.

I learned so much and I had quickly had coffee with my, Korean friends. What did you think about that? Did you watch it, anyway? You want, you saying to your child, do you wanna watch this together or do you wanna read this book together and talk about it? Or, yeah?

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is a, I think that is a hopeful message that people can, express that honesty and exploration, even if, they have grown children and even not for a fault of their own, I don't think this was a conversation, that's why you needed a whole book about it. Because it really hasn't been that awareness. And certainly not in previous generations.

Nicole: No. Because it's generation after generation, it's been the advice that my parents got, just love your child. Yeah. But, love. It's not, don't love your child, but

Tony: It goes a long way.

Nicole: But yes, it's that love includes, we're includes, we're intentional about, we know this, subliminally like, if you're raising daughters, you teach them how to be safe, around young men or, you, know that to, in order to love your daughter well, you have to teach her to be safe.

You have to teach her certain things about how to move in the world as a young woman. So we know that. And, as if you're raising young men, it's how to respect women and, stuff like that. So we teach our kids these things so that they're so that they succeed in life. It's just that part of that teaching is, now also a cultural and race or racial piece.

This is how you'll be perceived or how you may be perceived and this is how you respond.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. And bringing other people around Yeah. And all the things that you talk about,

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: in the book.

Now, you caught my attention before, partially because your husband is a dear friend of mine. Yes. You caught my attention before and I want, I made a note to come back to it that you, ended up marrying somebody at, while you were at Dartmouth. Could you talk about, that and him and his background, and

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: what you've learned from that?

Nicole: Yeah. yeah. So I had graduated and so he's Jamaican.

He, was born in England and I'll just say one quick thing about that. So there were a lot of West Indians when they were still part of the British under the Crown, who were invited to England starting in the fifties to rebuild London after the war. And, his parents, they were not married, both wound up in London and met there.

And when Marvin, my husband was four, his parents decided to move back to Jamaica. So he was born in England, but raised in Jamaica. Now, his cousins, his uncle remained, and the reason why his parents moved back to Jamaica is because of racism. Because they saw how West Indian children were streamed, or we say tracked from a young age to do menial labor.

So starting from preschool, put on this track to, to do menial labor. And so the opportunities to do anything more than that really wasn't open for Black children. And, they decided this is not what we want for Marvin. They could tell that he's smart and,

Tony: and boy is he,

Nicole: and this is not what we want for him.

So he was raised in Jamaica and then because he was born in England, he was a British citizen in England, has free college education. So when he wanted to be an MD at first, he wound up getting a PhD, but his parents couldn't afford to send him to the University of the West Indies 'cause it's cash. There's no financial aid or student loans, it's cash.

So they didn't have that, but he could go to England for university for free. So he, moved there at 17, went to university, got a PhD, in physics, and then, went to Holland for his post doctorate and then was offered a job at Dartmouth. So, he came to Dartmouth and a couple of years after he was already there, we met, and married.

And really my being attracted to him and falling in love with him had to do with my racial identity journey, in terms of when I wasn't comfortable with being Black, I wanted to marry white men. Like I was attracted to white men. I dated white men, and as I embraced being Black and as I fell in love with Black culture and became proud, that began to slowly change over the course of years. It's not like it was like this.

So much so that I, and as I was in this community where I was always trying to help white people understand racism, i'm like, I don't think I wanna help my husband understand racism. I think I want him to already understand it? I don't think I want that in a marriage too. So I started to, want to marry somebody Black and then I met Marvin so, we really have a multicultural home in terms of West Indian culture, it is different from American culture.

And I really love that, that, that has, as we've raised our two boys, his West Indianness is very much part of how we raised them. And we talked about humility before. I don't wanna throw my mom under the bus, but I will say one negative thing, which is that she married a Black man, but I don't think she ever appreciated Black culture or what my father had grown up with.

And so she didn't realize the importance of my dad inculcating us with Black culture. She didn't leave room for that. She was, it was, our home was very dominated by her culture, by white culture. And I saw that had a negative effect on my sister and me. And so I knew that I, okay, I'm marrying somebody from a different culture and I saw so much beauty in the culture.

Not perfect as we talked about before but there's so much beauty in that culture that I, and I'm not totally sold in every respect on the, on American parenting? There's a lot of things that in American parenting that I don't like. So I really feel like in a lot of ways our boys have gotten the best of both.

West Indian culture's very into respecting your Elders and, a level of dignity about your personal appearance. And, there's just so many beautiful nuances about West Indian culture that I was really happy that he's been.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. I, would definitely recommend to people who are listening or are watching to listen to the podcast that you recorded with him. So you have, a podcast that, called, conversations? Let's Talk.

Nicole: Let's Talk: Conversations on Race.

Tony: And one of them is with him.

Nicole: Yes. One of the earlier ones. It's called Twice a Man. I can't remember? But, Right.

Tony: But the idea of it was, he also grew up in a place where he, was not a minority. For, most of the time, and then went into a place where he was

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: But it's a fascinating, so I just would recommend and we'll put a link

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: in the notes here

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: to that, because I think it's a really, rich conversation plus cool

Nicole: yeah.

Tony: to see the two of you.

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: in that, in that kind of setting. So how would you say that, your marriage with Marvin as a Jamaican man, shaped this book?

Nicole: Yeah, well like I said, he's the one who recommended that I write it. So that's, I, wanted to write a book about race and he said, you should write a book about race from a biracial perspective?

And then it became a parenting book through lots of reasons. I, think what I said, that awakening in me of the beauty of different cultures and I've married into a different culture and I, want, I don't want to go into this my way is the best way. And there were some rough times when our kids were small at the way we came at parenting, and, most of the West Indies, it's kids are seen and not heard.

You don't talk back. If you say, clean up your Legos, and come to dinner. You don't say, "but dad"? You just clean up your Legos and come to dinner. And so there's, no back talk. It's very respect, very authoritarian. And I came up, I was raised by hippies, so, where you call adults by their first name and, just none of that.

And so at first I sort of chafed at that and I think we really successfully came to a middle ground where I, saw the importance of kids respecting their parents and not always having a say in everything. But, he also realized sometimes it's okay for them to have an appeal. Like, can I finish this project real quick before dinner, Dad? To be able to make an appeal.

So I think we saw the beauty, I think a lot of immigrants, not just West Indians, don't talk to adults at all. You sit at the table if you like, mom and dad, have friends over, you sit at the table as soon as you're done eating, you leave. You don't in, interject in adult conversation.

And yet I wanted our kids, especially as they became teenagers, to be able to ask questions. We had a colleague of yours over yesterday for Easter and, so just asking her questions, about her work and so that they're comfortable around adult conversations. So that was all new for him, but he sees the value of it.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. You just mentioned that the book, didn't start out as a parenting book, so I just wanted to ask you about that, as we, start to wrap up, land the plane.

Nicole: Sure. It was actually my agent. So, for those who don't know when you're going to, I had self-published three other books. And this was the first time I was trying to climb the steep mountain of traditional publishing. And the first thing you have to do after you write your proposal is find an agent. You don't gone are the days where you send a big old manuscript to, some publishing company.

You have to have, the agent is the middleman. And so it took a long time to find an agent, probably almost a year. It's so incredibly competitive and I finally did, and she said, and it, was first my proposal in the first few chapters were first written, more like a memoir. And she said, memoirs don't really sell well unless you're famous.

Tony: Value of honesty.

Nicole: Yeah. And, but she said, and it so happened, it was amazing providential thing. She's a Black woman, she's divorced, but her ex-husband is white and she has three mixed race kids, adult kids. And she said, I could have used a book to help me raising these kids 'cause she sees some of the angst that they've had and some of the things that they've expressed as adults.

So she's the one who said, I really think we could sell this to a publisher if you write this more as a guide for parents raising mixed kids.

Tony: Interesting. So. In the spirit of Never The Same, i'm curious, you know it takes a long time to write a book. It takes a long time after you write it for it to be published. And then, so I'm curious if there, what, if there are any things or what those things would be that, since you wrote it, you've discovered or changed your mind about, anything that you would either

through interacting with people or just through the passage of time and learning as a person. Any things that that, you've, adjusted your thinking about since writing the book?

Nicole: If I were to write it again, I'd probably go into a little bit more detail about, my parents. I was trying to find that balance of my story. I have to tell their story to tell my story. And I have to say some of the things that I wished were there that weren't there, but I also wanted to honor and respect them.

And my mother is still living. So, and even if she were deceased, she's 90. So even if she were deceased, I think I would still wanna honor and respect them. But I think it would've been helpful for me to go into a little bit more depth about, I think that my mom, she was raised, miraculously to reject racism.

She, in Pennsylvania, her school was integrated but it was definitely Black people on the side of the tracks, white people on that side of the tracks. So she consciously rejected racism in order to be able to marry my dad. She would've had to, but I think there was still latent, she didn't really take the time to understand Black men.

And like I sort of said before, what my dad went through as a Black man growing up in the forties and she wasn't really there for him as a safe space. So for example, he really struggled after he left the Army finding employment 'cause it was still mostly menial labor for Black men unless you were very educated.

And so he struggled providing for our family and she really resented that. And I think if she, I'm not trying to excuse that, but at the same time I think she could have been more compassionate, and I think there were things that she could have done that would've been helpful as opposed to almost emasculating.

And I think my dad had a deep sense of failure and I think some of her responses to his employment issues, exacerbated that sense of failure. So I think, when I talk about, especially the honesty chapter, examining what's on the inside of you, that's what was in the back of my mind but I think I would've fleshed it out. Still trying to find that balance of not totally outing my mom

Tony: yeah.

Nicole: but still 'cause I think that's in a lot, I think this is gonna sound crazy, but, or maybe too much, but I think that might be true of a lot of white women who marry men of color, not really understanding what they went through and how to honor this person who maybe, has gone through a lot of life being dishonored.

Tony: Yeah. That is really powerful. That's really powerful. And obviously there's a whole range of experiences, but that is, yeah, that's, really meaningful. Thanks for, sharing that.

The "What About the Children?” these five values, what would you like to leave people with, with respect to the book and, it certainly has a very hopeful message, at least that as I experienced it when I read it. What would you like to leave people with in terms of, what they should know? Do? What's, what hope there is?

Nicole: Firstly, I, somebody said this and I actually believe it. Humbly, not so humbly. I really think that it's a useful book for everybody. Because I think if you're white parents raising white children, it's still useful and some of the things that I talk about. So that's one thing, I think it's for everybody. Or even if you don't have children. Secondly, there is so much hope. Towards the end of the book, at the last chapter, I talk about Barack Obama's.

He was in a interview talking about his 2008 run, and he said that, the person asked him, did you ever doubt that you would win? And he said, I absolutely doubted if I would win. But he said, what I didn't doubt was that I could get white support because he said when I was campaigning and I was in a room full of white Illinois farmers and trade unionists, and I looked out on this white working class crowd, I saw my grandparents. Because I was intimately, in an intimate relationship with my grandparents.

They weren't just white people that I knew over here. They helped to raise me and so I was comfortable and that was disarming to them. And I think that is the opportunity that mixed kids have to be comfortable with white if they're white- Black, for example, if they're comfort, to be comfortable with white people.

'Cause my mom is white and my two of my grandparents were white and they love me and my aunt, some of my aunties are white and they love me and comfortable with Black people because my dad is Black and grandparents Black. So, to be able to be a bridge and firmly planted, if you can envision the pylons of a bridge, one on this side and one on this side firmly planted and stable and secure and able to walk comfortably between the two, that's a powerful thing.

Tony: It is.

Nicole: And I think it's also the true if you're a child of color, being in a, transracial adoption because again, your parents are white, you're Asian or whatever, and you've been raised to appreciate your Asian, heritage. So you could bridge the two.

Tony: Yeah.

Nicole: So it's really a powerful opportunity.

Tony: And yeah. And it seems, especially so given that our demographics are changing and

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: In, I guess it's 2040 or something like that?

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: There'll be more multiracial people

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: than there are, monoracial

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: European White people. So

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: yeah. That, that there's a, that's a, that we have a rich opportunity,

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: And a rich future head of that kind of, cultural empathy in a way?

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: Or, yeah. Just bringing those multiple perspectives.

Nicole: Yes.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. That is really, really hopeful. And I think hopefully that's an inspiring people to take those steps that you have so beautifully and very specifically laid out for people to take to encourage the fullness that people can have in that context. So thank you so much for

Nicole: Yeah.

Tony: talking with me.

Nicole: Thank you.

Tony: I so appreciate you as a friend, and

Nicole: Thank you.

Tony: And, as a, leader and advocate, author, mother, wife to my good friend.

Yeah. And, so I'm, just very grateful that we got a chance to talk today.

Nicole: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Tony.

Tony: Thank you.

Okay.