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Transcript
Intro Music
Introduction
Nicki Pappas 0:00
Hello and welcome to the first episode of season two of Broadening the Narrative. This is a podcast where I talk to people who are broadening the narrative I was taught. The music for today's episode is “Water,” featuring Lucee by Micah Bournes and Jasmine Rodriguez. I'm your host, Nicki Pappas. My pronouns are she and her, I always read the acknowledgements in the back of books, and I'm so glad you're here.
Chandra Crane 0:28
So we get all the cheesy commercials, and they feature multiethnic folx very prominently. And so even the message there is that beige is not threatening. Beige is beautiful. Beige is not a problem. To reject that in a way that doesn't reject who we are as beige people.
First Segment
Nicki Pappas 0:50
On today's episode of Broadening the Narrative, I am joined by author and speaker Chandra Crane. We will be discussing Chandra's new book Mixed Blessing. I was introduced to Chandra through my cousin Brittany via a text message. We exchanged some texts and emails, and now we're having a conversation today. So I am grateful for your work, Chandra, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about Mixed Blessing. And thank you for coming on to the podcast.
Chandra Crane
Thank you for having me.
Nicki Pappas
Well, to start us off, would you mind just sharing about yourself and a little about your background
Chandra Crane 1:21
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things I appreciate most about shows and ministries and folx who are doing things like Broadening the Narrative is knowing that I'll be given the space and the time to answer that question, right, because that is part of the complication of being multiethnic, being multicultural, is you can't just fit it into a sentence, or even two, certainly not in a couple of words. And I think if we stop and think, and I think we'll talk about this more later, really, none of us can fit into that tiny little space, but the majority culture asks us to and allows us to and even sometimes demands us to. So my nuanced, complicated, beautiful, difficult, mixed story is that ethnically I am part Thai and part white American. My birth father was a Thai national who met my mom when he came to the United States for college. But then things didn't work out between them. And so shout out to single parents everywhere, for the first five years it was me and my mom, my white American mom. But she met and remarried a man who would become my dad, my stepdad, who adopted me also, when they got married, who was African American. And so I grew up in a lot of, I grew up in this intersection between a lot of different cultures, with a mother who was, you know, white American, a Dad who was black American, and me who looked fully, whatever that means, Asian, if not Asian American, but definitely didn't, didn't really look mixed, and certainly didn't look like the majority culture in our town, much less like my family. And I also grew up in New Mexico. And so I grew up in this borderland, as Gloria Anzaldúa would say, this state where it's very much valued to have Hispanic or Chicano culture, to have native culture, obviously white folx as well. And so I grew up in a lot of spaces where I didn't fit, which was hard. But I think there was maybe a little more grace for me that I didn't even realize until I started writing the book, being raised in a place where there were a lot of different cultures kind of colliding. So growing up, I remember when I first figured out how different I was from everyone else's families, how different my family was from everyone else's families. But I also remember growing up when I realized how different I was from the rest of my family. And that's a pretty foundational moment, right, to kind of look around you. And I think a lot of people have experienced that for various reasons. But for me, it was definitely in terms of ethnicity and culture, just realizing I don't look like either of them. So I experienced the world differently than them, even though we have the same family culture, home culture, a lot of the same sense of humor and perspective, but here's one way in which I am drastically different from them both and in a lot of ways will never be like them. I think the narrative that changed for me was probably in two places, one in high school, starting to appreciate being unique, starting to get to a place where I felt confident enough, where I'd found enough of my friends, which were the drama and the speech and the band kids, to where I felt confident to say, yeah, I'm different, and that's actually a good thing, and it's actually something to be proud of, and it sets me apart when I'm auditioning for a role or it sets me apart when I am debating or when I am existing on campus, I'm actually kind of glad to be different and to be unique, and to not look like everyone else. Then when I became a believer in the beginning of college, my sophomore year of college, then putting that piece together with the beginnings of this understanding that that is what God has done for everyone, right, he has created everyone unique and beautiful and with his own image imprinted upon us and with different cultures and languages and beautiful things, that for me started to to broaden that narrative to where I could see how I fit into a larger group, into a larger community, into the larger church. But it definitely was still within the framework of white normativity, it was definitely still within a majority culture framework still of okay, that's all beautiful, but that’s surface, now let's talk about what really matters and let's talk about being unified. But right, but a twisted version of unified. Let's talk about fitting in, let's talk about acclimating, and even assimilating into this majority culture. So then I had another period of appreciating a little bit of my multiethnic, multicultural upbringing, but in a very shallow way, in a very oh, this makes me unique, but when it comes to the kingdom, what really matters is how much I can be like everyone else. So it wasn't until joining a multiethnic church here in the Jackson area that I was able to really start deconstructing a lot of all of those narratives. And as you'd mentioned, when we were thinking about things earlier to chat about during the show, when I had that experience in the hallway that I talked about in the book, of not knowing where to go, because we had this breakout session for different ethnicities, and the purpose of it was very wise and very understandable, to give a place for Black staff to talk about specifically fundraising in the context of the Black church, to let LaFe, Latin Fellowship Staff, talk about how la familia affects fundraising and ministry, to let the Asian staff talk about these things in terms of very hierarchical and often a very indirect culture, and even to let the white staff get together to think about what it looks like from a majority framework. I had nowhere to go, right, I had nowhere to, there was no room for me at the inn, there was no room, except the hallway. And I stood there really torn. And I think that was another narrative that I had to overcome, which I allude to in the book, is that the hallway is a bad place to be. For me, rejecting that narrative that we should all be in a room, and we should all be able to fit perfectly into that room, and we should all be able to exist comfortably in that room, to step out of that a little bit and to say no, I reject these false dichotomies, and actually, the hallway is not a bad place to be. It's not an easy place to be, but it's not a bad place to be. That was another leg of my journey that really came into me saying, no, I'm going to follow Jesus’ narrative. I'm gonna follow the narrative he set when he came as a mixed man in the Middle East, in a certain timeframe, in the ways he loved people, in the ways that he blew up the religious habits of the day. I'm going to follow him and his narrative and see where it takes me.
Nicki Pappas 9:17
Yeah, I love that so much. So thank you for sharing it. Yeah, well, could you talk about anything additional that you think is necessary for laying the foundation as we talk about your book?
Chandra Crane 9:30
That's a great question. So my editor, Al, who's a wonderful, gracious, patient man, who is a very mellow person, as opposed to my sanguinity. Is that even a word? I think that’s a word, right, sanguine is not a good thing, my sanguine freude, we’ll say that. My drama. My drama. Al was very patient and he knows in his mellow personality how to work with authors who feel things very deeply, and it shows differently, right, how it expresses itself. He reminded me, as did another co-worker, Megan, who's mixed herself and is head of the Native ministries with Intervarsity, “Write this for mixed folx. Do not write it to everybody.” Al has a saying, you know, “If you write for everybody, you write for nobody.” I hope, and I think, that this book is a blessing to majority culture folx to even minority, monoethnic folx, people of color who are, identify as and experience life as monolithic people, but it was such a key thing to be told, “This is our book, this is your book, to bless mixed people, and so you don't need to make accommodations, right, for for other readers.” And I tried to make sure that the book was very welcoming to those who are not mixed, those who are not believers, those who are not as familiar with these terms, I wanted to make sure that it was something they could enter into and find joy in and be humbled by and enter in with a sense of welcome. But this book I wrote for my daughters, right, who are mixed. I wrote it for my friend Megan. I wrote it for all the people that I interviewed in the book, which there are about 40 folx who filled out surveys, and then I got to follow that up with about 20 interviews. So that's, those are the stories you see sprinkled throughout. I wrote it for them. I wrote it for all the people who have said, “I feel like I don't belong anywhere else.” And now that the book is out have said, “Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for telling our story, our stories. Thank you for giving me a place to belong. Thank you for giving me a resource that I can hand to people and say, ‘Read this, this is me, this is a part of me. This is a part of my story, and it will help you to understand me better.’” So that was a blessing to be given that freedom. There are a couple of places in the book where I say, “Mixed folx, we have a right to tell others,” and then what I'd said before, right, but in this sense of empowerment, in the sense of this book is not written for people who are not mixed. It is not written for people who do not experience this multiethnic, multicultural story, but here are some things that we have every right to tell them. Here are some narratives that we get to step into and say, “Hey, listen up, here's some truth. Here's some kingdom goodness. Here's something that I have every right to tell you, and I'm hoping you'll have the wisdom and humility to sit and listen to.” That was wonderful and exciting. It was also a little terrifying, right, to be asked to speak on behalf of so many people who are so different and so diverse. So no one person speaks for any other group, whether it's ethnic, or sexual orientation, or nationality, or gender or what have you. We know that people don't represent the whole in that very black and white way. But there is a sense of we do want people to be able to speak well for others, to give voice to others to broaden those narratives, and so to be asked and entrusted with that was very humbling and very frightening. I don't know if that's the word. It was very daunting, a weighty task. So I'm so glad that I had the example that I've read in so many other good books, including Sundee Frazier's Check All That Apply, that was kind of the first generation of Mixed Blessing, to include other stories, right, to not just tell my story but to tell a lot of different stories. Going to Thailand, you mentioned that you wanted me to share about my trip to Thailand. So my trip to Thailand was really beautiful but really hard because I'm so American. The Thai folx are wonderful, mellow, humorous, gentle, honoring people. And I'm learning to appreciate all the ways in which I am not those things and that's okay. All the ways in which I am honoring to others, it just looks very different. Right? All the ways in which I do have a gentle spirit. It just comes with a feisty mouth. I don’t know if that’s even accurate. So it was tricky, right, to be in this Thai culture that I'd longed to know for so long. I had never been to Thailand until I was in my 30s. And to finally have a chance to be there with my family and to realize just how different I am was hard and just how awkward I am and how much I don't understand the culture. I don't speak the language. I certainly didn't back then. My girls and I are trying to learn. Thai has five tones, doesn't even have four like Mandarin. So I definitely cursed at my grandmother accidentally trying to tell her that a flower was beautiful, because I had, you know, 10 words that I thought I could say in Thai. One of them was delicious, aroi mak mak, I can do that one right, and they were very pleased every time I said something was delicious. But yeah, I kept trying to tell her, “The flowers are beautiful,” and she kept smiling at me and correcting my tone. And I would smile, and I'd say it wrong again. Until finally one of my cousin's was like, “Oh, what are you saying to grandmother?” and I was like, “I don't know. What am I saying?” I wish I'd known Thai as a child. Right? I wish I had had that aspect in my life. That though, even that has been special because something I realized is there are some stories of people who speak very fluently, whatever their multiple languages are, right. They were raised bilingual, trilingual. But there are a lot of us actually who don't. And I'm glad I was able to appreciate and speak into that place of pain and shame. And hopefully bring some gospel light to it that most of us wish we did speak this other language more fluently, fluently at all. But there's even a beauty in acknowledging that culture comes to us in various broken ways and that there is some honor in me trying to rectify that situation as an adult and there is some humility and some important, there's an important lesson in it that I don't speak it, right, a reminder that I have to work to understand this culture that belongs to me, is mine, is not outside of myself. I am, I have learned finally to say I am absolutely Asian enough, because that's often what's kind of leveled at mixed folx, “Oh, well, you're not Black enough. You're not Asian. You're not Latin enough,” right, “You're not Native enough.” I feel like I finally learned to be able to say I'm Asian enough but part of what that Asian enough means is that I have much to learn. And to be able to say I am Asian enough and so therefore I will step into learning this language, I will step into figuring out this culture because it is mine. And I can still affirm myself in myself while admitting I'm not there yet, right? I'm not as familiar with this part of myself as I would like to be. And so gathering those stories for the book was really powerful and really healing for me. And, I think, really encouraging to others.
Nicki Pappas 18:02
Yeah, well, I read something after emailing you and wanted to run this by you. I was reading this article by Nisha Chittal about Kamala Harris. And it was titled “The Kamala Harris Identity Debate Shows How America Still Struggles to Talk About Multiracial People.” And the tagline read “Identity is complicated, and she shouldn't have to choose just one.” So I was wondering if you could speak to the significance of Kamala Harris being elected Vice President both as the first Black person and first South Asian American, and how you felt when she gave her acceptance speech?
Chandra Crane 18:43
Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up. And please do email me that article because I want to read it. Yeah, it's interesting. There just hasn't been much talk about Kamala’s multiethnicity, right, because I think because she does mean so much to so many people. It means so much to South Asian Americans that Kamala is the vice president elect. It means so much to Black folx, especially Black women, that she's going to fill that second highest office in the land. It means so much to women. Right? It means so much to Democrats. What's interesting is President Obama is mixed as well. I think he did a really good job of honoring his mom, who is the white parent, while still identifying as Black. I think what he did was so important for the time. He was the first non-white, in the sense of majority culture, President. And so for him to push into his blackness, I think was beautiful, it made sense. I think it was very honoring how he kept his mom by his side, essentially, and acknowledged that she was the one who really raised him and formed him and made him into the man that he is today. Kamala is not necessarily the first when it comes to the Presidential or Vice Presidential ticket, right? She's the first woman. Of course, Hillary Clinton wasn't elected. And so sometimes I think what she's forced to choose is not just, “Is she black? Is she South Asian?”, but, “Is she a woman? Is she a politician? Is she a mother? Is she a wife,” like, I think she's being pulled in so many more different directions than President Obama ever was. I hope she'll be able to lean into her multiethnicity. I don't know that there's much of a framework for her to lean into it because there's not a precedent for folx who are wanting to lean into multiethnicity. I think she is doing an interesting job of code switching, of seeking to honor both cultures, of seeking to be fully Black and fully South Asian. That's not tenable. That can't last forever. That is actually exhausting. And so I'm hoping she will find a healthy way to also lean into one ethnicity or another at any given time, to blend the two together, to step outside of either at a time, for a time, and explore her motherhood and her sisterhood and being a politician, of course, being Vice President. I think it's interesting that we still just don't know what to do with her, right, that it's still just such a novelty, that we still live in such a monoethnically normative world that, honestly, I think, in the same way that folx looked at President Obama, I feel like they're looking at Vice President-elect Harris and saying, “Oh, I just see this one side of her. I see her as a Black woman. And that's what speaks to me. And that's what is the most powerful to me. And so I'm going to see her through that lens. And that's it,” or, “I'm going to see her as this South Asian Vice President-elect. And that's all I need to see. And that's what I connect with. And that's what means the most to me.” I don't even think that's necessarily wrong. But I think for our culture to move forward, there has to be an acknowledgement that that's not all she is, that she is more than that, that the sum of her parts are there, much less don't just add up to what we want them to add up to. And that's part of the mixed story is saying, “I don't have to choose, I can lean into one or another. But I get to be more than just one thing.” And so that she can be strong and vulnerable, that she can be South Asian and Black, and she can be a woman and a politician, I think is something very powerful that we saw embodied in her acceptance speech and the unbridled joy and the passion and the fierceness and the determination. And, you know, a little bit of salty like, “Here we are. We did it.. Despite what people said, we did it.” Yeah, I think was very, very powerful.
Transition Music
Second Segment
Nicki Pappas 23:30
I'm holding a copy of your book, Mixed Blessing: Embracing the Fullness of Your Multiethnic Identity, which is beautiful, by the way.”
Chandra Crane 23:40
Isn’t it amazing? They did a great job designing it. I love it.
Nicki Pappas 23:42
It’s so beautiful, and I love all the like, the ornament you have with the cover shrunk down and your earrings. But yeah, so your book launched December 15th, and I rated it five stars on Goodreads and wrote a review that I wanted to share. I said, “I loved Chandra's work, her words, her honesty and vulnerability, and the way she held the sacred stories of others. Mixed Blessing was so very beautiful. It was a challenging read that provided hope as well. I appreciated how Chandra weaved in the image of the multiethnic Christ and his lineage through various women. I was also grateful for all Chandra included about the Christian church as she paved a better way forward full of grace-laced truth communicated in love. I highly recommend reading Mixed Blessing.” So how does it feel to have your book out?
Chandra Crane 24:32
Thank you. It feels surreal. Yeah, such a build up to the launch, right, so much work and hours put in with really fun stuff like emailing the New Mexico Tea Company to get the tea up and running and emailing Fena and Faith to get the earrings going, which we have more earrings coming, very excited. Yeah, the designers have been working on some new stuff. Communicating with my launch team, which just such a great launch team ,could not have done it without them. It definitely is this kind of end of the party, take the streamers down, sit on the couch, and you're like, “Now what? I don’t know. I guess we write thank you notes,” right, if we’re extending this analogy into the ground. But yeah, but to go with that cheesy analogy, yeah, this feels like a season of thank you notes, a season of saying thank you to the lunch team, thank you to people who are having me on their podcast, and thank you people who are writing about the book and reviewing the book, and even just thank you to people who are dropping me a note saying, “Thank you so much. This means a lot.” I didn't realize how much I needed that after the brutal season of writing, after the brutal season of writing and seminarying and all the other things, partially because it's really nice to be thanked but more so because I see God's blessing in those things. I see the Lord saying, “Yes, this was the path I had for you. You followed it faithfully, it was really hard, I got you through it, and look at what I'm doing now through it.” That has been sweet. So receiving people's thanks, and then extending my own thanks in return. It fits perfectly with Advent, right? It fits perfectly with the season of waiting and waiting and waiting for something to come. And then when it comes, it's a little bit, it's not a letdown, but it's just so different than you expected. It's these fits and starts of doing parties and doing podcasts and all the fun, exciting things, but then also these still moments of just kind of staring at the book and going, “Wow, I did that. It's done. And it's here. And it's beautiful. And it's in people's hands and it's blessing them.” That is huge. And it's also such a privilege to rest. I've had so many people very wisely and graciously say, “Are you getting rest now? You’ve been working these 12, 15 hour days. Are you resting now?” And so having that privilege to say, “Yeah, actually, I am.” I’m taking off some time from work. I'm letting my children watch probably an inappropriate amount of television, in between the tea parties and the rolling around in the leaves and everything else. Yeah, and I'm getting some rest so that the book can be its own, because I think that's the tricky part, right, is we're trying to do this platform and promote the ministry that's given to us whether it's a podcast or a book or speaking, with faithfulness and to kind of get out of the way of it, but also we're the face of it. Right? And so it's good for me to be able to rest during Christmas break and say, “Okay, the book has a life of its own now.” And it has been recommended by so many people and has a reach far greater than any I could have had because of people who are advocating for it. It's time, I mean it's been time the whole time, but it's time for me to realize how much the Lord is doing his thing. And just to kind of sit back and relax, right, and appreciate and cheer for all the things that he's doing. So it's sweet. It's actually really great timing to have a holiday right after the release.
Nicki Pappas 28:34
Yeah, I'm glad for you for this time, too, especially, again, writing books, seminary, mom, all the things, so very glad for you to have some time to rest. Well, did you want to share your excerpt now, something to read from?
Chandra Crane 28:52
This is the beginning of chapter three, which is “Rejecting Stereotypes, Understanding Prototypes, and Embracing Stories.”
“In her TED Talk ‘The Danger of a Single Story,’ author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illustrates how people tend to reduce others to just one narrative. When discussing one of her novels with an American student, he commented that it's sad Nigerian men are abusive, like the character in her novel. Her response was priceless: ‘I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psycho and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.’
Though she humorously clapped back in a ‘fit of mild irritation’ she adds, ‘It would never have occurred to me to think that just because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he somehow was representative of all Americans. This is not because I am a better person than that student, but because of America's cultural and economic power I had many stories of America.’ Getting to the heart of racism, colorism, and other prejudicial -isms, she shows how ‘power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.’
We're all guilty of this in different situations and with different people. Sometimes it's out of malice, but perhaps more often it's out of misguided sympathy, misplaced loyalty, or just being misinformed. Our ability to empathize with people is often directly proportional to how well we understand them. When we don't do the work of really seeing and hearing people, we can miss them entirely, all the while thinking we've understood them.
We reduce people to a single story, despite conventional wisdom (and political correctness) telling us to avoid stereotyping people based on their race. However, as we mixed folx know, it's not so cut-and-dried. To avoid the enticing ideal of colorblindness, we must acknowledge - and then celebrate - differences between people. Though we must resist judgments against people based on their appearance, it's difficult to set aside first impressions and to refrain from defining people based on our perception of them. As Christina Cleveland explains, our brains naturally sort the world around us to ‘conserve valuable cognitive resources by categorizing...to help us interact with an individual and predict his or her behavior. Categorizing can be helpful in many ways.” We save time by creating larger categories for individual objects. Imagine if we had to relearn what a fork is (as opposed to a spoon) every time we ate.
But this innate habit can also do great harm. Cleveland continues, ‘In our haste to conserve mental energy we often erect divisions out of thin air by grouping people into smaller homogeneous categories.’ We instinctively judge individuals based on the stereotypes of their ethnicity - and usually for the worse. Police brutality against minorities - even young children of color - has proven that. It takes a lot of conscious antiracism work to overcome our ingrained prejudices.”
Nicki Pappas 32:01
Thank you for sharing that excerpt. Yeah. So obviously, this next question, based on what you've read, can't be answered quite so, I don't know. There's not like a tidy answer for it. But how can we prevent from reducing people to that single narrative or a single story about them?
Chandra Crane 32:25
Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's one I'm still pondering. When I think about what I learned during the writing of this book, and the researching of this book, and just reading other authors thoughts, I think what surprised me the most, and shouldn't have, is how much I tend to do that. Right? How much I tend to reduce people to their single stories, how much I tend to narrow their narrative instead of broadening it. And I think that was really helpful for me to back up and say, “Okay, why do I tend to do the same thing that I am so frustrated with other people for doing?” And just to go back to the start of how much we are wounded and how much we long for a simple answer because the world is hard to make sense of, like Christina Cleveland says, we do that, our brains do that naturally. We categorize people into this person is safe, this person is not safe, this person is like me, this person is not like me, out of an instinctual desire to protect ourselves. To overcome that, I think reminding ourselves the ways in which we are not a single story and the ways in which we long for single stories, we long for simple answers, can open up a humility in us that then makes it easier to move past those single stories, or not even to move past those single stories, but to use those single stories as a springboard for more.
Nicki Pappas 34:00
Yeah, my second child, my daughter, goes to a preschool and it was started and owned by a Black woman, our friend Vania Love, and her husband Marquis works there or volunteers there, is there with the kids. They call him Mr. Love. And they recently bought a building, moved into the building, because they've been operating out of the Love's home. And he thought, like, “Oh, good, like, you'll be there. You have teachers,” all that, and she's like, “Oh, no, you're still going to come because I still want the kids to see a Black man,” like, you know, young kids, like a year old to five, six years old, right? Like, “I want them to see early in their lives a Black man who confronts those stereotypes,” that they're already getting it at young ages. Right? And we love Mr. Love. Well, on page 12, you wrote, “The fact remains that however many races we may claim there are (or are not), many people think in terms of only two categories: white and nonwhite/colored. There are ‘people,’ and then there are ‘people of color.’” And then on page 156, you wrote, “Multiethnicity has become synonymous to diversity.” So, I thought about this episode I listened to called “Notice the Rage, Notice the Silence” on this podcast called On Being. And in that episode Resmaa Menakem talked about asking a room of 300 people who were there gathered for this diversity, equity, and inclusion event. He asked them, “How many people in here believe in diversity?” And he said everybody shot their hands up. And then he said, “Answer this one next question. Don't bring your hands down. Diversity from what?” Then he explained, “Because when you say diversity, that means you start someplace first, and then you diversify from it.” So what are your thoughts surrounding this desire for diversity?
Chandra Crane 35:59
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it makes me think of the grocery store aisle, right, ethnic foods. What does that even mean, ethnic foods? We know what it means. Right? It means there are normal foods, which happen to be white people foods, and then there are ethnic foods, which are exotic at best and stink or are suspect or are gross at worse, right? I think that's such a key point of a larger question of how Hollywood shapes us, how language matters. What language should we be pursuing as we're working toward the kingdom? I think what we're trying to go back to is Eden, is a time when diversity, what we were diversifying from was from the Lord, right, as a good thing, that the Lord was, the image of God was present in all people, and diversity was how the image of God was reflected in a variety of people. The narrative we are being fed from birth is dark is bad, dark is suspect, dark skin is dangerous. And the Bible does use the idea of dark and light to talk about evil and good, but it never is talking about people. It's talking about literally the dark where you could bang your shin into the coffee table, or walk off a cliff and die, right? It's that type of darkness, and light that brings understanding and joy and warmth. Very, very different than dark and light skin. You know, when I think of the term diversity, when I think of different terms, whether it's mixed, which has its own connotations, or multiracial, or multiethnic, or multicultural, biracial, etc, there's so many terms all wrapped up in this. For me, I think holding it, holding any of those terms of the sense of, one, humility, and saying, “This is subject to change as my understanding changes, as I learn from others, as my journey becomes, as my journey changes, but also becomes more of what it's meant to be in following the Lord,” but also, secondly, I think, just a willingness to say, “It's okay that our language is fluid. It's okay that some things don't describe things perfectly, but they do well enough. And it's okay that sometimes we walk away from the term because it's no longer serving us and it's no longer serving the body and it's no longer accurate or helpful and can even be harmful.” And being willing to do that in a way that is not fragile and not afraid, but in a way that is just very peaceful. You know, it's kind of the opposite of, “Well, I guess I can't call anybody that anymore,” or, “Well, I guess it's not PC to call somebody this anymore.” But instead saying, “What can I call them? How can I honor this person? What would they like to be referred to as so that I can get to know them better? And so that I can honor their story?”
Transition Music
Third Segment
Nicki Pappas 39:35
Yes, I love that so much, the honoring of other people is great. And you started to go here and it leads into my next question, which people can go read more about anti-blackness and colorism, but you addressed colorism and the fears of white people when you wrote about how “Multiethnic folx with a medium skin tone can be idolized by white folx who are frightened by dark skin.” But then you wrote, “For those with significant amounts of melanin, white folx have always been an actual threat; our country is founded on the brutal treatment of those with non-European features and dark skin.” I was wondering if you could speak to how you deal with colorism when you see it or experience it?
Chandra Crane 40:18
Yeah, I'm realizing more and more that colorism is the heart of racism. Right? It's the tell-tale heart that is beating underneath the floorboard of the ugly house that is racism. Because colorism is a hierarchy that simply says lighter skin is better, lighter skin is valuable. And, you know, for every person who wants to say, “Well, what about Black folx who owned slaves?” and, “Well, there was a hierarchy in the African tribes as well.” Well, yeah, there was. That doesn't excuse how the United States was founded, and it doesn't change how we live today. It's true, but it's not an excuse. You know, it's from something as simple as if you had light skin, it's because you didn't have to be working in the fields, it's because you could be inside and be pampered. And of course, over time, those who were working in the fields weren't marrying into those who were able to stay in the house, and so you ended up with lighter skinned folx with the money and darker skin folx without the money. But of course, that system in and of itself is injust, right, that's a caste system, that says that some people are only fit for working in the fields and some people deserve to be living the high life in the house. And of course, we put a value judgment even further on that to say not because someone is outside in the sun their skin is dark but because someone's skin is dark, they should be outside in the sun, right, and so colorism is that core that we have to acknowledge and move past and really bring truth to bear on. We are raised, like you said about with your sweet kids, we are raised from day one with this ugly false narrative that says light skin is better, dark skin is worse. And so it takes that conscious work to even, and maybe even especially for Black folx, to reject that and say, “No, my dark skin is beautiful. And it is valuable and it is intended by God and it is every bit as beautiful as any other skin tone.” The tricky thing is mixed folx. I think that it is important and not just wise but necessary to correct to the other side. To say, “First and foremost Black lives matter. First and foremost, Black skin, brown skin is beautiful,” as a corrective to what our society trains us in, to what is on every 10 o'clock newscast, to what is in almost every advertisement, even advertisements that now feature a whole lot of happy smiling mixed people, right? Because oh Lord have mercy, it's that time of year, it’s right before Christmas. So we get all the cheesy commercials, and they feature multiethnic folx very prominently. And so even the message there is that beige is not threatening. Beige is beautiful. Beige is not a problem. To reject that in a way that doesn't reject who we are as beige people, to be able to do those two at the same time, I think is a lifetime's work. I think and I hope that it'll be easier for my kids than it was for me. I'll never forget when we first started talking with our oldest daughter, which now she's 11 now. How did that happen? She was probably two at the time because it was shortly after we moved here and started attending a multiethnic church. So we have a Black head pastor, a lot of Black families, not as many because, you know, white people like ourselves, I count us in that category, keep coming because it's beautiful. And then we kind of ruin the demographics, which is a whole nother discussion entirely. But I remember we were having a discussion with her about racism and about the history of the south and about why it is so beautiful to us that we have a Black head pastor and why mommy was crying every time it was communion and the elder that was serving our Black pastor was one of the white elders, like why mommy would start crying. And we said, “Well, a lot of people and our entire society kind of tells us that Black folx are not as good, that they're not valuable, that they're not worth it, that we can do whatever we want to them,” and I remember she said, ‘Mommy, that's ridiculous.” I think she said ridiculous. “That's ridiculous. Some of my best friends are Black.” And I was like, “Yes, but no. Don't say that. But I'm glad you get it. I'm glad you get it.” And yes, we are spoiled and blessed to have so many Black folx in our life, to have our family members, to have our pastor and his family, have these church families, to have her friends at school, because we're in a very intentionally integrated school district, which is another blessing. Yeah, to correct that narratives’ opposite extreme, I think when we do it well and we do it while also expressing the truth that all skin tones are beautiful, then I think in that truth we can say, “But folx don't say Black is beautiful, so dang it, Black is beautiful.” And I think we can do that in a good way.
Nicki Pappas 45:47
Yeah, I just, I love kids, and it’s interesting, when I was a third grade teacher, I would teach these lessons.
Chandra Crane 45:55
Oh, me too, me too.
Nicki Pappas 45:56
Oh, really?
Chandra Crane 45:57
I love it. Okay, tell me, tell me.
Nicki Pappas 45:59
They're so great. But yeah, we would do these lessons, and we did this one lesson on, oh, I can't even remember his name now. Tillman is his last name. And at Winthrop University, which is in the town where we live, in Rock Hill, there's, you know, one of the buildings is named after him. He has a statue at Clemson, I think, you know, and I just remember, like, the kids, they've learned about who he is, and then they're like, “Why does he have a statue? Why are we naming things after him?” And I'm like, “Yes.” Like, kids get it, and they're asking better questions than the adults around me. Yeah, so I love that. I also want to say that I appreciate over and over again, throughout your book, your vulnerability, and the vulnerability it took to admit when you talked about like your own internalized colorism, when talking about your daughters, and you said, “Even while I long for my girls to look more Thai, I have to admit I’m unhealthily pleased they’ve got that ‘mixed’ appearance. So I have to repent for my fetishizing of mixed babies, a practice rooted both in the fear that white folx can have of dark skin.” And so yeah, I just appreciate you bringing it back to yourself and what you're working through and your vulnerability in that. And then you started talking about church, which kind of segues you know, into the next bit of questions here, because I do want to talk about the Christian church with you. And I'm curious about what you have to say based on your book because most of my experiences surrounding race have been in white churches. And the more I learned about power and privilege, the more I understand what you're writing in your book, like one place where you said, “Power and privilege follow racial lines, so it's important to make this distinction not to create categories, but acknowledge categories that already exist.” And you talk about the haves versus the have nots, and whiteness, “encompassing white culture and norms is not the biblical standard from which everything else is derived despite the prevailing majority culture sentiment.” So how do you personally separate what you're reading and what you're studying in the bible from that white normativity and interpretation of the bible?
Chandra Crane 48:16
Ooh, yeah, so the seminary I went to, very conservative, very conservative, close by so valuable in its proximity so I could be on campus. When I started 10 years ago, I was not in a place where I had enough diligence to do online courses, so I wanted it to be somewhere close by where I could actually be in the classroom and be expected to be in the classroom and to turn in the assignments. Part of that was very hard, because it is such a conservative place and because I am such a passionate woman that just didn't fit in there. And so on the one hand, there's a part of me that says, “What would my seminary career have been like if I had been assigned a woman author? Just once? Just once?” Because I don't think I was my entire seminary career, I don't think I was ever signed to read a woman author. But the, I hate the phrase silver lining because that's so dismissive, but the beauty out of brokenness of it is that I learned how to parse things very carefully, how to be very aware of the whiteness and the patriarchy and all these other things that I was steeped in, so as to be able to be very biblical in testing the spirits and saying, “Is this the full story or is there something missing here?” Intentionally, and this is, you know, very trendy, but I think very important, decolonizing my bookshelf. Some of my seminary books I bought have made their way out of my house in the past couple of weeks never to return. And a lot of them have stayed. But some of them have gone bye bye. And I have added many books of authors of color, of women, of folx with different gender and sexual orientation stories. I feel privileged to be able to do that, I feel privileged to have this gigantic bookshelf, which I love books, and to be able to have enough money and resources and know how to start really fleshing out, and I say that very much as a pun and as a statement, fleshing out the embodiment of the entire church, making sure that my bookshelf is not just a bunch of white male authors. I also want to give others a chance to rest, and to step back and to trust, be able to trust, that the work will continue while they are resting. That, to me, is the biggest way that I'm just in the last week even, right, as we're coming up on Christmas, as I'm finally able to take a break for the first time in months. I mean, yeah, I was working six days a week, 12, 15 hours a day, trying to get everything finished up. Yeah, which was awful. But again, I had the privilege to be able to do that even, right, because my husband was at home and was able to be primary care for our kids and had a very gracious supervisor who felt that my work on the book was a part of my work for the organization and so blessed me to pursue that. So even now, in this past couple of days since the launch, just thinking, what does it look like to take the rest I've been given and not feel guilty about it, and not squander it, but to use it to rest well, so that I can then dive back in? What does it look like to trust others? To promote the book, to speak up for justice, to care for my kids while I am napping? So many naps. I love naps so much, so many naps, and then when it's my turn, you know, will I be willing to do that so that others can rest? I think that's something we don't do well in the church because we are so productivity minded, we do have this great commission that we feel very strongly about, so I like getting out of that rat race.
Transition Music
Fourth Segment
Nicki Pappas 52:38
Well, in the book, you shared different stories of people's experiences with the church, and oftentimes those weren't good. So how do you maintain hope for the church with so many stories like that?
Chandra Crane 52:59
So coming out of a Southern Baptist background when I was a new believer in college and then for the first probably five years of my marriage, the thing I loved about being Southern Baptist was I think the, very much the joy of service, the joy of being together, those are very important. But those were very white contexts, right, the SBC has its own issues with that. There was also a sense of, I just felt a little bit of chaos coming, being in a congregational style church, which is to say the ability of anyone to stand up in a business meeting and move that we fire the pastor. That happened a couple of times in my tenure as a Southern Baptist, and it's exhausting. Coming into a Presbyterian tradition now, which is 180 degrees different, in terms of we have elders, right, the elders, we elect the elders, but then the elders make the decisions, and/or we have committees, right? So there's a committee who's deciding what color the carpet in the women's bathroom is going to be. And it doesn't need to be a general discussion. It's just, it's decided in committee and that's okay. And again, there are pros and cons of that. There are good things about that. But knowing that nobody can just off the cuff try and fire the pastor, knowing that there's oversight even from the presbytery on down to our board of elders, has been really healing for me. But then again, right, as we broaden this narrative, I'm starting to see how much brokenness there is in a hierarchical system. And I think for right now, I'm still landing in that place, and I'm still okay with a hierarchical system because I trust our Black head pastor, I trust and know some of our elders and know their heart for reconciliation and for justice and for seeing the other and welcoming the other and providing a place of rest. So I feel good about trusting broken people to work within a broken system. But I think the division that is unhealthy, and I've noticed this in a multitude of denominational heritages, and just in the church in general, because we are broken people, is this hierarchy of secular and sacred. At the top of the pyramid is ministers, and below that, is, you know, you know, when I was on campus, for the most part, campus ministers, you know, maybe like nurses and teachers, and you work your own way, and you work your way on down. As soon as you get into a job where you can't actively preach the gospel, you get pretty far down the hierarchy, right. But I think what's fascinating is, and the bottom two are like the custodial staff right? Now, there may be like one day a year where everybody's like, “Yay, custodial staff,” but then it goes back to, you know, throwing our trash on the floor and just forgetting them. I think what's fascinating is that in the new heavens and the new earth, that hierarchy is going to be completely upended. Like the biggest mansions are going to be the custodians, and the stay at home moms and the working moms, and those who had no place to lay their head, like Jesus, and those who labored quietly and peacefully and gave all they had like the widow, not like the Pharisee. Those are going to be the people who do the good work of building the new kingdom, the new heavens, new earth. Also, the engineers, which I'm biased, but the engineers and the scientists who many in the evangelical tradition would say are not serving the kingdom. I believe in a very embodied new heavens and new earth. And I feel like for all of eternity we're going to continue building it. So the engineers, and the chefs, and the custodians, they’re going to be the ones doing the work of physically building and creating and growing, the gardeners, new kingdom. Us people at the supposed top, the pastors and the campus ministers and the public speakers and everything, we're not going to have a job to do, right, except maybe go clean the toilets of the people who served so faithfully. I love upending that narrative. I love seeing how Jesus and the bible and the new heavens, new earth, upends that hierarchy that we have embraced far too readily in our church, in our churches. And so when I think about what it looks like to push back on that, I think it is reminding ourselves of what's to come. That can help us flip that narrative, flip that hierarchy even now and say, “Actually, the people who have the most to teach us are the children, are the mentally infirm, are those who toil with joy and faithfulness for their whole lifetime. Those are the people that we have the most to learn from, those are the people who understand Jesus better than we do. Those are the folx that we should give honor to.”
Nicki Pappas 58:51
Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, thinking about the hierarchy present, whether it's because of the church structure, or hierarchy within a church because of racism, I was curious if you could kind of close out this section in talking about the church with advice that you might have for people who are in churches where leadership is hesitant or won't make the statement, “Black lives matter” and won't denounce white supremacy.
Chandra Crane 59:23
Yeah, I wrote about this in the book, even with our church. I don't know what to do when people are so excited about our swaying gospel choir, which is baller. We have an amazing choir. I'll be excited when social distancing isn't necessary anymore for the health and good of everyone so that our choir can be back together, swaying together. But when people get excited about that, when they get excited about our pastor’s very impassioned preaching style, but if you want to talk about white supremacy or you want to mention that our building is on land that was stolen from Native Indigenous folx, get real upset, they get real uncomfortable and don't want to do that hard work. I don't know what to do about that. I think it's such a tricky thing, just like anything in the Christian walk, to find the balance between church shopping and church hopping and also staying in an abusive place. I think for each and every person that has to be a personal decision, it has to be a decision made with much prayer, and it has to be a decision made with some sort of community. So if your church, if my church weren't, if someone's church isn't a safe community, finding a safe community to process these things with and to ask those deep questions. Why won't the leadership actively denounce white supremacy? Why are people so uncomfortable if I wear my Black Lives Matter t-shirt to church? Right? I will say that I don't think I could sit under a white male pastor again. I don't think I could do it. Because there's so much privilege there that it is almost blinding, unless someone has, unless someone has submitted themselves to an authority that is the other. Right? So a lot of our Anglican brothers and sisters are serving under the communion in South Africa. I think that's powerful. Right? I think that's important. I think that frames the work they're doing and keeps them from sinking back into white normativity. So I think there's a way to leave a church that says, “I mourn, and I am brokenhearted, and I cannot take this abuse anymore. It is time to go.” I've done that, not over issues of race, but I left a church that I worked for. I was asked to take an indefinite sabbatical, whatever that means, it’s a whole nother story, because of an abusive head pastor who came in from outside, and then was asked not to tell anyone what I was doing and stayed in that church I think for five months. And I remember the day that I just said, “We cannot be here anymore.” And my husband agreed because it was so obvious that they were raising up new leaders within the church that were also going to be blind to the abuses. They were grooming new leaders, right. And to see the heart and the passion and joy of these new young leaders and know what was coming to them, I just, I can't be here anymore. And so we we left with broken hearts. We left angry. But we left knowing that it was the right thing for us at the time. But that looks different for different people. And it looks different for a season. You know, there may be seasons of staying, there may be seasons of going. I pray and I long for when Jesus comes back and it's not an issue anymore. Right? When Jesus appears embodied in the clouds, bringing the new heavens and new earth down to this reality in his brown multiethnic body to say, “Black lives matter. Look at all my beautiful, beautiful, multicolored children.” Oh, man, you know, that'll be the day and maybe that's the answer to why we stay and fight or why we accept the Lord's leading and go, is because we're looking forward to that reality.
Nicki Pappas 1:03:35
Well, thank you for sharing. I'm sorry, you had that experience at the church where you worked.
Chandra Crane 1:03:44
Yeah, thank you. 20 years later, still healing, but actually am healing. So Praise God.
Nicki Pappas 1:03:54
Well, to wrap up here, I have just a few more questions. First, where can people purchase Mixed Blessing?
Chandra Crane 1:04:01
Yes. So right now, at IVPress, you can go ivpress.com/mixed-blessing, and you can actually use the code “EVN40” for Every Voice Now, which is another podcast I had the honor of being on, to get 40% off and free shipping. So that's an awesome deal. I hate recommending Amazon, but I'm grateful for reviews. You can actually review without a verified purchase on Amazon. So you know, feel free to wander over there and review even if you haven’t bought the book [through Amazon], but it is nice to be a verified purchase review. That is one option. And of course your local bookstore. If you go in, you know, ask for them to get you a copy and you can ask them to get a couple extra copies. I mean, the honor and the privilege I have of Jemar Tisby, who is my friend from seminary, right, we were both at the same conservative seminary, we both have survived and escaped, to have him write the foreword is such an honor and it's also you know, as a book seller say, “Hey, here's the New York Times best selling author who wrote the foreword to this book. Will you carry a couple of copies?” is a powerful gift from the Lord to be able to do that. And also, I'm on social media at ChandraLCrane, at MixedBlessingBook. I love interacting. We've gotten to interact some, Nicki, on social media, and I love it. I love talking with people on social media. I'm on Facebook. Yeah, I have a website, chandracrane.com. Come share your stories, I think would be my encouragement to listeners. Come learn stories from mixed folx. Come share your stories. If you are mixed, come listen and see how it fits in with your story. If you're monoethnic. That is one of my biggest joys is just interacting with people and seeing how God is sanctifying us and growing us and changing us with those stories, with the stories of believers.
Nicki Pappas 1:05:58
Yes, well I know, you said you're taking at least a six month break regarding writing and seminary, but is there anything new that you're working on or that's in the works for the near future?
Chandra Crane 1:06:13
I think the best place probably is to go to my link tree and that'll give you, I've written for The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, which is the organization that Jemar is the CEO of. I've written for my organization. Intervarsity Christian Fellowship has a blog, as well as The Well. I've had the honor of contributing to Propel Women recently, and to PAX, which is hand in hand with Asian American Christian Collaborative. I've been able to write a few articles here and there recently, and those are neat because I can write about all sorts of things. Right. And Twitter is where you're going to find all of my bizarre, quirky thoughts on just life in general. But yeah, I love writing articles, because I think that does give more space for interaction because they're shorter. And, you know, it's not quite as large a thing to interact over.
Nicki Pappas
Yeah. Well, will there be a Mixed Blessing podcast?
Chandra Crane
You're the best. Yeah, totally forgot. There will be a podcast. Do I have something new coming up? I don't remember. Yes, there will be, and I’m tickled. We have such amazing folx. So we have almost all of the folx who interviewed, who I was able to interview for the book, will be coming on. So it looks like Brennan Takayama and Lo McDermott and Bekah Ishak, they'll all be on, which is awesome. So their stories we can dive in more, so it won’t just be anecdotes, right, it'll be time to really let them tell their stories. And I've also been blessed with a lot of really great connections of folx who have a fairly large platform themselves. So Heather Thompson Day is going to come on, Robert Chao Romero. Who else? Tiffany Henness. Some really great folx. So it's going to be a special time of listening to stories and telling stories. It'll drop in late January. It'll be available on all the platforms, and I'm sure I'll put a link on my link tree. So yes, thank you.
Nicki Pappas 1:08:09
I can't wait. I can't wait to listen. Well, what is your hope for Mixed Blessing?
Chandra Crane 1:08:18
Yeah, I think I'm gonna get choked up thinking about it. I think my hope is, what it's already doing, is helping, as Jemar said in his foreword, it is helping multiethnic people feel seen, in the same way that when I first read Check All That Apply, which was written by a mixed woman, Sundee Frazier, who I was able also to talk with for the book, in the same way that when I first read it and suddenly felt seen and valued, to have, that book has gone out of print, and so to have this next generation of people saying, “I feel seen, I feel known. I feel like I have a place to wrestle with these things.” That is an answer to prayers and dreams beyond my greatest longing. And I hope that it will. My biggest hope is for mixed folx, but I'm already seeing that right. And so that's a joy. On the next tier, I guess you could say, of what I'm hoping for is, and I've seen glimmers of this, for the families and loved ones of mixed folx to start to understand a little better, to also be able to see their mixed blessing loved ones through the book. That is a huge hope I have. And then also for leaders to take a look at their congregations and realize how much they have been overlooking the mixed folx among them and what gifts we have to give when we're resourced, when we're cared for, when we're seen, when we're given spaces to rest, how much then we have to give the church. That is definitely my hope. And also for any non-believers, I hope that this is part of the work that has already been gone for millennia of here is Jesus and he is not who you think he is. He's far greater and far more wonderful and mysterious and caring than you ever dreamed. And so come find out about this multiethnic Jesus. Yeah, I'm longing for that. I'm longing for all of us to know Jesus better.
Nicki Pappas 1:10:31
Well, I can definitely say that I know Jesus better because of Mixed Blessing. Well, Chandra, thank you for taking the time to talk with me about your own story, but your new book Mixed Blessing, and I loved our conversation and getting to connect with you.
Chandra Crane 1:10:51
Me too. Thank you so much, Nicki. This is such an honor especially when you've had such dope guests on your show. I feel so incredibly honored.
Transition Music
Nicki Pappas 1:10:59
Wasn't that amazing? Wow, it was such a joy to listen to and learn from Chandra. Well, I wanted to read a review for the podcast and thank everyone who has rated and reviewed the podcast so far. So I'll read this review from Ruth Fujino. She wrote, “Sparks joy. This podcast has been a joy to follow. There's just no substitute for sitting down with another human and really listening to their story. And Nicki is so good at that, at holding space for and honoring people's journeys. We're so lucky that she invites us all to listen in and grow alongside her.” Thank you for your kind words, Ruth. As a reminder, the music from today's episode was “Water,” featuring Lucee by Micah Bournes and Jasmine Rodriguez, and the full song will close out the episode. You can stream, purchase, and download Micah's music at micahbournes.bandcamp.com. If you like what you heard today, share it with a friend. I really think that little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. In addition, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Then write and review to help others find the show. I also want to thank Jordan Lukens for his help with editing and Danielle Bolin for creating the episode graphic. You can access the Broadening the Narrative blog and transcripts for podcast episodes as they become available by visiting broadeningthenarrative.blogspot.com. You can find Broadening the Narrative on Instagram @broadeningthenarrative, on Twitter @broadnarrative, and on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/broadeningthenarrative. Come back next week for an important conversation with Sequana Murray about the necessity of reparations. Grace and peace, friends.
Outro Music
“Water” featuring Lucee by Micah Bournes and Jasmine Rodriguez
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