I don't blame you for using your childhood nickname Jojo. Though you could have just spelled your name VeeJay and people would have assumed you were Black and your parents were named Veentrell and Jayqwando, right? But then again, I guess Vijay is just so hard to say. Almost as hard to say as Chokingonaham or Chachinglingheim or Chimichangaland or whatever your last name is. And don't worry. It's not racist of me to make fun of your name. I'm just underscoring why your sister Mindy might have changed hers to the easier-for-non-Indian Americans to say, "Kaling." Considering how hard it must be for a woman to crack TV being a woman and brown and thick (and very nicely so I might add... um, digression), adding to that a name that screams "I'm not from Boston (where the original tea partiers died for our sins)," well that would just spell career death. So me making fun of your name is really just a harmless attempt to commiserate with how bad you Indians have it here in the (former) land of the braves. Kind of like you commiserated with being Black when pulled over by cops for no reason and sexually assaulted by lusty, jungle fever-crazed White women while pretending to be Black.
And I don't blame you for pretending to be Black to get in to medical school. I believe I may have inadvertently pretended to be non-white Hispanic to get into Yale Law School even though I'm like Black creole or something. And when I got there and realized I was one of the three other light-skinned Black men in my class from New Orleans (out of the 7 total Black men in my class), I immediately grew an afro and beard, and started wearing dashikis to clarify myself as a proud Black man. (Okay I worn a dashiki like twice, but I did wear a Tupac shirt once a week, but again I digress).
And while several other Black men dropped out over a series of mental breakdowns tied to feeling inadequate despite being outstanding in every way, I graduated and immediately turned down any hope at a high-paid lawyer career by spending 15 years working in the non-profit sector as a way to earn the privilege I had been given. This privilege was somewhat due to the guilty, good-hearted liberalism of Yale admissions and mostly due to the back-breaking effort and indestructible hope of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and former-slave ancestors from Louisiana, Haiti, and the Philippines.
And I didn't just say that to make you feel like shit for taking a potential opportunity at medical school away from a Black male student, then dropping out to write a book lambasting Black folks for taking advantage of anti-Indian discrimination. I'm just saying that to say this.
I don't blame you for riding your sister's coattails. We all stand on the shoulders of some giant. My wife, a brilliant brown Indian woman from Kerala, got me through Yale Law School. While she earned Honors in almost every one of her classes, I scratched and clawed to Ps. But she didn't get me through by teaching me how to pull myself up by my bootstraps or teaching me the Queen's English. Quite the contrary, she got me through by empathizing with my struggle through her own experience of discrimination growing up in Boston and attending Harvard, and by her own deep reflection on how to better America while studying African-American History and working with civil rights living legend Bob Moses in Mississippi after finishing Harvard early.
She got me through by offering an understanding ear when I lamented feeling inadequate. She gave me an encouraging word when I questioned whether I belonged there. She opened warm arms to cry into when my mother died at the start of my second year.
And I didn't say that to make you feel like shit for being an ignorant callous fool who has no clue of all the Black hopes, dreams, and bodies left by the wayside in the hundred years between slavery's "end" in 1865 and the civil rights movement (measured in inches) that produced the (endangered) Voting Rights Act of 1965. I wrote that so you could know that I can't be racist against you because my best friend is Indian.
And I don't blame you for any of what you are up to now. This is, after all, America, where you can "find a way to earn a healthy buck and still keep your attitude on self-destruct" (quoting MF Doom is a religion, but I again digress again, damnit.). Sell out all you want, Coco (nut).
I blame you for what happens from this point forward. What will that be, Mindy Kaling's brother? Will you stand in front of a bunch of Black leaders and apologize like the reckless frat boy you were? Will you go on TV and blame Obama for dividing America after you killed some Black man's opportunity to attend St. Louis University Medical School and wrote a book to make money off of it? Will you shave your head, pretend to be Black and get shot in the back or choked to death in cold blood by a cop or a vigilante?
I hope you do none of these things. I hope you get your "Negro [sic]wake up call" sooner than later. Then you can write a book about being a recovering douchebag.
So what will it be Mindy Kaling's brother?
Eagerly awaiting your response,
Dr. Anthony L. Molina Sr.'s son
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