When I was a child, I knew I had superpowers.
That's right.
I thought I was absolutely amazing because I could understand
and relate to the feelings of brown people, like my grandfather,
a conservative Muslim guy.
And also, I could understand my Afghan mother, my Pakistani father,
not so religious but laid-back, fairly liberal.
And of course, I could understand and relate to the feelings of white people.
The white Norwegians of my country. You know, white, brown, whatever,
I loved them all. I understood them all,
even if they didn't always understand each other,
they were all my people.
My father, though, was always really worried.
He kept saying that even with the best education,
I was not going to get a fair shake.
I would still face discrimination, according to him, and that they only way
to be accepted by white people would be to become famous.
Now mind you, he had this conversation with me when I was seven-years-old.
So while I'm seven-years-old, he said, look,
soo its either got to be sports, or its got to be music.