Haunted by "coconuts"

This week I heard a racist term that hadn’t violated my ears for a very long time.

It was the word “coconut” and it was used by Lib Dem councillor Shirley Brown to criticise her Conservative counterpart Jay Jethwa during a debate at Bristol City Council.

Last February Cllr Jethwa proposed cuts of £750,000 to funding for the city’s Legacy Commission which seeks to educate people about the history of slave trade. The derogatory remark was made by Cllr Brown in her response to the plans.

The story has re-surfaced because Cllr Brown is planning to appeal after she was convicted of racial harassment this week.

Despite my personal opposition to the cuts, Cllr Jethwa is simply doing what Conservatives do. There is nothing unusual or shocking about her suggestion given her political stance.

The term “coconut” refers to a person who has lost their culture and to put it crassly is brown on the outside and white on the inside.

It is generally used between those of the same race so Cllr Brown as an Afro-Caribbean insulting an Indian has caused confusion in some quarters.

I was also a recipient of this racist slight at secondary school. The snide little comment was as precise and as painful as a paper cut.

I had never heard it before but the crudity of the imagery left me in no doubt to its meaning and I felt inexplicably ashamed.

It is said that by naming something you can control it. In that moment my fragile teenage identity was stripped away and I was re-defined.

I will always wonder what my persecutor’s definition of “white” was. What was the reason that I wasn’t a true Asian?

Was it the fact that I was a second generation Bengali girl who spoke an (albeit) flawed version of her parents’ mother tongue? Or maybe it was because I went to Durga puja and Kali puja every year instead of celebrating Diwali. Or possibly it was because I never judged others by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

The word is a slur upon “being white”. I don’t understand what the social construct of “whiteness” is based on. How do you define a whole race? Like all racism it seems to be born out of ignorance.

As to Cllr Brown’s statement, yes a conviction may have been too harsh but it was racial harassment.

I am just glad to see that this remark has evoked a strong response because it is unacceptable to use such racist words.

This sort of name-calling is not the language of politics and has no place at the debating table.