The Chronicles of a Coconut: Chapter 1

What is a coconut?

A. An edible seed of a palm fruit.

B. A sex position.

C. A person who betrays their culture.

D. All of the above.

The first time I was called a Coconut, I didn’t realize it could have been an insult. A White person said it. It was the mid-aughts and woke was simply the past-tense of wake. For my question, “What is a Coconut?” they replied, “someone Brown on the outside and White on the inside!” The person I was climbing with was being friendly and jovial, I had no reason to suspect that they hated me in any way. Since that answer was delivered with such good humor, I decided that it must be a compliment. From then on, I would call myself a Coconut every time I did something that I thought was American (i.e. White). Rock climbing is my hobby- a coconut thing to do. I liked Rock and Roll, “what a Coconut!” I did triathlons and marathons in my spare time- a total coconut if there was one.

True, all three hobbies put me amidst very White groups- like the only almond (also brown on outside and white inside) in a rice pudding, I have beem a part of many White majority spaces. Since much of my free time was spent in such spaces, many of my friends were White. So, calling myself a Coconut to them didn’t seem like a big deal. Afterall, I was signaling to them, “hey, I may look different, but I am like you on the inside!”

Was I right? Did I think I was White? Was I White? What does it mean to be White?

It is hard to talk about race because there is so much shame, guilt, privilege, injustice, and hypocrisy involved in it. Yet, it is an inescapable reality in America.

But more pertinently, was I feeling good about calling myself White.

Did I want to be White?

To understand my journey to becoming a Coconut, then to realizing if that was indeed a good thing, I have decided to retrace my evolution from a fresh-off-the-flight Indian graduate student to a person who just used a dozen “Whites” in a story about being Brown.

Do I have the answers? Probably not. Do I expect to use public journaling as a way to absolve my own guilt about not fully Indian, whatever the hell that means? Most certainly. Will this be funny, insightful, and thought provoking? Maybe, depends on your perspective.

Watch this space or medium.com.