Coconut

 

I’m reading Shashi Bhat’s book, The Most Precious Substance on Earth. I would say more about the novel, but I haven’t finished it yet. And anyway, Kerry Clare gives it a review here that is much better than anything I could write.

But these two sentences in the book stopped me: “I thought you were a proud coconut.” Coconut: brown on the outside and white on the inside.

I know that word Coconut well. I’ve been called it myself. It might have been because of the need and desire to assimilate, or because we were raised with the widespread but unspoken message that white western culture was the superior one. For whatever reason, even though Canada is a mosaic and not a melting pot, there are many, many East Indian, Goan and Pakistani coconuts here. 

The coconut word triggered a few memories of instances when I felt misjudged or slightly vulnerable because of my skin colour.

When I was a new mother, I took my daughter for a walk around the neighbourhood. It was the middle of the day when most people would have been at work. My daughter is mixed-race and easily passes for white. An older gentleman stopped, peered into the stroller, looked up at me and smiled kindly. “Are they treating you okay?” he asked. I knew he meant well so I didn’t bother telling him I was the baby’s mother, not the nanny.

More recently, I was walking alone along a river trail in a small town near London, ON. A group of teenage boys were walking towards me, boisterous and laughing. I tensed up inside, my mind racing to the recent horrible hate-crime in nearby London, where an innocent family was murdered on a sidewalk simply because of their race and religion. I knew these teens were likely just good fun-loving kids, but as a woman who frequently travels alone, I try to pay attention to any small fluttering of discomfort. As expected, the group walked by not even glancing in my direction. Ah, the invisibility of middle-aged women. Sometimes, it’s a blessing.

Many years ago, I made my first solo road trip across the border, on my way to Vermont. U.S. border guards are intimidating to most people, but more so to a petite brown-skinned woman travelling alone, her Canadian passport clearly showing her birthplace in the Middle East. He gave me a rough time. He questioned and glared, looked for my suitcase in the trunk, asked what was in my knapsack, whether it was really my car and if I would be camping. “Alone?” he barked. No, I would be staying at a lodge. I remained calm on the outside, but my insides were jello. Would the guard have behaved differently if I had been a big white guy? I think so.

But women, not just women of colour, face intimidating situations daily. I have been lucky in that I have not encountered hatred or anger or discrimination because I’m a brown woman. But others have not been so fortunate. Perhaps my experience is because “you’re not that brown” as someone recently said to me. And it is a well-known fact that the East Indian culture values lighter brown skin over darker brown skin. Perhaps I haven’t encountered open discrimination because I’ve been too obtuse to notice or because English is my first language or because I’ve assimilated well.

Perhaps I’m just a very good light brown coconut.