Coconut

I came to this country when I was young from a country full of  skin colors that were made of varied colors of brown. Toasted almond, chocolate brown, sandalwood, chestnut brown, and coffee cream. There were so many shades that you couldn’t categorize them if you wanted to. Each one was beautiful. I didn’t meet someone who was white until I was 6 or 7 years old.

It wasn’t until then that I paid any serious attention to the color of my skin and what it meant. I remember going to middle school in a predominantly small white town and being the only person of color amongst a sea of white children. One day as we were standing in line to go somewhere one of the girls reached out and touched my arm curiously. Her name was Libby. She had fiery red hair and freckles. She said, “your skin is so dark”. I glanced down and suddenly realized that she was right. Her skin was almost paper white and mine looked like coffee brown. It looked even darker than usual when it stood next to her skin. It was almost as if the whiteness of her skin dominated even in that moment and cast a shadow over every other color in the room. Goosebumps littered my skin for a moment. She rubbed her hand against mine and continued “It looks like my skin but just dirty. Like if I rub at it it should go away and become white like mine.” I was filled with so many emotions that my little heart couldn’t fully decipher at that moment. I mostly felt ashamed and disgusted with myself. Am I dirty?  This moment resonated with me and colored my childhood and young adulthood for years to come. 

I spent a lot of my young life trying to decolorize myself as if that were even possible.  That girl’s words about being “dirty” made me feel like I was not equal to my white friends. I focused so hard into trying to blend in that I ignored everything that was unique about me. I rejected my Indian culture. I refused to eat the homemade Indian food my parents made for me. I rarely spoke in my native language. I insisted that my overworked parents buy the latest clothes of fashion and toys so that I can fit in with my white neighbors. I avoided the sun like it was a plague in the summertime because the toasted color of my skin would become an even darker shade because of the sun. I hated looking at pictures of me and my friends because I looked so dark that it was only my smile that stood out of all of my features. Later, I would change the filters to make my skin look as light as possible. When I felt accepted by my white friends, I made it a point to avoid the one or two black kids in the class that came to our school later. I was afraid they would drag me down. I didn’t feel any closer to them than I did to the white people because I felt like I didn’t fit in with them either. I worked too hard for too long to be accepted into the white group that I didn’t want to go backwards. 

I eventually went to a private school because my parents wanted for me to obtain a better education. They were a hard working immigrant family that spent every dime they had to ensure I received the best opportunities to carve a life of my own. The school I went to was similar to my public school except these white people came from money. I was one of two Indian people in the class. There were a few Hispanic students littered through the grades but they seemed to stick to themselves. I don’t remember seeing many black students, if any, when I first started there. I remember becoming the face of diversity for the school though. Anytime there were photos being taken for the school brochures I was always put front and center of the photo shoot. I may not be black, but I was as close and as acceptable a version to it as they got. While I was trying to rub away the dirty color of my skin they were trying to highlight it in order to show that they were diverse and accepting. 

Later I realized that the Indian community that I belonged to took advantage of this. We were considered the colored people who were smarter, resourceful, and productive. We easily assimilated into the white community because we were more malleable. The Indian community I belonged to were also first generation immigrants who struggled to bring their families to this country to have a piece of the “American Dream”. They were used to acknowledging the rule of white men. The history of the British occupancy of India certainly ingrained it into them as children. It wasn’t much different in this “new world”. I learned to ignore white people’s ignorance and keep my head down and move on. I was one of their brightest students. The private school full of white teachers and nuns groomed me for their world. When I graduated, I was sent off to colleges and grad schools where I would connect with more of their alumni and climb the ladder of success. It felt great to be accepted even if I was never quite at the same level as them and more like a project. I felt less dirty and maybe I could rub the color out of my skin. I chose a college which was a small catholic college which was the spitting image of my private school. Again, it was predominately white. I succeeded there as well. Then I encountered my childhood best friend who made me think more about my circumstances. 

My best friend who had moved away as a child decided to come back here to attend a college near mine. Ama was my first friend in this country and was also Indian. I will always remember her giant circular glasses and her wild curly hair. She didn’t care that I barely spoke English and smelled of curry. Her parents came to this country around the same time as my parents. She was extremely intelligent even as a 7 year old. She loved music and often listened to rap and r&b. She introduced me to Tupac and all sorts of black artists. I would gasp when I listened to their hard lyrics and she would laugh at me. She would try to tell me about the deeper meaning of what the rappers were talking about in their lyrics. She moved away only a few years later and our conversations dwindled as life took us in very different directions. She had moved to Tennessee and lived in a town which had higher concentration of black people. When I was blending into the white community and celebrated as a face of diversity in my schools, she was sitting with the black kids and hearing racial slurs being thrown at her. I don’t know if she gravitated towards them or if she was lumped into the same group because of the color of her skin. What I do know is that she felt prejudice all of her life and identified more with the black people in her community. Her Indian parents were not sure what they could do. The Indian parents in our community took pity on them and told them they should not let her daughter spend so much time with black people. They almost recited word for word what they were taught by the white community that her daughter would become lazy, promiscuous, use drugs or make other bad decisions if she continued to be friends with them. I didn’t stop those rumors or try to intervene. 

I found myself drifting further and further away from her until she came back for college. By then so much had changed between us that it was hard for us to reconnect but she wouldn’t give up. She was on the fast track to becoming a lawyer, which was inspired by her upbringing and the injustices she had seen. I worked on getting into medical school so that I could heal people. I think it summed up our personalities well. I was groomed my whole life to be a valued member of society that could give back in a productive way as seen by my indian community and the white society. I could put a bandage over the gruesome wounds in our society in some ways. On the other hand, she wanted justice. In a way she wanted the wounds to fester until people recognized what lay behind it and cure the system from within. She was unapologetic as she pointed out every instance where there was inequality or racism. I spent years training my mind to ignore the things she so blatantly pointed out at every turn. I found it difficult to spend time with her but felt obligated to at the same time. By then I had surrounded myself with other Indian Americans brought up in similar ways as I had been. They were “coconuts” as some people described us. White on the inside and brown on the outside. We tried hard to go with the status quo and blend in with our white friends and neighbors. She had a hard time fitting into this group of friends because it just wasn’t her personality. She wasn't afraid to stand out. This made my friends feel threatened and uncomfortable. They soon lashed out at her by making snide comments and leaving her out. I let them treat her badly. Even my ex-boyfriend took part in teasing her. When she had her back turned I would laugh with them. It wasn’t lost on me that we were mimicking the same prejudice and injustice happening around us. She eventually gave up trying to be my friend. I don’t blame her. 

I had opportunities to stand up to injustice within my own indian community and I didn’t. I had opportunities to learn more and try to educate them and I didn’t. I had the opportunity to stand up for my friend and I didn’t. I was too busy trying to rub my skin white so that I could blend in instead of stand out.

George Floyd’s death and the outcry that has followed has awoken something in me that I had tried burying for so long. My husband forced me to open my eyes and deal with it. Even if I wasn’t the one kneeling on his neck, I could have easily been one of those people watching and doing nothing. I had been watching and doing nothing my whole life. My husband has a wallpaper on his cell phone and it says “Inaction is a slow death”. It’s time to stop kneeling. We need to stop being afraid to stand up and stand out.