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Hideously diverse Britain: Understanding the 'coconut' row

This article is more than 13 years old
Hugh Muir
It's difficult to accuse someone of selling out their racial identity these days

Well, well. Hard to think of a farrago more relevant than this one. Two councillors end up in court because one of them, who is black, calls the other, who is Asian, a "coconut": black on the outside, white on the inside. Coconuts aren't, strictly speaking black, but that's the logic. In the States, she might have called her an Oreo: the biscuit that has a dark exterior and a white filling. But this was Bristol, so she said coconut and was reported for prosecution. Next stop, the magistrates.

They took a dim view and quite right too and as I discuss it all afterwards with Neil, a black friend married to a woman of Pakistani origin, the thing that strikes us is how archaic it all seems. How can you accuse someone of crossing the line of tribal loyalty when the lines in Britain today are so haphazard that on a dull day you can't see them? Is a black person selling out because they joined the police force? That certainly was the thinking when I was growing up in London. Is an Asian betraying his or her roots if they pitch up at home with a love interest of the Caucasian variety? Is it worse if the suitor is a Chinese one? Or Jewish? Is it still possible to offend the folks by speaking with received pronunciation, listening to the wrong music, generally behaving in ways that can be perceived as being "too English"? What of that group once as deeply reviled as the black "sellout" police officer: black Tories? Ideological disloyalty? If we are still doing the "sellout" thing, what hope for them?

I can see why some like tribal discipline, because it does make life less complicated. And it is easy to look at some cultures that take a hard line on this sort of thing and conclude that therein lies a source of their strength. But it's virtually impossible to make it work in Britain in 2010 when there are so many people to meet, so many jobs to do, so many opinions to hold: any or all of which could be cited as evidence of cultural insubordination. Neil says people do what they like, though neither of us can fathom why black men might go line-dancing. Still, if they want to, that's their choice.

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