Frantz Fanon was right. Coconut is not a racial slur, it's a critique of White supremacy

There are moments in life that are so bizarre you feel as though you have stepped onto a movie set. I’ve found myself in utter disbelief twice in the last few weeks.

The first was watching Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya tell off the prosecution barrister in the case against Marieha Hussain for "not doing his homework". Marieha was on trial for holding a placard with then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman and some coconuts, implying that whilst they are brown on the outside, they are White on the inside.

Marieha was at a protest for Palestine and there are few better examples of supporting White supremacy than enabling Israel to commit a genocide against the Palestinians. The entire trial was parody enough but watching a barrister be completely embarrassed by an expert witness for the defence was something to behold.

The second time I felt I had left reality was earlier this week, listening to my solicitor read out my prepared statement painstakingly outlining why it was not a criminal offence to call Calvin Robinson a "House Negro", in my supposedly voluntary police interview.

West Midlands Police took no further action and the police 'probe' was dropped. But the police seeing sense is no cause for celebration. Both times all I could do was shake my head and chuckle, but in truth, neither scene was funny but revealed the dark side of British race relations legislation. 

When children of the colonies began moving to Britain after the Second World War it was perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of race. This meant there was what was known as a "colour bar" preventing minorities from working, living and socialising where they were not welcome.

Black and Brown communities mobilised to break the colour bar, with the successful boycott of Bristol buses in 1963 credited with forcing the incoming Labour government to pass the Race Relations Act in 1965. Alongside outlawing discrimination in public spaces, like pubs, the act created the offence of "incitement to racial hatred."

Critical Race Theory founder Derrick Bell once warned that "what we designate as racial progress is not a solution to that problem, but a continuation of the problem in a particularly perverse form." He could have been specifically talking about this legislation with how it has been applied.

Rather than being used to protect the communities who fought for it, five of the first six people charged with the new offence were Black power activists including Roy Sawh a member of the United Coloured People’s Association (UCPA) and Michael X of the Racial Adjustment Action Society (RAAS).

Sawh spent eight months in prison for giving a speech at Speakers Corner in London that offended the watching police officer. It may seem outrageous that Marieha Hussain stood trial for calling out just two of the coconuts in the government but it really is in keeping with the initial purpose of the law: to police Black and Brown political thought.

The UK's coconut complex

I found myself in a police station because I made a video defending Marieha and explaining that terms like Coconut, House Negro, Coon and Uncle Tom are not racial slurs but political critique.

It is frankly ludicrous to suggest that terms that were produced in the anti-racist struggle should be treated the same as those that are used to reinforce White supremacy.

Calvin Robinson, with his Union Jack bedsheets, picture of the Queen on his wall and spewing out anti-Black propaganda to earn a living, precisely fits the description of what Malcolm X warns of, those "who identifies with the master, more than the master identifies with himself."

With her placard, Marieha was warning about the dangers of the coconuts, who want us to be proud of the diversity they represent but somehow forget their colour when they pursue racist policies.

The coconuts in the government are far more dangerous than figures like Calvin Robinson, who is little more than a performing clown.

The prosecution barrister in Marieha’s case expertly explained the foolishness when he argued that "bringing race into" an insult automatically made it racially offensive.

As Professor Gus John testified at the trial, "race is always in it," shaping every interaction.

In Marieha’s defence Conservative commentator, Peter Oborne, hammered home the point that Braverman was able to use racist rhetoric and champion far-right policy, like the Rwanda deportation scheme, because she was Asian.

A white politician could never have got away with using the language of "invasion" when talking about immigration or presiding over the most racist immigration policy the nation has ever seen.

The diversity of the successive Conservative governments was weaponised as cover for racist legislation. Marieha was simply pointing out that the truth is that though they may be brown on the outside, their policies are promoting White supremacy.

There is a long history to a term like ‘coconut’, rooted in Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Fanon argued that colonialism bleached us down to our very souls, with the erasure of our identity so total that the "West Indian was a White man."

Similar to Malcolm’s theorising of the House Negro the point has never been to harass or injure but to protect. Malcolm called it "love teaching" because he was both warning the community not to be deceived by the newfound diversity, but also reaching out to those trapped in the delusional mentality.

No matter how much Calvin Robinson or even Rishi ‘Rich’ Sunak think they have made it, they are still racialised minorities. The policies and systems they uphold will come back to haunt either them or their families because that is the nature of racism.

Selling out your community may feel good when you are riding high but we are all one step away from feeling the lash of White supremacy. We need these terms to understand how racism is practised and to remind all of us of our collective interests.

Unfortunately the coconut trial was not the first and will not be the last, we have to mobilise to defend our political thought.

The New Arab has approached Calvin Robinson for comment.

Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His research focuses on resistance to racism and grassroots organisations.

His last book The Psychosis of Whiteness was published in 2023. He has written several books, including The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World, Black to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century, and Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement. 

Kehinde is also editor of the Blackness in Britain book series with Zed Books. Kehinde has written opinion pieces for outlets including the Guardian, Independent, Washington Post and CNN. Kehinde is founder of the HarambeeOrganisation of Black Unity; and co-chair of the Black Studies Association.

Follow Kehinde on X: @kehinde_andrews

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author's employer.