Coconut: How a Fruit Became a Slur

When Kamala Harris became Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, social media erupted with memes comparing her to a coconut. The implication was clear: Harris, born to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, was “brown on the outside, white on the inside.” This wasn’t the first time a prominent South Asian American politician faced such accusations. In 2015, critics claimed Bobby Jindal was disowning his Indianness, with the hashtag #bobbyjindalissowhite going viral on Twitter. They also accused Nikki Haley of “burying every trace” of herself under an “anglicized moniker.” 

In the lexicon of racial epithets, few terms are as paradoxical as “coconut.” Revered in the subcontinent, the fruit is a contentious slur in the diaspora, one that many have yet to retire.