Dr Jennifer Young (University of Groningen)
Recently British school teacher Marieha Hussain discovered that a photograph of her had ‘gone viral’. In the photograph she was holding a placard depicting the British former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman as coconuts (see the photograph above). The photograph was taken whilst she was attending a pro-Palestinian march in central London. It was then uploaded onto a right-wing blog where it received more than four million views. The poster claimed the placard’s sentiment was racist and tagged in the Metropolitan police. The Metropolitan police stated they were “actively looking for her”. Ms Hussain took legal advice and voluntarily went to the police. Six months later she was formally charged with a racially aggravated public order offence to which she pleaded not guilty.
In defence it was argued that the placard was satirical and humorous. It was a “light-hearted piece of political banter” using satire to highlight the “exceptional manifestation of hatred towards vulnerable or minority groups emanating from the home secretary and supported by the prime minister”. This was a reference in part to the then British Government’s controversial scheme of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. Her defence considered the case was a disturbing attack on the right of freedom of expression and “the right to anti-racists to criticise members of their own race for pursuing racist policies and using racist rhetoric; the right to satirise our politicians; the right to mock and tease and make fun of our politicians in a light-hearted way”.
The prosecution claimed that in this context the word coconut was a racist slur. It implied that people of colour might “be brown on the outside, but you’re white on the inside. In other words, you’re a race traitor – you’re less brown or black than you should be.” He stated this was a racial insult which went beyond “legitimate political expression”. The judge cleared Ms Hussain on the grounds that the placard was “part of the genre of political satire” and the prosecution did not provide a criminal standard of proof that she was aware the placard might be abusive.
There are other instances in the UK where the use of the word “coconut” has been construed as a racial insult, and the following example was considered by the prosecution in Ms Hussain’s case. In this case Shirley Brown, the first black Liberal Democrat Councillor for Bristol City, described a Conservative councillor of Asian origin as a coconut. In 2010 she was found guilty of racial harassment under Part 2 ch.2 (s.26) of the Equality Act 2010. She launched an appeal on the grounds that the term was not racist because she was referring to a funding proposal raised by her colleague rather than her race. The appeal was dismissed, her sentence upheld, and she was ordered to pay further costs. The judge stated that these were “offensive words which would have done enormous damage to the very causes and ethnic minorities which she claims to support.”
The last incident to discuss is an Employment Tribunal which went to appeal and then was sent back to the Tribunal when the appeal was allowed in part. Again the legal framework applied to the case was the Equality Act 2010, this time considering the claim of direct discrimination (chapter 2 s.13). The appellant was Ms C Walters, of African-Caribbean descent, who was an employee of Avanta Enterprise Limited. Much of the claim surrounds an incident when her manager Ms Choudhury (of Bengalese descent) made a comment about her being like a coconut or Bounty bar. This came about when her manager joked that she had chosen chocolates for her team and threw Ms Walters a Bounty Bar saying, “I wasn’t trying to say you’re a coconut!!” Two members of the team did not get the reference and Ms Choudhury explained the racial slur, again stressing that she did not think the Claimant was a “coconut”.
Ms Walters alleged she received less favourable treatment because she was black but “behaved as a white person” and was therefore subjected to race discrimination. Ms Choudhury twice stated during the incident that she was not suggesting that Ms Walters was a “coconut” and was “at pains to stress that she was not implying any such thing” (24) and the Claimant acknowledged that in her opinion at the time she did not react and acknowledged that the comment had not amounted to a racial slur, but subsequently claimed to have been offended by it (25). The court found that the discrimination alleged against Ms Choudhury was entirely unsubstantiated (46). Her victimisation claim was struck out at Appeal and the final Tribunal decided that Ms Walters’ complaints of direct racial discrimination were not well-founded and dismissed the proceedings.
In short, the first and last cases did not consider “coconut” to be discriminatory speech whilst the second did. Commenting on the Shirley Brown case in the Guardian Newspaper, Nels Abbey, broadcaster and author of Think Like A White Man – A Satirical Guide to Conquering the World, While Black described it as an illustration of “how unsafe the British court system is on matters of race that require cultural nuance […]. It [coconut] is a form of in-group, satirical political critique – one rooted in this history of formerly colonised people. It is a way of calling out behaviour that may well be harmful to other minorities. It is more often than not an anti-racist statement.”
Again with humour – as stated by Nels Abbey and as we have often explored in our ForHum blogs – the issues with context, the status of the speaker and (especially in the first and last cases discussed above) intent are all nuanced. In Ms Hussain’s case academics from the humanities gave evidence supporting Ms Hussain. These cases highlight the value of understanding the nuances of language and socio-political context. Also that it is important to judge the power dynamics of the person who is using controversial language, and the ultimate message they are trying to convey. Maybe, if there had been more interaction between the court and academics in the Shirley Brown case, the outcome would have been different. On a side note, when I was considering the image to use for this blog, I thought I might see what AI would produce. Whilst the courts might consider Ms Hussain’s placard is acceptable expression it appears that Microsoft does not. But that is a whole other blog.
