26 Quotes by Nikesh Shukla

My mother is the same shade as Oprah or Maya. Some summers I have seen my big brother almost as brown as Idris but closer to Obama in the winter. Bob Marley was mixed, Jamaican and Celtic, same as me, his shade looks pale in some photos, sometimes much darker. You see, it all depends on the filter and the time of year, it all depends on the light, it all depends on the shade. It depends on what point people are trying to make, to advertise things, to sell you things, to make money.

Racism in society often works through a divide and conquer strategy, more often than not it is also intertwined with classism as well as other forms of oppression. Structural racism can divide a community that would be stronger together, by keeping individual groups entrenched in their own class – in this case, caste discrimination.

Advertising companies, big corporations, banks and politicians need to maintain this, to control the division of people through racism and shade, throwing shade of difference and indifference, good immigrant and bad immigrant, refugee and benefit scrounger.

While ‘Rap Trax!’ recorded, Neel found some scrap paper and we started writing our first lyrics. Bandying about subject matter and title, we got stuck on the idea of ‘cool’, so my first rap song became ‘Pretty Cool’. It was a symbol of our confidence. We weren’t awesome cool or mega cool. We were only... pretty cool.

Yo, bredren, we be the illest,′ went my proclamation. ‘We be the dopest,’ Anand would follow. ‘Our tunes are going to be good,’ Nishant would finish with.

Who knew that after WWII, some 2,000 Chinese seamen in Liverpool who had helped in the war effort were deported ‘home’ without warning? This violation was so swift and hidden that for decades their British wives and families thought that they had simply been left.

These themes are explored through fantasy figures such as wizards, giants and elves. At the same time, amongst the teachers and pupils at Hogwarts, there are very few people of colour and no clear explanation of why that might be. So a story that has so much to say about racism on an allegorical level at the same time depicts people of colour as marginal without exploring their marginalisation. Malorie.

Where are you from?” usually bothers me, but tonight I note his brown skin, and I know it’s not the same thing as a white American asking me the same question. I note his Muslim name. His question is not an attack but an invitation, a cup of tea, from someone who also feels lonely in this country and is looking for a bit of home.