Scaachi Koul
Scaachi Koul's new book of essays is One Day We'll All Be Dead And None of This Will Matter. From the transcript of her Q&A with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro:
SCAACHI KOUL: It starts with death, as all good things should. I promise this book has a lot more lighthearted (laughter) than I'm presenting it.--Marshal Zeringue
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And it is a funny book about sex and money and race and class. It's called "One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter." Koul's understanding of race was shaped by her life in Canada but also by her trip to India where she felt privileged, whiter somehow.
KOUL: You know, being in North America, I have a very specific understanding of how my race affects me as I move through the world. I am a visibly brown person, and that can sometimes not work in my favor. And then when I went to India, I realized that I had this very specific kind of fair skin privilege. And it was such a strange split. It felt like I was kind of being pulled into two pieces. And how can these two things be true at the same time but just in different places?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: What did it show you about attitudes towards whiteness in North America?
KOUL: I think whiteness is adored everywhere. I mean, it doesn't matter where you go. It's just about having a sliding scale. So for example, because, you know, I'm darker skinned, in Canada, I am treated sometimes with a lot of derision. There's a lot of anxiety about me when I take flights, for example (laughter). When I went to India, it was sort of interesting to...[read on]
