Adulting - #80 Cultural Appropriation, Yoga and Education with Vaani Kaur

Episode Date: October 18, 2020

Hey podulters, I hope you're well! In this week's episode I speak to Vaani Kaur. Vaani is a secondary school English teacher and qualified yoga, fitness and mindfulness instructor. She reached out to me as she had recently (successfully) started a conversation about the problematic nature of cultural appropriation in wellness spaces especially yoga. We discuss this and more as well as the book that Vaani is in the process of writing! I hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review and subscribe xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded. Or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. See full terms at canada.casino.fand you're well. In this week's episode, I speak to Varni Kaur. Varni is a secondary school English teacher and a qualified yoga, fitness, and mindfulness instructor. She reached out to me as she had recently and successfully started a conversation about the problematic nature of cultural appropriation in wellness spaces, especially yoga. So we discussed this and more as well as the book

that Varni is in the process of writing. I hope you enjoy and as always, please do rate, review Bye. Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I'm joined by Varni Kaur. Hello. Hello. Hi, how are you? Good, thank you. How are you? I am good, thank you. So for people who don't know who you are and what you do, could you give us a little introduction to Varni? Yes, sure. Firstly, thank you for having me. I'm Varni. I'm a secondary school teacher. I'm a yoga and fitness instructor and an activist based in London. I'm currently working on my first

novel, which is a children's book featuring a brown girl as its protagonist because I really wanted to address the diversity issue within children's literature. If anyone is interested in that you can get in touch with me directly. Incredible so you said there a bit that you are an activist what form does your activism take and when did that start to be a part of who you are and what you do? So I feel like I have always been an activist just in my personal life anyway because my mum was really keen on teaching us the importance of standing up for ourselves and other people and really being aware of like the privileges we even have and just really instilling in us something that said we should care about other people and recently I started taking my activism online. Part of me before never really thought I could make a difference because I don't

really have a huge following or a really big platform online. And actually, I think that way of thinking isn't quite correct because you can make a difference, whether you're doing it online or offline. Just having these conversations, talking about these important things to one person or a million people, it still makes a difference. So most recently, I think you reached out to me and you were telling me how the Happy Place Festival, which was something I was a part of, was putting on a component which you felt didn't perhaps sit right with you. Could you give us a little bit more information on what happened there? And I think this is the kind of activism online that you were talking about just then.

Yeah sure so I followed the Happy Place online last year I believe it was a person in-person festival and then this year it had moved online because obviously everything has moved online and I regularly followed like the programming because there are a lot of free and really really good events going on um and one day I saw that there was an event which was a meditation class followed by the story of Lakshmi which who is a Hindu goddess. And this was led by a white woman. And it really didn't sit right with me. I just felt like something was wrong. And I wasn't really sure if I was correct in my thinking. So I did go online and I had a look and it seemed like people agreed with me that this whole festival is something based around yoga and meditation, which has obviously come from India. And it appeared to be that there was no reference to anyone from that culture. um so I did reach out to them politely just to explain my thoughts um and it seemed like lots

of other people agreed and we managed to make a really big change um they took notice um and I ended up then collaborating with them um and we filmed a video about the importance of cultural appropriation so aside from the Happy Place Festival I guess just yoga in general is so widely appropriated by white people so much so that I would guess my knowledge of yoga when I was younger I almost imagined that it was kind of like not a white practice but it was so far removed from its history. When you were growing up did you find that really weird like how did that intersect with, I guess, your knowledge of having done it? I guess, have you always practiced yoga or?

Yeah, so I found it really strange because in my home, actually, my dad does yoga and he meditates and my brother is like very heavily into it compared to my mum and my sister. So my influence was very male, which is actually quite in line with how yoga even started because Lord Shiva was the god of yoga, meditation and the arts. And originally it was a very male thing um it has now evolved um over time but the face of yoga right now is very one-dimensional it is a slim uh wealthy white woman um and I think that's what most people think yoga is um and that's not correct, really. So I found it really strange, because in my home, I had this one vision of yoga, which was so much more than just being able to do a handstand on the beach and, you know, taking a picture and wanting it to get all these likes and things like that. But it was a more holistic lifestyle

approach. And then when I started going to yoga classes, like I live in London, it was just so one sided. And the types of studios would employ a certain type of instructor, you know, again, white, slim, able-bodied. And it doesn't feel right. And I think this needs to be addressed because yoga is something that is for everyone. It benefits all kinds of people. And we should be trying to make it as inclusive as possible because if you only have one type of instructor it's likely you're only going to have one type of student as well and that shouldn't really be the case. So what is the real, I completely agree with all of that and I think that it's amazing that it's being brought to the fore and the fact that you managed to do it on this platform like the Happy Place is a really really positive thing but how do you think we can actually

is there a way of creating it so that yoga is looked at in the way that it was literally designed or does there have to be some kind of clever communication because I think there's a lot of people especially for instance people like me who might have gone to those yoga classes who did see those specific types of white women teaching them who still doesn't really know like the true history of it and what it really means and I know that it can actually be quite to certain people I don't know how you feel about this but can be quite insulting when some white people go to Bali and and adopt things and and use I don't know how you feel about the use of the language I'd love to hear more about the like real history of the culture of yoga yeah so I I do have a I do take issue um with someone who I actually saw recently someone did an online yoga instructor course um for like

10 hours um and has a huge following on social media, and is now a quote unquote, qualified yoga instructor. And to me, that's not quite it. I don't mind people who go to, you know, India and do their yoga teacher training or Bali and do this and that. I think whatever people are doing, that is great. But I think more needs to be done. I think you should be looking online and doing some research and a really simple Google search of who invented yoga gives you this entire story of Lord Shiva, who was the god of yoga, meditation and the arts. He is the inventor of every yoga pose we see today. And his wife was a goddess, Bharati.

She encouraged him to share this story of yoga and the concept of meditation with the world. And without them, we wouldn't have the practice today. So that was obviously a very simple version of the full story surrounding the history of yoga. But there is so much to the culture that we need to be aware of. And it's important to do the background research, not so that you can just, you know, sit in class and retell all these stories. It's so that your understanding is deeper, so you can give a more authentic lesson. So I think we should all, whatever we're doing is good. Like we should keep doing what we're doing but also do more um if you're an instructor

who works at a studio um if you are maybe a white privileged instructor can you take a look around and see are there any people of color in the studio um if not why um could you bring this up with management and things like that so i think we all need to be doing more. So when what we're talking about is obviously culture appropriation in a way that I guess people don't necessarily always recognize because we think about well I think they do recognize but I wonder if you could give your definition of what you think culture appropriation is because I've spoken about it a lot but I'm a white woman whose culture can't really be appropriated in that sense. I'd love to hear how you would define it, because I know that it's quite a sticking point for people where it can seem quite confusing as to what it actually means.

Yeah, I think it is quite confusing for a lot of people to understand really what it is. So I believe that cultural appropriation is when you have an idea, a concept from a culture that has historically been oppressed, being taken by a privileged group of people and used in a way that is beneficial to them. So it could be beneficial in financial terms, just social standing and things like that. So really, you have something being taken completely out of context, being repackaged, and sold back to people with complete disregard for the history and roots of where it came from. And it's something that really happens across every single industry all day. And I think, especially at the moment, it's something that's being addressed and talked about so much, which is great, because people are really having their eyes opened to what's going on. um and for example it happens in the food industry um I saw recently a wellness event being

held by a very well-known um grocery store um it was online and the event was how to cook dal, which is an Indian lentil dish. And it was being taught by a middle-aged white man. And it's just, which I feel like is completely ridiculous. This is a huge, huge platform that this brand could really open up, give opportunities and share them with people of colour, especially when you're taking something from their culture. So that's just one example. Of course, it happens in fashion, in wellness, in movies. It happens in every industry. You put that so well. I didn't think I've ever managed to explain cultural appropriation as succinctly as you just did. And that example with food as well is really good. I mean, we saw it happen years ago as well with, I don't know if it's the same white chef we're talking about, because I'm not sure I've seen the Dal one, but with jambalaya and other dishes like that. And it's interesting because when, if you're looking at it from the wrong mindset, which I think I would have done before, I would have been like, oh my God, it's interesting because when if you're looking at it from the wrong mindset which I think I would have done before I would have been like oh my god it's only just food like how can

you say this and it's and once you start to understand why it's so problematic which I'm hoping the discourse is changing and I think that with um people now becoming more forthright and being able to engage in conversations about race, religion, culture, that we're starting to see that these things that appear to some people superficial, like a white man cooking dal, is actually rooted in much deeper histories of colonialism and stealing. Exactly. I think that's why people feel so hurt when they see these things. Because, for example, that one incident, that's not the only incident that plays on my mind when I see that. It's all the background stuff. It's something every single day that happens. example I recently again thought it actually was another food brand had collaborated with an influencer um on Instagram for a it was like a paid partnership thing and they were cooking a key margarita um and the it with another white woman um and it's just seeing these things constantly and constantly really weighs you down emotionally.

And it's difficult and we're tired of seeing this all the time. And for the people, there are lots of people who are saying, you know, it's just a bit much, isn't it? Like, why, you know, everything's just needs to be so PC these days. And why are we talking about this all the time? And if you think that you are in a privileged enough position to switch off from it, you can switch your mind off from the conversation. I can't because, and other people can't either, because we see it day in, day out, everywhere we look. And it's hard.

It's interesting because I guess like social media must have really exacerbated one, kind of the visibility of this happening, but also just the ability for it to happen because I guess we have so much more access to different cultures, different things. And so it gives people the ability to co-op them. But then I guess that's also tied into the fact that if we look at social media, and we've seen this even more recently with the way that black and brown creators are treated, that the algorithms

literally will boost white profiles more than they will black people or people of colour. Is that something, how does that make you, I guess you already know that that's happening but I guess that that's the difficulty as well because it's like all of those things interlinked mean that it's inevitably going to be harder for a person of the origin of the thing that we're talking about to even get the platform to talk about it over some white content creator or famous person yeah I'm yes I I I think that is a real problem um and I think sometimes we look to social media um even media in general and you see people who are at the top and who are doing well, which is great, and they have definitely worked hard to get there. But you also have people who are really at the bottom of the ladder, who have a voice, who have, you know, genuine good things to input to the conversation, who are just being left out um and I think I think the idea of kind of the algorithm thing was being talked about initially but now it has really been proven

like people actually have evidence to say this is what's happening to my account and this is this is what's going on and I think it's wrong because we something has to change and I think the only way we can really do that is it firstly acknowledging that there's a problem um so if you are in a privileged position um you should be acknowledging that you're there um and also be willing to help um I I've said this quite a lot of times, and I will say this all the time. If you are in a privileged position, open up your platform, like you're doing right now to me, like you're giving me a voice on your really large platform to have this conversation. People should be doing that. And it's not in the sense that you're doing them a favor um you know you've you've

done your good little bit for charity it's not that it's we have something to bring to the table we have something to add to this conversation just like you do and all our voices are equally as important I I love speaking to you and I love delving into these topics and it is hard sometimes I know to to find the right balance of as you say like not feeling like you're I'm not doing you a favour I really wanted to talk to you I think it's really interesting and I think especially with Indian culture like I suppose like the UK and India are so tightly interlinked and lots of the things there is I guess a certain level of appreciation like well maybe this is a really stupid thing so I guess a certain level of appreciation like well maybe

this is a really stupid thing so I'm going to build on it like British people love curry and we love things with Indian culture even if we kind of the curry that we have is also sort of like not real Indian curry as it's like made up British version yeah but but then there's so many there's so many interesting parts of that I wonder if you could talk more about it because I think it's something that's not really um explored as much when it comes to cultural appropriation and I certainly spoke about it when I did that post about gold jewellery and I was actually talking about it in relation to black women wearing hoops and then I had lots of Indian followers saying actually like yeah jewellery is like a massive part of our culture and not only this but when I was growing

up loads of young girls would wear bindis and saris to parties and all of this stuff just doesn't get spoken about. And I would love to speak to you about that growing up and whether you think that it's kind of like Indian culture is very often like culturally appropriated in the UK. Do you think? Yeah, so I think it definitely is. I think Indian and black culture for sure are constantly appropriated here in the UK and even in across the world um the the first thing I actually want to make really clear is that I am happy when I see someone where a bindi or where mendi which is henna um I'm happy when I see people taking things from my culture and appreciating them um I'm not happy when these things are sold and completely mislabeled and really trampled all over. For example, I feel like a bindi should be sold as a bindi. It shouldn't be called a face gem because you should have the right to know what you're putting on your face

um and just by those small like little changes um I think we'll be taking really small steps that will make a big difference eventually because like you say yes like British people love a curry that's great but you should also have some appreciation like of where it comes from and you know how these things um are integrated into my culture for example um a lot of cultures um don't eat with utensils so for example in my culture we eat with our hands um and when I was growing up if I did that at school um you know that was so disgusting and dirty and how on earth could you eat with your hands it's really uncivilized um and so there is an irony here that things have come full circle because now everything's about mindful eating and connecting with your food um and yeah so I feel like we should just we just need to learn how to be a little bit more

culturally sensitive um I think the conversation isn't about who is upset about what, it's why are we upsetting people in the first place? There's just no need. I think if we approach it in a more sensitive and empathetic way, we'll be on the right path. I think it's so interesting for you to bring up about eating with your hands. That's such a good point. And that's such a good example of how we're so tied into our own ideological concepts that we forget that just because that's something that, and I'm saying we, and by we, what I'm saying in this conversation, I generally mean, I guess, white British people. assume that what we do is the norm but that is the whole issue isn't it it's like you can't just pick and choose bits of things that you like like you said like enjoying a curry and then be shocked when someone who's from india wants to eat their curry with their hands i completely i think that's a really good example of it showing where we've like when it's kind of like cherry picking fandu casino daily jackpots guaranteed to hit by p.m. with your chance at the number one feeling, winning.

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Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. I think it's interesting that you were saying that you weren't insulted by people wearing bindis. I kind of want to ask more about this because I think this is another thing that gets caught up in this conversation is everyone kind of goes, oh, well, so-and-so was outraged by this. So everyone feels this way. We kind of treat everyone like a monolith. And some of the comments on that comment section were really interesting. So some people were like, I love it. Like, obviously, if I'm going to, my friends coming to an Indian wedding, I want them to wear full Indian dress. Like,

that's what you do. But I didn't like it when they were going to Reading Festival and a bit, like you said, you know, wearing a bindi from ASOS and it was being kind of treated as hot when the white girls did it but when brown girls did it it was different like do you it I find that a really interesting conversation because then I I also feel like what's the correct way to approach it I don't know how to explain what I'm saying yeah no I think you explained that really well and I actually agree with you I think the context really matters when you take something out of context um it doesn't quite make sense so um and I don't think every um person of Indian or any um eastern origin has to agree with me here. I personally don't like to see a bunch of white girls wearing

bindi's all over their face at Coachella. I personally feel that is inappropriate. Not everyone will feel like that. And that's fine. But I think it's so lovely to have people who would attend like my wedding or other Indian people's weddings or people from that culture and take on a bindi and a sari as a form because that really is a form of appreciation. They're not dressing up like that just to be cool and to be kind of different. They're actually trying to understand and And for us, clothing, jewellery, accessories, all of these things are such a big part of culture. For example, the bangles that we wear, you're gifted them on your wedding day and you're gifted lots of different types of jewelry um so we have an

emotional and cultural connection to these things that when you take them out of context um it it doesn't make sense and um it can be quite hurtful for people because we have a real deep emotional connection with these things like my mum mum has jewellery that she was gifted from my nanny, which is my grandma, on her wedding day, which has now been passed down to me. And that's quite traditional jewellery. So when I see someone wearing something that looks really similar, just kind of tossing it around really like flippantly, you know, with a bindi on their head at a random festival, it does make me think like, gosh, you have no idea what this feels like to people. I think that's the real crux of the issue, is that perhaps,

and this is a really, maybe I'm completely ignorant to say this but I would say that as a as a white I'm not even really English so I'm technically like half Irish, quarter Hungarian probably something else but I don't feel like I necessarily have that much culture if I have to think about like what my things in my culture are it's like a roast dinner on a Sunday and I don't really know so one of that is like also part of the issue is that um when i go so when i do go to other countries where they do have such strong cultures or even such strong like like foods and almost i would say every other country are so much more about that country than we are in the uk and i feel like that's also where people get really stuck because they can't

understand why these things are so important to you when we having well colonized and pillaged and stole from everyone else obviously don't have those same relationships with certain things and I think that that's what's listening to you say like that's really important to me is that's what we should be listening to rather than questioning you know why we can't have it sort of thing. Yes. So this is something that comes up so much, like around cultural appropriation, the topic of racism, homophobia. To me, those things are not a discussion. This isn't up for debate. It's not whether is racism real? Is cultural appropriation real? It is real. The conversation should be, what can we be doing to make sure that we acknowledge these things and make them better for the people that are living with them? And I think your point about the British culture thing is actually really interesting and valid.

I think you explained it really well. One of the things I think is a problem here is the fact that the true history about the colonisation period isn't really taught in schools. We're not really taught about the British Empire and at minimum, you know, it's kind of loosely brushed over as this really good thing. And, you know, it happened to India, and we made them really civilized, and it was great. And we gave them the railroads. Okay, that's fine. But what about everything else? What about the partition? What about the millions of people that were displaced? You know, what about all the people that were drafted into the World War that fought for England but were British? Sorry, were not British. They were from India. And we need to get into the education system what, quote unquote, you know, immigrants or minorities have done for Britain. And I feel like that will

not, again, not only benefit us, it also benefits British people, because you can then hear those stories, learn about these people, and understand why they are a part of your history too. And when I mean you, I mean everyone in Britain um one of my favorite examples is I don't know if you've heard of her a princess Sophia de Leap Singh I'm not sure if I have so really interestingly that you maybe not haven't because she was um a Indian princess she was the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She lived at Hampton Court Palace. Oh yes, I do remember this now. Sorry, carry on there. I just remembered now. And the thing is, she was so much a part of the British society and did so much for us. She was a great, like incredible suffragette.

She led so many demonstrations and marches and protests with Emmeline Pankhurst. And because of her place in society, she was able to basically do all these things and go completely unscathed because of her connection with the queen, right? She is British and she is Indian. So that is something that we share. Her story is something that we share, yet she's not talked about. And did you watch the movie? I think it was in 2015, the Suffragette movie. Yeah, so she was, yeah, sorry. No, just to say, no, I haven't, I haven't watched it. The only reason I know about her, and it's so funny that you said this now, is I've literally just finished reading a book called Difficult Women by Helen Lewis. And she talks about the Suffragettes and she brings her, and that was the first time, and I brings her and that was the first time and I'm 26 that's the first time I've ever come across her and it's shocking because she is someone who

contributed everything to our society and our history and it is ours because we live here and and she's one of the only one of the reasons why we are able to vote and have a voice and she's missing she's completely missing from our history uh and hardly um there's anything written about her there's you know one or two books maybe that she's in um and so the movie actually she was her character was written into the movie originally um. And they were even in talks with someone to play her. And in the final draft of that film, she was written out. So time and time again, people of colour are being erased from their own stories.

And it shouldn't be happening. And if that wasn't the case then the whole kind of cultural identity of britain would be different because you would have more things um and i think this is something that we have to talk about and have to see what we can do to um change that i think that's so interesting also I want you reminding me because I remember thinking when I read it I was like I want to google how that's how did I not know that Queen Victoria had a god do you say god daughter yes god daughter yeah and I remember thinking god that's wild like I just didn't know that but I also wanted to ask

because you're talking about education I agree it's like one of the most fundamental things I wasn't taught about colonialism in school if we were were, it was very briefly, like you said. But you are an English teacher, so you're in that school environment and you're around children. I don't know what your classrooms are like, but is it coming into the rooms via the teachers sort of thing? Are these things starting to happen? Do you feel that these conversations are happening within the classrooms or not quite yet I think at the moment they are um I think teachers are doing a really good job actually at the moment of um having these conversations and definitely talking about things like that um but unfortunately we are not enough um it we need the curriculum to include these things and um you know these texts that we study in English um to be looked at uh for example

there is a book about Sophia by Anita Anand, which is incredibly detailed. And it talks about her whole life and what she contributed to Britain. And there will be so many other people just like her, you know, from countries that were colonized and contributed to Britain. And so I think we need to really assess how we can integrate this right the way through. So while yes, teachers are doing an amazing job, and they are having these conversations, it would be even more beneficial to add in things to the curriculum so that everyone can learn about them. I completely agree and I think there was a few petitions especially when we had that well I know that the protests are still ongoing but when there was a lot of action especially on social media there were a lot of campaigns being

shared to implement the stuff in schools but obviously then for the people that aren't in schools the representation we get especially of Indian culture I know we spoke about this briefly when you sent me an email about Indian matchmaking which I hadn't watched initially when you sent me the email and then I watched a couple of episodes and it is interesting to see what the like that that gets so so much air time I guess talking about Indian culture whereas we don't necessarily see that as frequently in other shows and I wonder if it was if the people the reason people are drawn to it is because it does have the parts of Indian culture that we not so much fetishize but people love to comment on like

arranged marriages and yeah I think fetishization is a really good word because um one of the things which has come up recently um which I had to deal with, was the fact that in our culture, being dark is considered a bad thing. If you're darker, they think you're uglier. And if you're lighter, you're fairer, you're pretty, you're more suitable, you're a more suitable match and things like that for people. And that is something that came up a lot in the show and it was quite heavily criticized for um but the thing is that is a fact um and again it stems from the kind of the colonial time where people in India would look to the white people as the better type of people. So now, still, in Indian culture, you have this idea of fairer is better and darker is worse. And that program did a really actually good job of showcasing these very real issues um and I think yes certain things are

really just they are fetishized um and one of the things about the whole cultural appropriation thing is people don't realize that you're just cherry picking one good thing that you like but you're leaving behind all the difficult negative things as well. And like recently on Instagram, there was a filter called Choco Skin and it made you darker. And I felt like that was wrong. And there was another one called Skin Black. So I called it out I I did take a picture of myself with the filter and a picture of myself um just without like no makeup in natural daylight um and I compared the two side by side um and it actually got like an amazing response

from people who completely agreed and the fact that it was called choco skin and the other one's skin black it's just so wildly inappropriate um that these things even get passed but they were made by white people who and the the creator of the filter did actually say this directly to me um everyone looks good with a tan and being dark is a virtue and this is the problem I I can't just turn on being brown when I feel like having a quote unquote tan I'm brown all the time and I I can't do anything to change that and I and I'm not doing it for likes on Instagram that's my life and I know so many other people feel the same way um eventually we actually managed to get those filters removed

which is great but the most important thing is is the conversation around all of this I think I went a little bit off topic I don't know if I answered your question no no not at all I think that's really important to talk about and it's something that I've definitely spoken about because I'm personally as you'll know from following me did a huge discussion about fake tan and I had to really interrogate why I wanted to be tan and where that came from and how it's so weird that so many white girls feel like really insecure in being like naturally white when for so long that was like that that very white skin was what was oppressing black women and women of color so that like that's a very strange um thing to look at and there's loads of filters actually I hadn't realized even some of the ones that I were using that I thought were quite

innocuous they didn't have names like that um but someone sent me a dm was like basically all of these filters I think if you use any of these it's blackfishing and there was one called like tan and dust that loads of people use doesn't make you look quite orangey but they kind of like chain the cut like the blues as well in really bright blue so they still weren't called things that seem that as like quite on the nose as some of the ones you're using but when someone sent this dm I was like oh my god of course like that is just so right like that's so weird for me to just put on a filter um so that's I think it and I think it's definitely being heightened by Instagram I think like fake turns really having a massive resurgence

but it's becoming like really dark and so you're right I watched um Indian matchmaking with my boyfriend and there's a bit where there's one guy on there and they're like he's great because he's really fair so we're gonna match him with this guy he's really fair and it was just so blatant and I was like god that's wild isn't it to think yeah um that this is happening so it's that I find a really interesting um and problematic thing obviously but that's I guess one of the most insidious things because people really find that a hard one to tackle because obviously white people can tan and it gets a bit murky yeah I think and I don't I don't I'm not trying to say at all that like people shouldn't tan or people shouldn't fake tan I

think it's just being like aware of of the conversation like you know are you using all these things to benefit yourself so you look better and you look cooler and you have a better social standing but then you're but the people who naturally have those are being marginalized for the same things um for example yeah I don't like a lot of the filters to give you huge lips and um I've seen some like incredibly racist ones that do some awful things to your eyes and things like that but I think yeah just just being aware of them really yeah completely I think I think it's such an interesting I definitely think it's weird the more we're talking about it it seems so excited exacerbated by social media and I guess in a perfect world it's to imagine like a post-racism world which I don't even know how we can imagine I'm sure that all of these cultural things would be shared and and

distributed in a different way but the problem is you can't as you're saying that you can't take something that you want from a culture while simultaneously benefiting from the oppression of that culture that's kind of like the crux of the issue I guess yeah I think you're I think you're really right um and I agree with that um and yeah unfortunately it it does happen so much and and even with the Black Lives Matter um movement that's going on at the moment um I've seen loads of people lots of people online um who are very clearly benefiting from black culture um who posted their one square in june and haven't said a word about it since um and and who may still even think that it's a political statement and you know it's just again it's a bit

too much and it's that's not true black lives matter is a human rights issue it's not just a political statement that people are making and again if you have the privilege of turning off from that conversation then good for you you're lucky but you should be using that privilege and continually highlighting these issues and helping people so is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you would like to talk about? Yes, I just want to talk a little bit about the book that I'm writing. Oh, wow. Yes, so I'm writing a children's book at the moment. The protagonist is a female brown young girl.

And she is really, really interesting. But the main reason why I'm writing it is because at the moment, children's literature is not diverse. Only 4% of characters come from a BAME background, compared to the amount of minority readers, which is over 40%. So I really believe that children are not they won't be able to be something that they can't see that they can't read about they can't look at and I really wanted to address head-on the lack of diversity in literature I'm in the process of writing it and I don't have a publisher or an agent so if anyone is interested in a book like that, please let me know. Incredible. I think that's such an amazing

thing to be doing. I'm very excited for when it comes to fruition. And actually, it's the perfect thing to take us on to our last final question, which is the new thing of season eight, which I'm asking everyone. And it's what are your top three favorite books if you don't mind oh this is such a difficult question because I am an English teacher and I'm obsessed with books um and my favorites do kind of change depending on my mood but I'm going to go with my favorites of the moment love that so my first favorite book is um Sophia Princess Suffragette Revolutionary by Anita Anand. So it's the whole story of Princess Sophia, which is amazing. I love Educated by Tara Westover. I felt like I was getting an education while I was reading that book. And one of my all time favorites is Persuasion

by Jane Austen. Oh, great. The only one I haven't read is Sophia, so I'm going to read that. It is incredible. You'll love it. Perfect. So I'm going to link all of those books in the show notes or put the names so that people can go and find them and read them. Thank you so much for joining me, Varni. It's been such a pleasure to chat to you. Thank you so much for having me. Amazing. Thank you everyone for listening, and I will see you next week. Bye.