The Stream

How to ready kids for the real world while raising them with joy?

On Monday, February 15 at 19:30 GMT:
It makes me glad / That you will have things I have never had / When out of men’s hearts all the hate is hurled / You’re gonna live in a better world / Brown baby.

These are lyrics from Oscar Brown Jr’s ‘Brown Baby’, a song that inspired the title of Nikesh Shukla’s latest work: Brown Baby: A Memoir Of Race Family And Home. The book, addressed to his young mixed-race daughters, explores themes of race, parenting and sexism. Shukla also explores fatherhood and coming to terms with loss.

Structured as a manual for life, Shukla speaks directly to his own children and to all children of colour in Britain, reflecting on what it’s like growing up in a place where you are considered “the other”. He says the book is about “the stuff that keeps you up at night.”

In this episode of The Stream, we sit down with Nikesh to discuss parenting, race and finding joy in a sometimes dismal world.

In this episode of The Stream, we are joined by:
Nikesh Shukla
Author, Brown Baby