Series Two, Episode Four - Cherrelle Skeete and Shiloh Coke (Part 2)

Series Two, Episode Four - Cherrelle Skeete and Shiloh Coke (Part 2)

SHILOH: We avoid this title BAME at all costs.

CHERRELLE: The thing is, I understand why the term BAME exists. It has to be an umbrella term that kind of links people together who aren’t white, I suppose. But at the same time it only exists within the world of western institutions, because when I go to India, when I go to Sri Lanka, when I go to China, I'm not ‘BAME’. I'm black. My blackness is global. BAME is not global. It limits me only to America and the UK. I was saying to Shi, when I'm sitting in the taxi and the taximan who’s Southeast Asian asks us for the money upfront -

SHILOH: And then doesn’t give us our cash back.

CHERRELLE: He in’t my brother! I’m not saying, ‘But we’re BAME!’ I'm not BAME. No no no no no - I'm black! I'm having a black experience, not a BAME experience. But at the same time, I also understand that we're talking about our industry, in terms of entertainment and artistry, I also understand how we all have a collective and similar experience where we’re ultimately trying to fight white supremacy, that's basically what it is, and so I also understand that. So it's like my blackness is more important than my BAMEness. I identify as being black first, not even a PoC. Because that is global. If I go anywhere in the country - I find a black person in China, I'm going to connect to them in terms of, you know, what is your experience as a black person in China, as opposed to looking at all the Chinese people there or the Sri Lankan people when I'm in Sri Lanka and assuming that ... we're all BAME. (​Laughter​) Do you know I mean?

SHILOH: The reason why I struggle with umbrella terms sometimes is because of the lack of recognition for difference, and within that we all have our own privileges, we all have our own things that put us beneath somebody else within this system. The hierarchy. And within my experience of being a plus-size dark-skinned black woman -

CHERRELLE: Add queer on top of that.

SHILOH: Add the queer on top, because we’re all about intersection, you know what I mean? We're at the bottom bottom bottom bottom, like, beneath ...

CHERRELLE: No, I'd say on top of that, if you're trans or if you identify as being disabled, as well.

SHILOH: Yeah, that's - all these other labels that make you lower in the chain. So when we talk about BAME and stuff or even within women's rights - I'd say I'm a black feminist as opposed to just saying I’m a feminist because sometimes within the feminist environment I feel like my issues are not a priority. There are so many other issues that are put before my own. And we’re not equal. The experience isn't equal within that. I love having conversations with people who are willing to educate themselves and support good practice. I big up Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, she's incredible, she’s the writer of ​Emilia​, and she wrote that story about a woman who was seen as other. And Morgan and Nicole Charles - big up Nicole as well - they cast three black women to play the title role of Emilia and Morgan was always great at listening and being open understanding this experience as being other from her own. And even though she's a feminist, recognising that my experience differs. And she was great at that​.

CHERRELLE: It's so funny. I went to an event and I was sitting on a panel and there were two drama students, I think they were both from Fourth Monkey, and one of our young Blacktresses was there and she identifies as being black and mixed race. She's from somewhere down south, on the coast. And her friend put her hand up and she's a white girl, she said, ‘It's really difficult for me to hear these experiences being a white woman, and I don't know what I can do.’ She's a friend of the young Blacktress. I said, ‘Well, the fact that you first of all said that shows that you're compassionate and you care.’ ​ I said,​​ ‘The fact that you have put your hand up and exposed yourself to be vulnerable and say that, “I want to help, I don't know how to help but I want to help.”’ I said, ‘That's the first step. How we learn to be better allies, because like I was saying, I also have to acknowledge that based on the community that I come from, based even on my family, I have the privilege of the education that I've had. I have the

privilege of being in London, I’m more equipped to more resources. I also understand that having the education that I've had and the experiences that I've had it means that I've been able to improve my art. ​But speaking to Sophie Stone who said, ‘Do you guys have interpreters for people from the hard of hearing/deaf community?’ And we were like, ‘Fuck ... No.’ Because she was saying that a lot of deaf spaces for actresses are very white, and there are black women actresses that she knows who [feel that] when they go into black spaces for creatives they're not catered for, so that made us think. I was like, oh my gosh. There's this whole section - this intersection in terms of the disabled, the hard of hearing or deaf community, that we’re not catering for that covers across Blacktress. And that's the whole thing. We had to clock our own privilege and be like: okay, this is something that we don't know about, and we need to educate ourselves. Okay, let's see if we can connect ourselves with someone who does know and say, ‘Hands up, I don't know. But we’re willing to learn.’ We want to open and be more inclusive to these black women who are the complete cross-section of being black, female, and hard of hearing and deaf. They're not being catered for.

SHILOH: And taking the advice that they give us, but also being willing and wanting to educate ourselves.

CHERRELLE: That's right.

SHILOH: Because it’s not always those people’s responsibility for us to be clued up. It’s not their responsibility at all, it’s ours. ​​This industry is always talking about diversity, with air quotes -

CHERRELLE: Hate that word.

SHILOH: You and me both. You know that already.

Laughter

SHILOH: We have this conversation daily. But it's about us moving away from diversity and looking at inclusivity.

GEORGIA: That's such a nicer way to refer to it, because essentially that's what it is. This industry has been so exclusive for many different reasons for a long time and the positive changes that are happening now from all sectors ... I don't think should be called diverse, but, yeah, inclusive.

CHERRELLE: And I'm up for quotas, you know, I'm up for quotas. Speaking to Candy Bowers last week who is the creator of Hot Brown Honey which was at the Southbank -

GEORGIA: That was so good! 

CHERRELLE: Yeah. 

SHILOH: Big her up!

CHERRELLE: She's like another troublemaker in that she's moving and shaking things up in Australia for the black and aboriginal people - if we think things are kind of in trouble -

SHILOH: If they think Blacktress is radical -

CHERRELLE: Blacktress needs to go to Australia, put it that way! But I'm up for quotas, because I think that things only change when you kind of get it from the top. So we need to see people that are representing the society, the creative culture that we’re in, at the top, that are the artistic directors, the producers. It’s not just on the acting side, like the camera operators, the stage managers, across all fields. And that has to happen with who's handing out the money. I'm up for quotas for that, because it’s like, until ... the quota has to happen until it becomes normalised that you walk into a decision making room and everyone in the room is reflective of the audiences that are coming into that space, or the people that they're trying to bring into that space. How can you put on a diversity initiative with no people that are different to being white, cisgendered, able-bodied and male? How can you do that? Someone put up a tweet about that the other day and it's like, even down to who is making these decisions ... do you know what I mean? So I'm up for quotas until we don't need them anymore, and then Blacktress doesn't have to exist, and neither does the Diversity School initiative, and neither does the Black Ticket Project, neither does Critics of Colour, neither does Different Women. All these different initiatives that are popping up trying to actively change our industry, you know.

GEORGIA: Sometimes I feel like the industry is a small-scale version of Parliament in terms of who actually runs this country. It’s mostly private school white men. And women. Essentially it’s the same - they make cuts when they don't know things about it. Disability, comprehensive education, stuff like that. They make these cuts because they don't know.

SHILOH: They don't want to know, to be fair. They don't want to know if it doesn't affect them, if it's not affecting their income. It has to affect their pockets for them to the care and that's been something that has been the topic of conversation constantly for us, being in political spaces and activist spaces and having these conversations. How can we support people that are like ourselves and how can we support people across the board? And how can we really look at equality? People like to say, you know, ‘We are all equal.’ But what needs to be said after that is but we're not always treated in that way, you know. ‘We're all equal guys! We’re all the same!’ But we're not treated in that way and it's subject to who you are and where you’re at, and us constantly checking our privilege. Like myself living and growing up in London, I need to check my privilege when it comes to speaking to Cherrelle about certain things, [her] having grown up in Birmingham and coming from a working class environment just like me. I have the privilege of knowing that my mum's up the road or my gran’s up the road, and they’re local, so when I have my rainy days I don't have far to go. I don't need to think about buying a train ticket that costs £35 just to go and check my mum.

CHERRELLE: Minimum.

SHILOH: Minimum. And being a jobbing actor, coming from Birmingham with that experience. There will be times where you don't have enough financially to go to an audition, what do you do in those circumstances? And it's not even just Cherrelle, there are so many students coming up underneath her, like Cherrelle said before, they don't have the grants now. There are certain grants that aren't available to them. And are these people who were supporting Cherrelle, in terms of the grassroots projects that were supportive when she was younger, are they still there? Are those young performers and creatives still being supported? And that conversation needs to be had. Myself being a drama school, being able to take certain courses - are they still available to students coming up after me? And the fact that my mum wasn’t adamant that I had to do a specific subject. I was really lucky, when my friends were all - I went to Alperton Community and the majority of the students there are Southeast Asian, and their parents would kind of dictate the subjects that they had to pick. Whereas I went home I was like, ‘Yeah, Mum, I've got to pick subjects.’ And my mum was like, ‘Do you what you want. Because if you don't want to do it, I don't want you to blame me for you not committing to it. Choose it yourself!’ And I was like I don't know if I should feel down about this or what.

LAURA: So you guys have mentioned Blacktress, but would you be able to just tell us a bit about what that is for people who are listening who might not know.

SHILOH: Go ahead, Shell.

CHERRELLE: So, Blacktress. I’d say our first event was founded in 2017, last year, so it’s literally a baby, it’s still new. And it was myself and Charlene Smith. We got together, she’s an actress writer.

SHILOH: Big up Charlene.

CHERRELLE: Yeah, big up Charlene. We decided after many, many a conversation and a sit down with older Blacktresses like Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Dona Croll - absolute legends - we realised that there was this ... along with how we were feeling about drama school, along with the older generation, there was this burn-out. They get tired because not only do they have to be an artist, they also have to be an activist. Marianne now lives in LA but every time she comes to London she gets interviewed about, ‘Why did you leave?’ Y’know, all that. She’s the first black British woman to be nominated for an Oscar. This is before Sophie Okonedo, and nobody knows about that. They’ve got a blue plaque of her now in Hackney, cos she’s a Hackney girl but on the day that she was nominated it was a picture of Cate Blanchett in a dress looking pretty. It wasn’t talked about.

GEORGIA: When was that?

CHERRELLE: Gosh, in the 90’s? It was for Smoke and Mirrors, Mike Leigh. First black British woman ever. That’s British history, it’s important. The same way we talk about Eddie Redmayne, we need to talk about her. Especially coming from a migrant community - that’s huge. Anyway, from speaking to legends like her and Dona Croll, we heard about this thing that happens for black women in Hollywood. It’s run by a wonderfully legendary actress called Alfre Woodard who’s in ​12 Years A Slave​. She’s just been killing it, and she has this meal in Hollywood that acknowledges all of the black women that had done phenomenal work but were not acknowledged by the main institutions, like the Oscars, the Golden Globes. They weren’t even looked upon but they did brilliant work. [It was created] to build that sense of community and say, ‘Sis, I see you.’ Literally, that’s it. So all the black women in Hollywood clear their schedules and they do that. It’s been happening probably about fifteen, twenty years and it’s grown and grown and grown. There are no cameras that go in there, but you hope to go, you have aspirations to go as an African American actress, or even just getting to Hollywood in the first place.

So based on that I was like, let’s just start with a meet-up, cos I realised a lot of my friends I’ve actually met at auditions - you’ll sit in a row and I’ll bump into someone I went to drama school with and you’re all going in for the same part. And you make a joke about it cos [you’re all] black women and you all know each other. You go in and there’s something that’s happened and evolved where you kind of sit and talk and bond, or you sit and like ... ​*growling noise*​ cos it’s like there’s one part and you’re token.

SHILOH: Tokenism is real.

CHERRELLE: Yeah, tokenism. So there’s a cast of twenty and the producers feel good cos they’ve got one black part and they might feel good cos it ticks two boxes - black and female - and maybe there’s someone who identifies as mixed race or other. Basically, my experience of drama school - and everyone goes through the trauma of second year - but the added trauma of being black and female in those environments, there’s an underlying thing where you can talk about, ‘Oh gosh, there’s so much pressure and work and I feel so broken.’ On top of that the racism you experience, both from the teachers and the institution as a whole and your classmates, it’s not talked about. And you don’t really get the space to be able to talk about it, when actually it’s the pinnacle of what’s to come after you leave. So I realised that first of all getting black women together, just a bunch of my friends and some of my mentors - we got together at Mr Jerks on Wardour St, and it was called ‘A Seat at the Table’.

SHILOH: After Solange’s album.

CHERRELLE: And there’s something about ... I don’t know if you know the film ​Hidden Figures​? There’s a scene in ​Hidden Figures​ where she finally sits down at the table with all these white men, and that’s finally her seat at the table. But had she not had the confidence to sit at that table ... if she hadn’t been in a room with all those black women telling her how great she is, telling her she’s the best. Y’know when she sat there, she had this whole tribe of people supporting her whole-heartedly. That’s what we want. So you might still be the token one in a theatre production or TV show but knowing that you have a tribe, you have a community of people that are there to back you and understand you and you don’t have to justify your very existence to, there’s that.

SHILOH: And to recognise that there are so many people encountering the same problems you are. I wasn’t involved in Blacktress the way I am now and I was at a point in my career where I was contemplating maybe not being a performer, because I did some really tough gigs and it was damaging to me in a sense of me not being okay with hierarchy, and this system that I have to subscribe to. There was a point where I was like, if this is what it’s like to be in this industry, then I’d rather not be in it. And I went to the first Seat at the Table, and I surrounded by women like, ‘Oh, how was that job you did?’ And it just takes for you to take two seconds longer to respond and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s cool, we know.’ And it’s talking to them and them being like, ‘Yeah, we’ve experienced that too.’ And to know that your creativity isn’t valid[ated] by whether they see you as talented or not. Or them thinking that only one black woman can succeed, or them thinking, ‘Shiloh, only you can do this cos you play instruments better than anyone here, so you’re only a musician, that’s what ​you​ are. Not an actor.’ And that coming from another actor’s insecurity of not being able to do the amount of things that I can do, and me having to consciously be aware of that and not let it play on my own insecurities as a creative and performer, because what we do is we bring our life and soul to everything that we do. It’s coming from us, it’s coming from passion, so we invest in it. So when you’re in an environment that isn’t necessarily safe - which can happen, it doesn’t happen on every gig, not at all, but when it does - how do you support yourself? How do you safeguard yourself? And from going

to the first few Seat at the Tables which then evolved into Spark workshops which are like taster workshops. Cherrelle named it Sparks cos it’s supposed to ignite something. She’ll articulate it way better than I can...

CHERRELLE: It’s actually interesting to hear you talk about it.

SHILOH: You know every spark. Even ones I organise now, you speak to the women sitting in a circle and you’re learning and you’re healing and it’s beautiful to be in that environment. And I hadn’t yet been surrounded by black women creatives until the first seat at the table, because I was always the only one. I was always either the only one, or I was still a minority. I’d never been in a space surrounded by people who looked just like me who were all women, who were all working in the arts and were experiencing misogynoir or experiencing any of the obstacles that I’m facing. And that’s why for me I remember feeling a bit emotional, especially at the first Spark, cos I remember we all spoke about ourselves in a circle. And to be heard by people who have a likened image to myself, it made me really emotional, I wanted to cry. Though I didn’t.

Laughter

SHILOH: Eurgh! Emotions! But no, it was beautiful and that experience that I had in that spark, is the experience that I want for all the women coming up

after me. There have been, especially recently, many plus-size dark women, who are either in drama school or recent graduates or who are in the first year or two of their career, who have come up to me and been like, ‘Y’know, seeing you succeed makes me feel so happy cos I now believe that I can.’ And myself being in their shoes, I remember once looking in the industry and thinking, ‘Who are the plus size black women under 30?’ And I struggled to find them. It wasn’t until I was in the industry as a jobbing actress that I then heard of Whimmy and Susie Wakoma - who’s doing incredible, big them both up, incredible actresses - who look similar to myself and who aren’t a size 10 and who are able to not just survive but thrive in the arts. As performers, as actors. So it’s inspiring to me to see them do great and to now myself be like, ‘I can exist in this industry and my existence isn’t dependant on whether I’m a size 10. My existence is me persevering and working hard and applying myself to everything I do. But I had to get to that place by sitting down and having a very open and honest conversation with myself. I talk to myself a lot, but having a conversation with myself and a very serious conversation with Cherrelle about my frustrations in the industry and the lack of seeing myself represented. And Cherrelle was like, ‘You know what Shi? Sometimes it’s ok to be the first in some things. It doesn’t make your experience valid, whether you see them or not - you’re already valid. What roles do you wanna play?’ And I started writing, and from that we wrote some short films and produced them and Cherrelle directed them, and I was able to play characters that I wanna play and believe in. And from doing that, it’s been great. It’s been none stop since then. But I had to go through that journey. And now to have gone

through that experience and for women who are like myself or younger than myself to say thank you because you inspire me to want to work harder, because you are existing and thriving and I wanna do that.

CHERRELLE: Can I do a little plug? So I wanna invite people to come down to the John Thaw initiative - Blacktress season. There’s 19 shows of women from all over the diaspora. So I’ll say from Mauritius to flipping Hackney to South Africa to Montserrat. All different ages, all different experiences, and they’re black women projects. 19 of them, 12 weeks. So please come down, book your tickets on the Tristan bates website, or go on the Blacktress website, or go on our social media @blacktress_uk and come down! Just see what it’s like to see black women led shows and to share the really important experiences of British black women, because we don’t see a lot of that. We see a lot of the African American women’s experiences but not really from a black British female perspective.

SHILOH: And we exist, and every experience is valid.

CHERRELLE: Y’know, we’re done talking. We want the action now. We want the action. So these initiatives are pushing forward voices that have been on the fringe and now are stepping into the limelight.

GEORGIA: That’s fantastic.

SHILOH: Blacktress is so beautiful because of the intergenerational space. And the women who pass through those doors, no matter what age group - it’s a healing space for us all.

CHERRELLE: For example, how I used Blacktress on a personal level. I came out to my family this year and it was great to speak to someone like Sharon D Clarke, you know she’s married to Susie. To speak to Doreene Blackstock -

SHILOH: Big them up!

CHERRELLE: Specifically being queer, but specifically being a black woman who’s queer. And they’re both from West Indian backgrounds, so they completely got it, and they told me their coming out experiences and they sat down with me and they just broke it down and were really open. So like I say, all these intersections meet in Blacktress. In terms of queerness, in terms of motherhood, in terms of body image. All of the things that you can think of that you experience just on a human level.

SHILOH: We are not homogenous!

CHERRELLE: Yeah, we are not a homogenous group. And being able to celebrate those differences, it’s really helped me grow and be more ferocious and unapologetic as a person.

LAURA: So to round up, what would your advice be to young people entering the industry now? Particularly young black women, who are graduating from drama school or coming into the industry?

CHERRELLE: I would say, look after yourself. Take care of your mental health. We’re talking about mental health, your whole spiritual well being, whatever that means to you. So that’s your creative self, your body, however you choose to look after your body, your mental health. If you have a broken knee, you go to the doctors. If you have a broken mind, do whatever you need to do in order to look after yourself. So all those things! I know that’s a lot (​laughs​). But also, be kind to yourself, work hard and - like Shi said - if you don’t see someone who looks like you, maybe you’re the first and that’s ok. Keep shouting about who it is that you are and you’ll find your tribe. Find your tribe.

SHILOH: Find your tribe.

CHERRELLE: I heard something when I was at Monobox and it said, ‘Find your tribe.’

SHILOH: I’d say, your experience is valid, know that at all times. And I’d say when facing obstacles, to quote Queen Audre Lourde, I’d say “Silence is Violence”. So, erm, I’ll leave it at that!