I May Destroy You‘s Michaela Coel and Paapa Essiedu receive apology from drama school for “appalling” racism
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama issued an apology for incidents that occurred when the two were students
Aux News Michaela Coel
I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel and Paapa Essiedu have received a formal apology from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the “appalling and unacceptable” racism they each experienced while attending the prestigious university.
“Guildhall School apologizes unreservedly for the racism experienced by Paapa Essiedu, Michaela Coel and other alumni whilst they were studying at the school. The experiences he shares were appalling and unacceptable,” the school shares in a statement, per The Guardian.
“We have since undertaken a sustained program of action to address and dismantle longstanding systemic racism within the acting program, including commissioning an external report into historic racism and a comprehensive and ongoing process of staff training and reflection,” the statement continued.
In a recent interview with the publication, Men’s Essiedu discussed a moment in which an instructor called him a racial slur during an improvisation exercise, which involved the professor playing a prison officer looking for drugs among prisoners played by the students. The actor noted that he and Coel were the only Black students in the class.
“Suddenly she shouted: ‘Hey you, N-word, what have you got behind you?’” Essiedu said. “That was a real ‘time stops’ moment. It was like, surely this can’t be happening. We were so shocked we just stayed in the improvisation, so we were like: ‘No we haven’t got anything behind us.’ We were shellshocked by what had happened and shocked that it had come out of the mouth of a teacher.”
“It so clearly shows a lack of respect and understanding of what the experience is of someone who is in that position, in that skin, in that institution,” Essiedu continued. During another incident in the same class, the teacher told Essiedu he did not enunciate clearly and spoke as if his mouth was “full of chocolate cake.”
In 2018, Coel shared her own experience being called racial slurs by instructors at Guildhall School.
“I was called a [N-word] twice in drama school. The first was by a teacher during a ‘walk in the space’ improvisation that had nothing to do with race. ‘Oi, [N-word], what you got for me?’” Coel explained. “We students continued walking in the space, the two Black boys and I glancing at each other whenever we passed. ‘Who’s she talking to?’ we’d whisper. ‘Boy, not me.’ ‘Nah that was for you.’ Passing around responsibility like a hot potato, muffling our laugh-snorts. I wonder what the other students thought of our complicity.”
Essiedu graduated from the school in 2012. He lated returned in 2020 to direct direct students in Ruby Thomas’ play Either. In the interview with The Guardian, he reflects on how the school’s white-centric syllabus negatively impacts Black and brown students.
“I remember doing restoration comedies such as Man Of Mode about the aristocratic class—slave owners, basically,” Essiedu said. “These plays ask a very different question of a Black or brown actor whose ancestry might have been negatively impacted by those particular people than they do of actors who don’t have that same historical context. It was like, oh, that person is doing it right and you’re not doing it right. They reduced it to the idea that they were doing it right because they’re better at acting than you whereas there was a whole raft of other things at play.”
23 Comments
Any racism at all is bad but if that was the extent of the racism they experienced, I feel like they got off kind of lucky. It shouldn’t have happened at all. But it definitely could have been a lot worse.
This is not reading the room
Yeah, the take of “all racism is bad but that racism didn’t seem all THAT bad” isa strange one to be sure.
Probably not. It’s just that whenever I read a headline about people experiencing racism, I guess I anticipate the worst at this point.
STFU
Fair enough.
The thought process that concludes that this is something that needs to be said aloud…yikes. Well, you know, they could have been strung up from a tree after being tortured and having their genitals cut off, so, you know, being humiliated and having your entire sense of personal humanity being called into question in front of your classmates by an authority figure while you’re a vulnerable student, as just one example of what went on regularly at this school, gosh, they sure were lucky to get to experience that.
I agree, the experiences were horrific. I guess I was just surprised by the quantity. I thought it would be more constant as opposed to isolated instances. As you say, the world is definitely in a terrible place that a thought process like this even ends up getting articulated.
Just because they only mentioned isolated instances (which actually they didn’t) doesn’t mean that’s all that went on. Anyone who is familiar with the experience of being Black in an overwhelmingly white space knows for a fact that this isn’t all that went on. Existing in a racist environment doesn’t look like being called the n-word every moment of your life.Next time remember that the power is within you to make the world slightly less terrible by choosing not to articulate anything else like this.
Okay. Well, I was basing my comment only on what was reported in the article. I have no firsthand knowledge of the other instances of racism they experienced. If it was worse than that, then that’s unfortunate. If those were the only instances — getting called slurs during acting exercises where people were meant to be playing characters — then it could have been worse. “Anyone who is familiar with the experience of being Black in an overwhelmingly white space knows for a fact that this isn’t all that went on.” No, they don’t know that for a fact. They know that as an assumption, which is not a fact. I grew up brown in the 80’s in an overwhelmingly white space and my classmates and teachers were all exceedingly kind to me (I experienced racism, but not at school). Sometimes, people can end up in accepting, inclusive environments. It happens.We all have different experiences. Silencing other people doesn’t lead to understanding. I am sorry you feel like I made this world a more terrible place. That was not my intention. I was just reacting to an article.
Why’s it gotta be chocolate cake? Lol. Drama teacher notes can be weird. I was once told to “open my eyes more” onstage. But the lights make me squint!
The pretentious, full-of-@#$% response by Essiedu to this noble piece of virtue-signalling is the sort of thing that makes even Black people want to vote for Donald Trump.
I’m gonna save all you people in the greys some time.
The school itself acknowledges it did wrong and apologises for it.
If you’ve got a shitty take, then just know that the school that actually caused this problem is on higher ground than you, so you might as well type nothing. Please.
Well, one certainly couldn’t be faulted for wanting confirmation of that claim by someone other than the school itself, no?
We have greys again?
Maybe it’s early days, but I gotta admit there’s not as many as there used to be.
It’s just nice to frequent a forum that isn’t half full (at least) of bad faith comments.
Got the UK is racist as fuck*. Awful that so many people have to deal with this shit. Good on these champions for exposing it. *I’ve since emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand and there’s a lot of it here too. So much work to be done.
which countries aren’t? Wish I knew.
Yeah, I can’t speak for any country in which I’ve not lived, but it sure seems to be most of them!
It’s frustrating that it gets turned into a nationalistic thing, when by and large, no country is appreciably “more racist” than others.People are racist, and it blows.
Wow, they actually came out and used the “r word” in their apology.
“Oh shit you’re rich!? Please don’t sue us! We’re sorry!” – Usual bully BS
Sounds like they need better facultyReminds me of another British school that tolerated frankly unprofessional and cruel behavior by its teachers: Hogwarts