A Discussion about Michaela Coel's new BBC Drama 'I May Destroy You'

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Abstract

As part of the Virtual SOAS Festival of Ideas, on Wednesday 21 October 2020 5-7pm, a small panel of racialised millennials will deep dive into Michaela Coel's new BBC Drama 'I May Destroy You'. Whereas the #BlackLivesMatter movement has focused on African-descended Americans; and the #MeToo has centred the experiences of wealthy white Hollywood actresses, 'I May Destroy You' has finally depicted realistic, albeit challenging, realities of contemporary experiences of millennial Black Brits. This series has renewed discussions about gender, race, and sexual consent in popular media. Since 2016, SOAS University of London has instituted a school-wide compulsory ‘consent workshop’ for all students. Changes in contemporary discourses of gender, discussions of legal and psycho-therapeutic responses to sexual trauma, and hyper visibility of structural racism in Britain and beyond, this panel is taking up the charge of reviewing and assessing consent discussions with 'I May Destroy You' as its guide. This virtual event has assembled a brilliant panel including:

• Jackie Awuku Lockinger - Moderator
• Harleena Jagde- Gender and Diversity Expert for London Metropolitan University
• Sanah Ahsan - poet, trainee clinical psychologist and reporter
• Shaun Flores - Caribbean masculinities and race scholar
• Hisham Parchment - SOAS Student

Biography

Hisham Parchment is a 3rd Year Philosophy student at SOAS, where he is the current Anti-Racism Officer in the Students’ Union. On campus, he has been involved in a number of campaigns addressing racial equality and has facilitated the 'Enough is Enough' Consent Workshops for incoming freshers. His interests are in anti-racist activism and developing creative spaces for underrepresented groups in Higher Education. Outside of university, Hisham is a writer developing his first play and has hosted a radio show and podcast, in which he interviewed guests about Blackness and its relationship to a number of social issues. He was recently appointed as Mental Health Advocate and Co-Director of Creative Arts at BLAQ, the UK's first youth-led Black LGBTQ+ organisation.

Sanah Ahsan is queer muslim womxn, liberation and community psychologist, award-winning poet and all-round disrupter. Her work is centred on compassion, decolonising our understandings of mental health and embracing each other's madness. Some of Sanah's work includes presenting Channel 4 documentary ‘Young, British & Depressed’, performing for the BBC, Shakeseare's Globe, giving a Ted Talk; all whilst working as a psychologist in a homeless hostel. The Guardian recently described Sanah's poetry as "an exhilarating declaration of love and an invocation to bare the soul." Sanah is currently writing her debut poetry collection.

Jaqueline Lockinger currently works in the music industry, developing and delivering social media campaigns to grow artists' profiles and celebrate the diversity of talent in the industry. This year, she’s delivered campaigns for International Women’s Day, Black History Month and Notting Hill Carnival. Her previous work includes working in Advertising and Production. She has a Masters in Migration and Diaspora studies from SOAS. Her research looked at how new racial identities are created online and how music and film production can be new forms of self-actualisation for marginalised communities.

Harleena Jagde works as the Project Lead for tackling harassment and hate crimes at London Metropolitan University and seeks to positively impact the student experience, sense of belonging and inclusion within the university’s student community through partnership working. She is currently building strategies to challenge the culture of impunity and silence around sexual misconduct at university.

Harleena studied a MA in Gender Studies at SOAS where she facilitated consent workshops for three consecutive years during Freshers as part of the Enough is Enough campaign. Working alongside a team of psychotherapists, Harleena is currently building creative programmes in the activist organisation, Survivors’ Collective, to create supportive, healing spaces for survivors of sexual violence in universities across the UK.

Registration

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This event is part of the Virtual SOAS Festival of Ideas, a week-long series of virtual events. The festival includes: panel discussions, student led installations, masterclasses, keynote lectures, a public debate for/against on Decolonising Knowledge and a Verbatim performance by Bhuchar Boulevard on ‘Decolonising Not Just a Buzzword’ capturing SOAS conversations about the need to decolonise its imperial mission.

Keep updated on the upcoming Virtual Festival of Ideas events and watch recordings of previous events on the SOAS website. Please contact foi@Soas.ac.uk with any questions regarding this event and/or the Virtual SOAS Festival of Ideas.

Please support SOAS Festival of Ideas by donating to our crowdfunding campaign at https://soas.hubbub.net/p/SOASFestivalofIdeas/. All proceeds go to supporting the speakers, performers, and artists involved.

Organiser: SOAS Festival of Ideas, SOAS Centres of African Studies

Contact email: foi@soas.ac.uk