Bellicose Magazine by Yoko Hargreaves

encouraging us to bridge our differences, to celebrate our similarities

EDITORS NOTE

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EDITORS NOTE

editors note Part of me never intended to write this editor’s note. I was going to leave Bellicose as a ‘faceless’ platform where its contributors act as the bridge between you the reader, and us the magazine. But then something in my mind changed, I felt there needed to be a level of honesty. I am white, a white girl born and raised in London, who moved to Wales at the beginning of my adolescence. Growing up in London I was surrounded by multiculturalism. My primary school was based in the South-East of the city where ethnic diversity is rich. The same was true in my classroom. I’m really grateful that I had the chance to live in such a diverse place. When later I moved to Wales, I learnt how ethnically complex society like Cardiff coexisted with nearby rural areas where there was much less ethnic diversity. All of this experiences has motivated me to dig deeper into the way different people can live with each other. Bellicose may sound like an aggressive word to choose as a title. I chose it because we need to be ready to fight for the values that matter to us across different ethnic boundaries and communities. Our magazine goes beyond our words; we ourselves are a community. This platform gives voice to people who have previously been silenced. It’s about saying I may not have experienced what you have, and for you the same thing: here is something to celebrate. Bellicose is aimed at young people who share our vision of a more open and diverse society. Let’s listen and learn from each other, and then take that out into our own communities and into wider society. Let us honour our differences. This is the last narrative you will hear from me. The rest is down to the inspirational and amazing people whose stories we have gathered together in Bellicose. I hope that when you read these stories you connect, laugh, learn, perhaps even sob with people you may well be meeting for the very first time. Encouraging us to bridge our differences,to celebrate our similarities The Editor and Publisher of Bellicose Magazine.

CONTENTS

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CONTENTS

Interview with Jack Price Spoken word poet

Interview with Lily Webbe Singer/Songwriter

My Depression Meeting

The fashion industry Meeting

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A first generation Immigrant Meeting

136

The Beauty Pageant Industry Meeting

A brush with Elyssa Rider Illustrator

Being Young, Black & Disabled Meeting

‘Muslim Girls don’t wear makeup’ Part 1

Life as an international student Article

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Interview with Asma Elbadawi Basketball champion

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‘Muslim Girls don’t wear makeup’ Part 1

Afro Hair Don’t Care Article

Curvy Queens Article

Interview with Matthew Morrison Actor and model

A conversation with Marianna Madriz Illustrator

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My Trans Masculinity journey Meeting

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Our contributors Keep in touch

01 in-between Adjective Between two clear or accepted stages or states, and therefore difficult to describe or know exactly. This section includes: Interview with spoken word poet Jack Price A brush with illustrator Elyssa Rider Afro Hair donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to love yourself poem The invisible race

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Jack Price. An interview with spoken word poet Jack Price. I started â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;spittingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; when I was like 11/12 or probably even earlier. I just fell in love with music from such an early age. I remember the first album I really listened to was Biggie Smalls- Ready to Die. I always loved rap and kind of had a knack for it. When I was 15/16, I had a brilliant English teacher, one of those ones that kind of changes your life through the enthusiasm they have for their subject. I began getting more interested in poetry, and particular poets like Benjamin Zephaniah, and even Shakespeare. It was about their ability to put words together and make something so powerful.

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“I had never been the most overly confident person, I would describe myself as an introverted extrovert. Amongst ‘my’ people I came across confident and knew how to present myself, but I remember in my first open mic session it was quite different.”

When I was 15/16, I had a brilliant English teacher, one of those ones that kind of changes your life through the enthusiasm they have for their subject. I began getting more interested in poetry, and particular poets like Benjamin Zephaniah, and even Shakespeare. It was about their ability to put words together and make something so powerful. I went onto study English literature at college, which took me to look at pieces in a little more detail. My friend at the time, asked me “Have you seen this spoken word ting?” and I was like “Nah, what is it?”, so he introduced me to this page called Def Poetry Jam where loads of big American poets or artists like Kanye West and Lauryn Hill do spoken word pieces, and I just fell in love with it. Just the way they would say things so vividly encouraged me to begin writing myself. I wrote more and more and began asking my friends their opinions and they were like “Rah, this is cool stuff, you should push it”. I’d say from like 15 is when I started to love poetry but spoken word, more so at 17. I had never been the most overly confident person, I would describe myself as an introverted extrovert. Amongst ‘my’ people I came across confident and knew how to present myself, but I remember in my first open mic session it was quite different. I got approached by a woman who emailed me to open at the local open-mic night and I was bricking it. This was the first time I had ever performed in front of a crowd. My confidence issues were nothing that people would be aware of, in school I was always

quite jokey and cheerful, it had less to do with my personality but more about the way I looked and around being liked or disliked in the sense of myself as a person. I think even more so with an art form, any creative knows that you can suffer from perfectionism in a neurotic way that brings you down. Sometimes it has brought me down to the lowest of lows where I can’t even bring myself to write, or even listen to a piece back on YouTube because I will get caught up in its imperfections. But then when you get that positive reception it makes you feel better about yourself and you gain confidence out of the fact that people rate this as highly as you do. When people initially hear my work, they think all I talk about is my personal life, which obviously I have done but I do also talk about political and social things too. My experiences and my life inspire my work it all comes from my heart. My first poems told stories, I did one called The Man’s Mental Mind. I wrote that piece when I was about 18, it was around a time when there was a lot going on in my life and I wanted to talk about things that people won’t talk about, but everybody is thinking. What angers me most about men’s mental health is that people are just saying talk about it, but there’s not much about how to actually deal with it. I’ve been depressed in life, but never for a very long time because I know how to overcome those things, but I feel like sometimes people get put into this cycle where they’re just affirming, they’re depressed, but not working on the solution.

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“That's when I realised that my purpose is bigger, my purpose isn't for myself, my purpose is for the people, I'm talking on behalf and for the people.”

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The poem began by saying “I can’t talk about everybody but please let me invite you to take a walk into mine”. It discussed things like male pride, I’ve watched my dad be quite a prideful person, what you’d consider an alpha black male who won’t show any emotion, he never forced me to be that person but I feel like society encourages this amongst most men and you don’t actually realise until you grow up how that can be psychologically harmful. That poem was literally me telling the ‘Mandem’, who I knew where going through things that you need to talk about it. That poem regarding reception on a personal level did very well, nothing went viral, but people messaged me. I remember there was a guy who messaged me, he had just lost two of his children and said this poem is helping me a lot. A lot of men came to me and said you said stuff that I could never say. That’s when I realised that my purpose is bigger, my purpose isn’t for myself, my purpose is for the people, I’m talking on behalf and for the people. I believe that I shouldn’t have any expectations to who or how many people I am trying to reach. As long as I reach one person and that one person hears my message then that is my mission complete. In regard to who I’d like to hear my message I always say I want someone who wouldn’t typically listen to spoken word or poetry, someone who is just an ordinary person going through their life, the youth also, I do think our next hope is in the youth and as much as I want them to listen to older people, I want older people to listen to us.

INTERVIEW

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“I’m a firm believer that you can’t open new doors with old keys. I recently made the decision to drop out of university where I was studying Psychology.”

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I’m a firm believer that you can’t open new doors with old keys. I recently made the decision to drop out of university where I was studying Psychology. At the moment I’m just really trying to push it and go for it. My main focus is to be constantly producing and making if I’m not writing, I’m researching, if I’m not researching, I’m writing, it’s about fully giving my heart, my soul and everything I have to the art. I have to give my all to this because I don’t know if I’m going to be alive tomorrow, I know my purpose in life and my purpose is to help, teach and create. I made the decision to drop out of uni because I had to be serious, I had to give my all. Being a creative you constantly have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and go for it, whether it be film, poetry, or spoken word. I am currently writing a piece called ‘A Dream’ and I believe that is definitely the kick start for my career, it’s saying I’m here, I’m ready, this is my dream, I will not let it just be a dream, this is going to become a reality. For me, spoken-word and poetry are very raw art forms. With music, you are often confined to a beat, but I find that poetry’s freer flowing, there are no boundaries. I tell people to do poetry because you can just be yourself. A lot of people tell me I wish I could do it, I wish I could write, and I say you can, you’re not like me but you can be yourself, let the pen take you. I definitely think my relationship with God helped a lot to push and inspire me. I’m not actually religious, I’m faithful. There are things that I adopt from Christianity, I found the bible spoke to me, but just as well I also have issues with some parts of it. I don’t actually agree with religion, I think religion has broken down man from the beginning of time but I’m faithful and I walk with God, God has saved me, pushed me and changed me.

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“That’s when I realised it’s not about your skin colour, it’s about your culture and about who you are. I’m British and I see myself as a British person.”

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People often think I’m Muslim, the other day I had to ‘g check’ one guy who was trying to sell me something, he greeted me saying As-salamu alaikum and I said, “Woah, I’m not a Muslim you know? You can’t just assume that because of the way someone looks if you had said that to someone else you could’ve got beat up”. My relationship with my race has always been tough. I never knew a lot about where I was from, my actual mix is half white, my real dad is part Sri Lankan part Malaysian and then my stepdad who I see as my father is Jamaican. I found my race confusing when growing up because I’d get people at my primary school giving me particular racial slurs and then different ones for my sister who is white, and different ones again for my dad who is black. Growing up I came across a lot of racism I was one of very few brown kids in my primary school, I used to get racially abused by being called a ‘Paki’ and people would just look on and not help. One of the fondest memories was when I was coming back from school and a group of white boys was just slurring at me, I went and told my dad who came to me and said, “Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you, when you feel like you’re at rock bottom the only way is up”. That’s when I realised it’s not about your skin colour, it’s about your culture and about who you are. I’m British and I see myself as a British person. You learn to build a tough skin and that these people are just ignorant, and you should just accept who you are as a person. I think people even think that mixed-race people are seen as the supreme race right now in the sense that they’ve got ‘the looks’, the lighter the skin the better. People view us as this hybrid species that have everything, but we still face the same adversities as what other ethnic minority groups do. I think to be seen as a superior race, is just disgusting, I think people look into the colour of skin too much.

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Final Thought I still to this day get looks and stares, and even some racial remarks. But my diversities have allowed me to become so much more relatable to my audience. I can relate to the white kids, I can relate to the Asian kids, I can even relate to parts of the black community. I think if I could give my 11-year-old self one piece of advice it would be don’t care about what other people think, just go for it. In some ways, I’m fortunate being so diverse in the sense that I’m not grouped, or Pigeon holed. I am just myself, I dress the way I dress, I talk the way I talk, I am just Jack Price.

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A Brush with Elyssa Rider illustrator How did you initially get into illustration as an art form? It was something that has always been really encouraged in me by my mum. My mum, although she has other jobs, she is also an artist, and she wanted to be an illustrator when she was growing up. My mum massively cherished any kind of talent that I was showing, I was quite an excitable, energetic child and she would encourage me to sit down with scrap paper, pens and just draw. Growing up in an interracial family and being mixed-raced myself I watched a lot of Anime which is essentially illustrated and so I would mimic a lot of what I was seeing on screen. I would draw Woody and Buzz but at the same time Sailor Moon, I had the duality of animation from both cultures and just loved it. Did you study illustration at university? I studied Illustration at Plymouth University, but I made the decision to go into illustration after a foundation course. My parents have always encouraged me to keep a hand in academics just in case, I was also convinced that I was going to be a doctor. So, after completing my art A-level, we reached a compromise where if I went to art foundation course for a year, I could make the decision whether I really wanted to follow up. I did the art foundation, loved it and quickly after trying everything decided I wanted to become an illustrator. What inspires your work? My daily experiences, I make a lot of work about things that happen to me, a lot of my work is quite reactionary. I talk about sexism, homophobia and racism and I kept hearing people say no one would say that to you or no one is racist anymore and that we’re in a ‘post-racial society’. I was getting so fed up with it that I now keep a log on my Instagram stories of every single time I’ve had an incidence of racism or sexism. I started using Instagram as a learning platform as people have an easier way of responding to it but equally, people can just swipe away. My work is visual, and my love of illustration is political. What other illustrators do you look up to? So many, there is a woman called Vanessa Jacobs she’s mixed raced as well and her line movement is just incredible and so energetic, she is one I really look up to. I also really love the work of an artist called Laura Callaghan, all the women she draws are like super thick with amazing prints, very clashing, very maximalist. What’s the piece of work you’re most proud of? It’s not actually an illustration but an oil painting that I did for the BP portrait awards. I created it more for a rite of passage rather than thinking I could get anything with it. It was an over-life-sized self-portrait of me which I named ‘A Fate Worse than Death’.

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What’s your next career goal? I would love to make illustrated sex education resources for schools, and for that to be my job-job. But I have realised that when I make plans that are quite far into the future, they often don’t happen, so I am just taking each day as it comes. When I graduated, I worked fulltime as an illustrator for the University of Cambridge which was great but as it was independently funded the money eventually ran out. I’m freelance now but only illustrate one day a week. How do you create your pieces- what’s the process? I have two different ways. So, I might draw it out in pencil, scan it into Photoshop and then do my illustrating on there or draw straight onto Photoshop. I have a digital Wacom tablet which is very good, I feel bad to say that because it is so inaccessible, and I recognise that not everyone is in the position to have one and that I’m in a really privileged position. I find that it cuts out a lot of middle steps if you’re drawing straight on there, but it does limit my hand, so I don’t get the beautiful energy that I get with a pencil. You discuss quite serious issues through your work why did you decide to do this? I think it’s because one of my primary characteristics is honesty, I’m someone who’s quite an open book so I think my illustrations are a natural expression of who I am. These are topics I would be talking about whether I had a platform or not I have such a drive to make a change and I’m sick and tired of the way that things are. If I can make someone change their mind about something that matters to me like racism, sexism, homophobia, or ableism then that is a good thing and I am seeing changes. I know that the word feminism is off-putting to a lot of men and whilst I disagree with changing the name of feminism, I will pander somewhat online by just not mentioning it very often hoping that people don’t initially put their wall up instead I’ll just slip it in, like a spoon full of sugar. And I am starting to see a difference by using this drip, drip, drip method. Who do you hope your illustrations reach/connect with? As my illustrations are an expression of my personal experiences, I really hope it reaches other people who are queer, people of colour, or women because I want them to know I hear you, I see you and I know your experiences and we can commiserate together. I also hope that men see and remember them because that’s the area of culture that I want to change.

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“I think it’s because one of my primary characteristics is honesty, I’m someone who’s quite an open book so I think my illustrations are a natural expression of who I am. These are topics I would be talking about whether I had a platform or not.”

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How have you connected with your ethnicity through your work? How has this influenced your style? A lot of my early learning drawing came from Japanese content, through copying manga and anime. I used to go to a Japanese school on a Saturday and we’d all draw because it’s such an integral part of Japanese culture that people learn to draw. Also, through my drawing style and my content matter. I generally make sure that I always have at least one person of colour in everything that I draw because I realised if I don’t, I’m only exacerbating the issues that I faced when growing up which was that there is no representation of people like me. I wanted to create content that made me feel seen and represented as well as doing that for other people as well. A topic you talk about is sexual health- how did you get into this area? It was when I created a short film at uni for one of my illustration projects on street harassment It became apparent to me that your 20’s is too late to start educating people about street harassment, sexual health and consent. When I left university, this project had really impassioned me that something needed to be done. I then got a job at this start-up that where we created resources for teaching sex education in schools, I thought wouldn’t it be great if we made ready-made resources that are well researched, well-illustrated, engaging, interactive, and make sure the teacher that is conducting those messages life is made as easy as possible. After the start-up ran out of funding, I was like right I’m going to make this into a business, but I wanted to actually go and work in sexual health, learn the ropes and make sure I was really swotted up before I launch into this so that is what I’m doing. I now work for a sexual health charity called Brook which looks after the needs of under 25’s in the UK. Have you experienced sexual harassment? I get street harassed I would say once or twice a week. When I first moved to London it was like once or twice a day which I really couldn’t cope with, it was very difficult. I’m talking about men making sexual or racialized comments about my appearance. I decided to keep a log on my phone about all the incidents I’ve had, I’m currently on 112. My most recent one was a man flashing his genitals at me outside of Brixton police station. The one before that was at a shoe cobbler who started saying I looked oriental and I told him not to use that word and he started trying to guess which country I was from and saying I looked Nepalese or Malay. That’s something that happens quite a lot people will see me and recognise that I’m a person of colour and then they want personal information about me but I’m from England, I was born and raised but they want to know my ethnic heritage. When anyone leads a conversation by asking where I’m from, what they’re really meaning to say is I don’t see you as British, it reiterates the idea of being an outsider.

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“From the age of 4, I had this deep, deep yearning to be white and blonde for years which resulted in me having so much internalized racism. Being mixed-race is a whole other entity, this feeling of not belonging wherever you were.”

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What was your relationship with your ethnicity when growing up? It was a real struggle because as I’ve mentioned before I wasn’t seeing any representation of people that looked like me like on TV, films, or popular media. I saw women only as being fit for trophy status that they are only to be beautiful, to be accessories. And then on top of that, there was this viewpoint that you can only be pretty if you’re white, preferably blonde with blue eyes and if you can manage that then you will succeed, achieve, and find love. I was struggling because I knew I definitely don’t look like that, so from the age of 4, I had this deep, deep yearning to be white and blonde for years which resulted in me having so much internalized racism. Being mixed-race is a whole other entity, this feeling of not belonging wherever you were. When I would visit Japan people would say but you’re not Japanese, you don’t look right, you’re too tall, you’re too pale. It wasn’t until I went to uni that my friends were starting to change the narrative by portraying being mixed-race as a positive thing it wasn’t until I was 19 until I wanted to think about that in a positive way. We’re now at a place where we are being fetishized a lot, and people don’t realise how problematic it is, I’m not a product. But people are getting more aware and people are interviewing us or talking about us or putting us in films sometimes which makes you feel less alone. I slowly now have begun to understand that your body is an instrument, not an ornament. Have you ever felt pressure to conform to white beauty standards? It was more about purging any kind of Japanese cultural heritage from my clothes, my possessions, the food I ate and just trying to blend in as much as possible. When I was 12, I moved from South East London to Cambridgeshire and everything was just white. I remember on my first day my teacher introduced me and then we took the register people started answering the register by saying Konichiwa although no mention had been made of the fact that I was Asian I was absolutely mortified because all I wanted was to fit in. I do remember being teased for my nose a lot in primary school, people would make fun of it being flat, and would press it to see if I had a bone there. I remember crying about it to my mum and her apologizing for giving me the nose. Such a sad thing. How do you now feel about your race? I think there are always days when you struggle but I am now starting to realise this is the crux as to who I am and this is a really core integral part of my identity and it’s wonderful getting to be a part of two amazing and totally distinct cultures and marrying those together.

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Afro Hair, words by draya campbell It’s funny how something that just sprouts out of the top your head from the day you’re born, right up to your last days has such an impact on how you see yourself. In black culture, hair is a multi-million industry and time-consuming element of daily life. Barber shop culture amongst the black community was almost like a social gathering – I remember from when I was young, always going to the barbers with my mum, dad and brothers… just for the social aspect – there would be music playing, constant chatter, uproar of laughter and children playing, it was like a surrogate family. But it took me so long to love my own hair. I have natural dark blond/brunette afro hair and going to primary and secondary school with a dense white population, having long straight flowing hair, it made me so envious. I exhausted many options and tried extremely hard to get my hair like all the other girls by flat ironing, hot combing and even chemical straightening. Social media was also a big influence on me trying to change my hair. Instagram models and celebrities posting perfect pictures with their hair cascading down their back and perfect lighting with makeup on point… it took time to realise that it was all fake. Around age 15 I started to look deeper into my African-Jamaican culture and at what hair styles and realised how much diversity I really had to work with. I started wearing head wraps, box braids, Senegalese twists, dreads and cornrows. Hair was also a bonding time in our family: I’d spend time with my mum, aunties, grandmother and cousins: we would spend Saturday’s doing each other’s hair and catching up on the week. After leaving school, I started to dye my hair multiple colours from pink to purple, white to grey, I really started to appreciate my hair with the realisation of how much could be done to it and with it. The social aspect around getting my hair done and being with others in my culture was settling when feeling like an outsider from school and sometimes even society. My culture helped me to love and embrace my hair as not only is it versatile, it is a part of who I am and where I came from.

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Don’t Care

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It’s important to love yourself- rayaan

“I think it’s important to love yourself. Especially to protect your mental health. Building up barriers against the pain. In order to sustain yourself on this world’s tough terrain. Self-love is so valuable but you forget. Instead you torture yourself with self-hate and regret. You don’t protect yourself with your lack of self-respect. And then you expect yourself to try and be perfect. I think you need to recollect your sufferings and nightmares. Swap it for some love for some self-repair. I know the tears fall so freely, flowing faster than a flash flood. And I know your fears run deep within your blood. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep your head down. It doesn’t mean you can’t change your frown. Love your perfections and work on your flaws. And in the mirror, you’ll see the scars and remember the wars. Eventually you’ll win, and you’ll be at peace. Just don’t let your self-hatred become a disease.”

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POETRY

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The ‘Invisible Race’ words by sophie huskisson

This is an article I’ve wanted to write for a while now, and I have put off writing it because of the honesty and personal disclosure it requires. My friend and I often discuss being mixed race and the reality that we are rarely ever recognised as this. You might think that you view mixed race people as mixed race, but it’s quite likely you don’t; since coming to Cambridge University, I have been called black by not only my friends, but also by renowned BME societies, such as the African and Caribbean Society (ACS). I‘ve witnessed this problem with other ethnicities too – mixed white and Asian students are often considered as categorically white or Asian, not mixed race. Being mixed race obviously refers to a wide range of mixed ethnicities, but this article shall focus on my own mixed race: white British and Black Caribbean. It is important for me to say at the start of this article, to ensure I don’t offend anyone, that my problem with mixed race people being called black or white is that we are simply not those races. My issue does not lie with those skin colours themselves. A family photograph shows me and my younger sister. I couldn’t tell you the amount of times I have been asked questions such as, “You look nothing alike, how is she your sister?”, or “Why is your sister white?”. If I could, I’d answer by taking us all back to GCSE biology, or perhaps to a basic class in common sense. Two of my cousins, who are sisters and both white, have completely different shades of hair colour. The elder has dark brown hair, the younger has bright blonde hair. Pretty easy to get your head round, right? Because that’s how genes work, sometimes you get a bit more of your dad’s blonde gene, and sometimes you get a bit more of your mum’s brunette gene. Now, why is this so hard for people to get their head round when it comes to skin colour? I have more of my dad’s black skin colour gene, my sister more of my mum’s white skin colour gene. If someone has a black parent and a white parent, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be conceived as a perfectly proportioned half white, half black offspring. That’s simply not how human reproduction works. We all know this – so why can’t people understand that me and my sister can be different shades? In Easter term last year, I was very proud to be a part of ACS’s photograph of black women in Cambridge. The photo celebrates the increasing numbers of black women, 70 years on from the first black woman, Gloria Claire Carpenter, graduating from Cambridge. I do not criticise this photograph at all, and I was very grateful and humbled to be a part of something so special and so triumphal. My issue lies with the fact the title and description of the photo, along with all the publicity, only ever used the words “black women”, and did not

acknowledge the discrimination of mixed-race women as well. I was able to be involved in the photo because ultimately the colour of my skin, and my heritage, determine that I too would have been discriminated in the same way as a black woman. In a quote supporting the photo, I felt obliged to label myself as a “black woman”. And yet I am not black. I am mixed race. I have had people say to me in the past, “you’re basically black”, or even worse, “you’re black to me”. This is something which particularly, and understandably, bothers my mum, because it ultimately writes her out of my genes. Is it that people are simply too lazy to say the longer two syllabled, “mixed race”, instead of “black” or “white”? I don’t think so. It is a shame for me to admit that, in primary school, I wanted to be white. My school was far from being racially diverse, and so all I wanted was to be able to plait my hair or wear pigtails and look like all the other girls in my class. This was something that I inevitably grew out of with maturity, as I learned to accept myself for who I was and what I looked like. Secondary school, however, brought new questions into my life about how I saw myself and what race I identified with. There were more black, or mixed race, people at my secondary school than at my primary school. But a lot of them used to hang out in groups together, due to the fact they had backgrounds which were culturally similar. From the way I’ve been brought up, I identify more with a white British culture than a black Caribbean one, and yet I am ultimately labelled as black. The hardship with being mixed race is that it can be difficult to know where you stand on the line between the different races within you. Are you both, or are you neither? Which way should you lean towards? Which group should you identify with? But that is where I think the problem lies. I should not have to pick. I should not have to identify with being either black or white. I should be able to identify with being mixed race. It seems that people have a tendency to say “black” or “white” because they want to consider you as a whole race. People choose to see a mixed race person as one race. . It seems somehow too difficult, even in this age, to understand that people can be a mix of more than one race. John Agard’s poem HalfCaste encapsulates this sentiment perfectly. Agard explores the term “half-caste’, arguing that a mixed race person is not half of anything, but is a whole person like anybody else. Although the term halfcaste is out of use now, due to its offensiveness, I would argue that the connotations behind this term are still as present as ever. People still default to calling me black, and my sister white. It is time to start identifying mixed race people for who we are. I am not black. I am not white. I am mixed race.

02 empowerment Noun The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights. This section includes: Interview with Singer Songwriter Lily Webbe Being Young, Black and Disabled Cury Queens ‘Muslim Girls Don’t Wear Makeup’- Part 1 My experiences with Depression as a Black Woman

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Lily Webbe. An interview with singer-songwriter Lily Webbe. From a young age, music has always been my main focus, I’d never really thought about doing anything else. It wasn’t until recently that it turned from just a hobby into my actual career. Singing was something that I knew I wanted to pursue but I never really had the confidence to take any further. To overcome this, I had to face my fears, learning to remind myself that, “This is what I want to do, and what I’ve always wanted to do, I just need to get up off my ass and go for it.” Moving to London really enabled me to do that. I grew up in a small Welsh town called Penarth and my experiences until then had been very much sheltered. I needed this theoretical stepping stone to help throw me in at the deep end and university provided me with that. It provided me with the opportunity to be constantly surrounded by motivated people with similar goals, to meet other people from the music industry, and to create connections that I could grow with. At this point, I realised, “Lily you’ve just got to go for it.”

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“I never really knew where my self-esteem issues stemmed from. I suppose it could be something to do with the fact that I’m mixed-race and growing up in Wales made me feel quite isolated from my black-roots. I never really knew how I should be acting, like a black or like a white person.”

The secondary school I went to was very academically orientated, if you were good at Science, English, or History then that was the route you should go down because it’s was considered as the ‘safe’ option. I remember just before I was entering sixth-form I even had a conversation with the career adviser about what I wanted to do and the route I wanted to go down. All I kept saying was music, music, music. After looking at my grades he said, “You know you could be going down the law/historian or academic route?” And for the remainder of the hour, I think all we talked about was my ‘back up plan’. I was lucky in that my parents have always been supportive, this is something I will always be grateful for. I think they saw something in me before I even had. My self-esteem at the time was very low and it was my dad especially who pushed me to just go for what I wanted to do. I’m my dads’ biggest fan. Growing up I did listen to my dad a lot, he was the first black man to play rugby for Wales, so he had to put up with a lot of crap. Especially when he went to places like South Africa when the Apartheid was still a big issue. There was one case where he ran onto the rugby pitch to play an international game for Wales and a group of

boys started throwing bananas at him and imitating monkeys, shouting the most cliché racist comments that you could think of. When growing up my dad was a real inspiration because he helped me to prepare myself for those situations, he’s very humble and level headed so I feel like that’s kind of rubbed off on me. I never really knew where my self-esteem issues stemmed from. I suppose it could be something to do with the fact that I’m mixed-race and growing up in Wales made me feel quite isolated from my black-roots. I never really knew how I should be acting, like a black or like a white person. Cardiff especially is not very multicultural, and mainly white dominated, I was the only mixed-race pupil at my primary school, which meant I always felt like I didn’t fit in. I knew because I looked different and had a different background from others that I always felt like a bit of an outsider. My low self-esteem then began affecting my body image. Although I knew that I was maybe curvier than the other girls and had curlier hair all I remember saying was, “Let me straighten my hair so I can look like the other girls”. It all became about fitting in when you are young people notice difference.

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I was made fun of a lot for my hair when I was younger. I remember going into school one day and I used to straighten my hair a lot, always going to the salon to get it relaxed to look like the other girls in class but one day I decided to go in with a full-on natural afro. There were a few boys from the year above who came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Oh yeah, just to let you know we think you look like a clown, and we don’t like your hair”, and I just thought to myself “what?”. I understand now that it was just something new to them, something that they had never seen before, and as a child, this is how you would probably react. But then as you grow up you begin to realise that it’s not all about fitting in it’s about being yourself because that’s the only way, you’re really going to be truly comfortable in yourself. I get asked the question of whether I feel more black than white, or vice versa quite a lot and do you know what? I honestly feel both equally. It can depend sometimes on who I’m with, but I realise that when I’m with my white friends I enjoy the things that they do and the jokes we have, and that’s a friendship that’s completely different to my black side. I love being able to immerse myself in both cultures, I can go from little family parties with my white family and eat sausage rolls and fish finger sandwiches, to my dad’s side where we’ll dance to reggae and eat lamb curry and curried goat. It took me a while to embrace my originality and it’s still a process, I’m still kind of settling into myself and recognising to embrace both sides of me, both the white and the Caribbean side.

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“I get asked the question of whether I feel more black than white, or vice versa quite a lot and do you know what? I honestly feel both equally.”

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“People have this pre-judgment that when you’re a female going into the music industry you’ve only got to look good, sit there and be pretty, people don’t really think about the fact that you may have more depth than that. People will underestimate you, it’s a constant feeling of having to prove yourself but it’s something I’m willing to do.”

In terms of the music industry, I think it’s hard not only for black female artists but for females in general. Being a female in the music industry is hard, it just is, even the people I surround myself with feel very male-dominated. It is the case that if you go to an open mic night or a gig the male talent is celebrated a lot more. People have this pre-judgment that when you’re a female going into the music industry you’ve only got to look good, sit there and be pretty, people don’t really think about the fact that you may have more depth than that. People will underestimate you, it’s a constant feeling of having to prove yourself but it’s something I’m willing to do. A lot of people don’t usually talk about the advantages of being a black female in the music industry either, because I believe people tend to focus on hardships. But I think there are a lot of benefits, I’ve learnt so much from my background and the black artists that I’ve listened to growing up like Etta James, and Lauren Hill who still inspire me today. I feel like there’s a really nice wave of up and coming black female artists that are pushing boundaries and adding their own flavour to things. I’m currently trying to discover

my own sound right now and figure out what route I want to go down. I feel like especially for a lot of black female artists people put you into a box of what they expect you to be and what is going to appeal to the masses, but I’m trying to put my own spin on things. I draw inspiration from everywhere, some personal experiences, others are just from the outside looking in. It can involve anything from what’s going on in society now, or what people close to me are going through, or sometimes I’ll just be staring out the window and I’ll just observe what the weather is doing and make something from that. I feel like when you talk to a lot of musicians and you ask them what their inspirations are, they are scared to go for the big names like Beyoncé and Rhianna. But these are some of the biggest females in the industry now and their whole attitude and presence that they bring with their performances are great, they’ve really made their mark on the music industry. You begin to realise that the circle you’re in is a lot smaller than you think it is, I believe there is space for everybody in the music industry, everybody has a fan base it’s just finding your fan base that can be tricky.

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Final Thought I would say we currently are living in a women empowerment phase, I hope it’s not a phase and becomes permanent. We’re at this stage where black females and just females in general are really making a stand for themselves and gaining more and more respect each day. It’s a nice time to be alive. My best piece of advice would be to stop stressing, just go with it and just trust in the process. Embrace every aspect of yourself and try not to compare yourself too much to other people because there is only going to be one you, and the sooner that you start to realise that, the more comfortable you’re going to feel within your own skin.

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Being Young, Black, and Disabled interview with katouche goll Katouche Goll was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was 2 years old. As described by herself, Cerebral Palsy is typically an accident, it’s not a hereditary or genetic condition. Although Katouche was born on time, a difficult birth left her with the diagnosis. The type of Cerebral Palsy she has is called Spastic Diplegia which affects her arms and legs, resulting in the spasticity of the muscles which affects her balance, coordination and flexibility. We talk to Katouche about the journey of her disability and what it means to be young, black and disabled.

How has your condition most affected your life? Having Cerebral Palsy provides you with lots of challenges. I think they can best be divided into three groups: the challenges that come from having the condition; the way it effects your self-perception; and the way other people perceive you. The thing that is most characteristic of having Cerebral Palsy is always exerting a lot of energy to do small simple tasks. You’re always tired and because of that you’re not always fully attentive, it’s difficult to remain focused which causes you to become agitated and stressy all the time. I also have a real bad problem with asking people for help. Which leads me to my next point which is how you experience disability based on how you view yourself. I became hyper aware of my differences from other people growing up because people would make it known to me. It was difficult to make friends at school, I was left out of a lot of things, because everybody wants to do physical stuff when they’re younger. I used to spend breaks and lunch breaks by myself and so I became quite an insular person in that I was always looking at myself and was hyper aware that I was fundamentally different from everybody else. Then there was also the challenge of not seeing anybody that looks like you, there were no little black disabled girls on TV. And then finally, how you are perceived as a person. You get a lot of stigma and staring in public. Adolescence kind of exacerbated all of this, it was like a worse version of my childhood in some ways. You’d think as kids get older and stop running around that they would include you more, but it didn’t really work like that. I went to primary school in Kent and it was a predominately white school so already I was the odd one out, so again I used to spend a lot of time by myself, it was very difficult for me to make friends or keep friends who actually wanted to hang out with me outside of school.

of fragility that is associated with disabled people is undermined by blackness because black people are supposed to be tough, people are accustomed to seeing black people suffer, which results in a lack of empathy. I feel like the black community also has a lot further to go in terms of accepting every facet of the black experience in all of its intersections, not just the black, straight, male perspective. Black women are not prioritised in the same way and if you’re a black disabled woman you’re even less of a priority. You’re essentially thee minorities all in one go. A disabled person is already seen in a way as less valuable but it’s just further exacerbated by them being black. Representation is also essentially non-existent. You are never going to find somebody that overlaps all the things that represent you. There is virtually no representation of disabled people anywhere. I’ve seen one or two advertisements with disabled people in but it’s always ‘inspiration porn’ or a celebrity. The only time black disabled people get any visibility is if you’re exceptional or so called ‘exceptional’. Do you think brands who now adopt a more inclusive/ diverse point of view are doing it for genuine or cynical reasons? I’m quite a cynical person so I’d probably say the latter. I don’t really mind what their ulterior motive is because it gets people like myself to be seen. If you can present something as acceptable then people become accustomed to it. But, at the same time because it is done in such an on the nose, deliberate way, you don’t want to be just represented when they are making an initiative to do something, you want it to show that it belongs in general society, otherwise people still consider it niche, they don’t consider it part of their world.

What does it mean to be young black and disabled?

What would be your advice for someone else in a similar position to you?

I think that the two kind of combine for a double whammy in terms of being discriminated against. Structurally its very difficult for black people in this country, but if you’re black and disabled you need even more support from the state. The perception

Don’t wait for people to tell you what you’re going to be. I believe God gives everybody a purpose and something they can do. Identify that purpose for yourself and then make everything you do in your life fulfil that purpose.

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How has your disability made you who you are today? It’s good that you asked me this because I think often its hard to think about the positive things. I think the most important thing it taught me is how to empathise and therefore it has made me more attuned to how other people feel about things. I now don’t ever just consider something from my point of view, or from one person’s point of view, I now think about it and how it affects a variety of people because I represent different marginalized groups. Even though I have these different identities that see me as disadvantaged in terms of the general consensus, I still have other attributes where I’m not the minority. What about your confidence? I think it had to force me to confront my insecurities head on. I mean I still have insecurities, like everyone does but I feel like if I don’t pattern my insecurities, my insecurities will pattern me. I have to take risks, everything is a risk, I have to be outgoing if I want to get certain things out of life. Things don’t just passively come to me the way they do to other people. I’ve learnt to identify my needs and wants, I am able to articulate what I need to say, otherwise people will take advantage. You have to be quite resolute because when people see that you have some sort of so-called weakness, they want to dictate how you should live your life. You need to learn early on how to speak up for yourself. What is the biggest stigma you face from being both black and disabled? That people don’t really see you as a human being. I’ve had people say to me, “I don’t think I could ever live like you” or, “I don’t think I could live if I was like you”. There is this idea that if you’re disabled you may as well be dead. I’ll give you an example that illustrates this in 2016 I got barred from entering a night club. If anyone has heard of me its because of that. I went to Visions Video Bar in Dalston, and they refused to let me in because they wouldn’t let people with physical impairment enter because they wouldn’t be able to leave in the event of an emergency which they’re supposed to do by law. When that happened to me the kind of reception that I was receiving from people was ‘Why should she go?’, ‘Why would a disabled person want to go out’, ‘You wouldn’t want to see a disabled person in the club it would kill your mood’. People couldn’t understand that disabled people have the right to do things that everybody else does it feels like you people believe you shouldn’t have this much ambition, or confidence because of your disability. You use a scooter to get around, why did you choose this as a form of transportation? It wasn’t my decision, it was my mum’s idea. At first, I was like “No why the hell would I ride a scooter,

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I’ll look like a dickhead”. But I came to understand that my situation is unique. Basically if I was to use a chair my walking would deteriorate significantly in the long term. Also, London isn’t accessible enough for me to want to commute by chair so, a chair was not really an option. Prior to using my scooter, I used to walk everywhere with crutches or sticks and then my mum suggested this, so I contacted a charity called the Snowden Trust and they kindly gave me the funding to get this scooter. So, I got the scooter in May 2017 and it was delivered to my house and my sister and I assembled it together and I stood on it and went ‘skr, skr’ and I said wow my life has changed forever. Now I use it and I’m adept mostly, I still have lots of accidents, and fall over all the time but within reason it’s nothing compared to what it was before. So, that’s why I use a scooter it’s the perfect sort of aid for my condition, I’ve been telling other immobile people with Cerebral Palsy to get one but they’re not listening to me, but then I also don’t want them to steal my thing. Tell us about your interest in music and how it came about? I’m in a group called Imminent. There are four of us, myself, my two sisters and my brother. My sisters and I are the vocalists and then my brother plays the drums. We’ve always been quite a musical family, when you grow up in church you’re always around music. When I turned 12, we decided to take it more seriously, our mum especially kept pushing us, we’re really grateful to her for doing that. We released our first EP in 2014 and it was a tester to see how we wanted our sound to be. Our songs reflect our experiences, but they are still quite general lyrically so that anybody can identify with what we’re talking about. I suppose I would say music is my first love. Our second EP was released in August last year, it was called Pocket Change because it resembles something small in value but you notice the value of pocket change when you’re 1p short at the till. How do you feel about entering the music industry as a black female artist? I think there is space for black female artists, but the question is whether people want there to be space. Misogyny in the industry means for women it is difficult for the general population to receive the art that comes from women and black women even more so. We’ve always consistently been undermined and receive less acclaim for it. If you talk about me personally, I think it is different because I am part of a group, so we come as a group. And for us its not so much about who we are but our message so amidst all of the social barriers what we love is what pushes us to make music. I feel like when I’m up there the most important thing is the music, not how people perceive me. As a group we’re a bit of an oddlooking bunch, we’re not what people like to see, all of us are different, we’re a bit eclectic in that sense. Music takes away from this sense of otherness you experience as being disabled and black but when I’m up there those things aren’t as important.

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Curvy Queens words by jamilah johnson

It’s out with the skinny boos, petite babes and tiny honeys, and in with the thick girls, BBWs and curvaceous queens... must have missed the memo when I was growing up. I’m mixed raced AfricanJamaican woman so junk and very much been in my trunk from when I was strutting in onesies and lellykelly’s: around the tum and the bum…it’s just genetic. Big lips, afro hair, I’m a genetic-ethnic cocktail. Growing up, society was a lot different in the noughties compared to now. In 2000, fair skin, button noses petite blondes were the look and was very much for a long time. But the emergence of new pop culture from reality stars like the Kardashians with their manufactured hourglass figures, pumpe up lips and ’ba-donk-a-donk’ in the back, Jennifer Lope’s ICONIC behind and Nicki Minaj rocking every hairstyle in the business: curvy became cute. But these features came usually natural to women of colour and mixed heritage seemed more desirable on Caucasian girls like the Kardashians with captions on Instagram pictures of curvy girls like “whatever they’re putting in those Frappuccino’s at Starbucks… keep doing it”. Although what could seem to have sparked a huge culturally division, it sparked a huge movement on social media of body positivity, self-love and girl power. Racial and cultural differences were put to the side girl power was back in full swing... Stepping away from the old attitudes of fat or thin shaming, body image focused society, that your lips can be too big, or your waist isn’t small enough, it’s all “YAS QUEEN” “slay baby” and “girl, you better work”. Time are changing, cultures and blending and I am living. In the words of a great drag queen, “if you can’t love yourself, then how the HELL are you going to love somebody else”. Beauty is in everything and everywhere… little bit late to the post-modern melting pot society party but hey, better late than never!

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My experiences with Depression as a Black Woman interview with josephine morondiya Josephine Morondiya is a motivational speaker, talk-show host, social media influencer and an ambassador for fuller-figure fashion. Although Jo faced a very difficult childhood and upbringing, she is now using those experiences to inspire and speak out about her journey with mental health. Please be aware that Jo’s story does contain sensitive topics including rape, abortion and suicide.

I struggled with self-confidence throughout my life, probably up until today to be honest. I was raised in northern England and was the only black chubby girl in my school. I spent most of my adult life in foster care, and because I was quite lonely and depressed, I started comfort eating as a child without even knowing it. When I turned 12, I came to London to live with my biological mum, who was verbally very abusive, I was being called fat at school, at home but all I would do was continue eating, as it was the only thing that brought me comfort at the time. I never really believed that I was beautiful, even today if someone says I am I just have to change the topic. I still struggle with my self-esteem more than my confidence, my confidence has been my saving grace, in the fact that this smile covers everything. When I talk to people from school about my depression, they’re like “What? But you were so confident in school”. And what people didn’t know that I was severely depressed. There were lots of challenges growing up, I was born to a Nigerian mother and father but conceived and birthed here. My biological mum came to the country and couldn’t look after me. So, she put me in foster care but not with social services, my foster grandma was given cash in hand to care for me. At 4 months old I was placed in the hands of this white lady and I’d see this black lady (my biological mum) who would come and visit me but not stay, it all felt very confusing. Everyone around me was white, I was the only black girl in the village, everyone at school looks similar but I’m completely different, I’ve got curly hair, large nostrils, big lips, dark gums and chubby. Other children would innocently bully me, I don’t think they understood how much pain they were causing me. I would be called anything from a golliwog to a Paki, I felt very lonely. I felt misunderstood any people that kind of understood me was teachers. The teachers were my only saving grace, I’d spend a lot of time with them or on my own. My foster grandma did the best job in the world to raise me, but because there was no one like me the loneliness never went away. I really struggled with abandonment, everyone’s mum would come to collect them from school expect mine. The sense of abandonment left me to become very suicidal, I had tried to hang myself from my bunk bed when I was 9 years old, I felt unwanted, unloved, ugly and

stupid. I knew nothing about my race. When I was 12, I was visiting my biological mother and she did the worst thing ever. I’d come down to London on my 2-week Christmas holiday, ready to go back up North after Christmas and my mum told me I was to move to London, that I’d put on too much weight, and I was never going to see my grandma again. All I remember is falling to my knees and begging for her to let me go, my foster grandma had been the only consistent thing in my life, the only person that’s cared and loved me just taken away. That’s when the anxiety started, I was scared shitless of my mum, I wet the bed until I was 13 because I had never lived with black people, I didn’t understand a lot of things. It was very difficult living in London and learning how to be a black person, it was a whole new set of rules. At aged 13, I was raped by two strangers in a park near Camberwell but, couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I got severely bullied at school, I started selfharming when I was in year 9, I just hated life and my mum the one person who is supposed to love you didn’t. I couldn’t understand why this lady didn’t like me. I moved schools because I couldn’t handle it, but it just got worse and that’s when I really started selfharming and became quite suicidal. I just have no good memories of school, even till this day when I try really hard to think of a good memory at school, I just can’t it was always painful. My best friend at the time, a guy from my area who I trusted a lot would come over my house. This one time I was like come over, my mum has gone to Nigeria and I have a free house. He came over, chilled, and says he’ll be back later. He calls me saying he’s outside, I look out my window and I see him with this group of guys. Stupidly I let them in, and one thing leads to another and my friend who I did really trust, took me into to my room and began undressing me and I’m fighting thinking this is a joke, and then the second guy comes in freeze, that’s all I can remember of what happened. That’s all I remember, there are more graphic things that I remember but ultimately, I just went blank. I knew If I screamed no one would hear. I hate to say it, but they literally took turns with me and then left, as if nothing had happened. The worst thing is I felt like that was normal, rape didn’t even come into my mind until about 3 years later when I told my support worker and she was like that was rape and I just remember not wanting to believe that.

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“I attempted suicide at 19, through overdosing on pain killers. That was really hard to recover from as I had no one to talk to about it, everything that’s happened in my life I haven’t spoken to anyone about. My depression was so severe that I didn’t bath, didn’t leave my house, or brush my teeth.”

After that, the boys who’d initially raped me would then send guys to my house as if I was providing some kind of service. I remember them sending this one guy to my house, who was 3 years above me in school and he was big and hench he buzzed the intercom and I was like I can’t let him in. He told me to come downstairs, so I did, he just kept trying to make me open the door and, in my head, I thought just run, I opened the door for him very slowly, and ran to the top of the block and hid. He found me dragged me back to my room and brutality raped me, it was one of the worst memories that I have. That was the last time someone was sent to my house. After that I became very promiscuous, I got pregnant and miscarried at 16, and again when I was 18. 3 months after I miscarried, I was on my way to work, and started bleeding again and It just all felt too familiar. After the trauma of my school days I left and erased all the memories. This is where things really started to go wrong, I got kicked out of my home by my mother. My local church advised me to go to the council and the government say its abandonment and arrange to put me in a hostel. I slept at other people’s houses for 2 weeks, until the council gave me a hostel and life started to get better. I’m living this double life, I’m giving my life to god and living in the hostel. I got a nice little cash in hand job, and I meet this guy but a few months later I miscarry again and started becoming really depressed. I attempted suicide at 19, through overdosing on pain killers. That was really hard to recover from as I had no one to talk to about it, everything that’s happened in my life I haven’t spoken to anyone about. My

depression was so severe that I didn’t bath, didn’t leave my house, brush my teeth, I smoked my way through 2 and a half grand worth of weed, and drank. Everything started to come up, the problems that I had with my mum, my abusers, I began to feel worthless, my life hasn’t come to anything, I’m 24, depressed and homeless and I blamed myself. After my suicide attempt I was in hospital and a nurse sat me down and asked what brought me here today and I almost felt guilty I know people are going through bigger issues and the nurse stopped me and said you have the right to feel whatever you’re feeling right now and just like that everything changed, she was the first person who told me I had the right to feel the way that I did. Then the road to recovery began, I was like ok you’ve hit rock bottom but it’s time to start getting better. And in June 2017 things started getting better, I started doing the plus size modelling and I just thought if I’m going to live, I’m going to live in the best way possible, that I can. Modelling has helped me to love my body and know how to use it. Plus, sized modelling teaches you to incorporate your entire body, something that I’m still learning. I feel like I cross represent different marginalized people, and through my modelling, I hope to spread the same logic of confidence to other women. Body positivity does not just include the outside you have to love yourself on the inside as well. Don’t wait for validation from other people, find in yourself. Look at yourself every day. Look at your body, learn to love it and accept it. So, love your roles sis, love your curves, love it all, let your man love it, let him stroke it, feel it, squeeze it, all of it!

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Islam is a religion of peace- rayaan

Islam is a religion of peace. A way of life that’s supposed to bless us with ease. Muslims aren’t terrorists. Violence isn’t the reason why we exist. Our purpose is to worship the Lord. Our purpose isn’t to behead others with swords. Please stop believing what the media paints, They exist to demonize us so our beliefs will suffer under restraints. We don’t believe in killing the innocent. We have ethnics of war for when we must be militant. We don’t kill innocent lives or harm the trees. We don’t kill the birds and burn the bees. But the western world expects us to apologise for the televised lies? But we still do, we condemn every terrorist attack. We give our prayers to every victim, Muslims or not, and we never turn out backs. Peace is deep within our beliefs, we greet each other wishing peace upon one another. We don’t teach each other that other’s must suffer.

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‘muslim girls don’t wear makeup’ 01

zaynab Zaynab Abbs is a 21 year old Muslim beauty influencer with a following of 35.7k followers on her Instagram channel. She is a founder of her own eye lash company- Amourah, a full time time student at Goldsmiths University of London and barister at a small independent coffee shop. We talk to Zaynab to discuss about how she believes she is breaking the common stereotpes associated with Muslim girls and makeup.

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How did you get into makeup initially- how old where you? I think I was 16 when I started properly getting into makeup, it all just started off by wearing my mums’ mascara or eye-liner and I just slowly started getting into it. I would spend a lot of my time practising whilst also watching YouTube videos. Have you felt supported in your decision to pursue makeup by friends and family? My friends definitely are supportive because when I get free stuff, they like to use it too. My mum has always been supportive, my dad however was very sceptical about it at first. He couldn’t understand why brands would send me things for free but after I explained how it works on a PR basis, he began to understand and now he’s pretty cool with it. What has been your proudest moment so far in your makeup career? Being on the Vogue website last year which was through London modest fashion week. I was on the runway for a modest sports brand called Habibti Athletics and a photographer from Vogue came and took pictures of us and we didn’t really expect to get on the website, but we did. It felt like an achievement that three Muslim girls made it on Vogue, it was a pretty big deal. What is the one item in your makeup bag you couldn’t be without? My eyebrow pomade, I love my eyebrows. I can go out with no makeup, but I have to have my eyebrows on. Tell us about your YouTube channel ‘DAZA’? DAZA is a YouTube channel me and my three other friends created. DAZA stands for our names: Dina, Aba, Zaynab and Aminah. We created it one day when we were at Hyde Park and it literally continued from there.Our videos are just general lifestyle and allowing people to keep up with us and what we get up to. It’s just a bit of fun really, we don’t take it too seriously. Do you think the content on your YouTube differs from your Instagram? Yeah, for sure. I feel like on my Instagram you don’t really get to know my personality. I feel when people see me on Instagram, they think I’m quite intimidating or stuck up but when you get to know me, I’m quite chilled. On Instagram, you don’t see that side to me.

“A photographer from Vogue came and took pictures of us and we didn’t really expect to get on the website, but we did. It felt like an achievement that three Muslim girls made it on Vogue, it was a pretty big deal.”

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Tell us about your false-eyelash business? Amourah is mine and Dina’s, little baby. We started it up as we both have quite a big following on Instagram, Dina has 20k and I’m just reaching 40k so we thought we might as well try and make some money from Instagram. We both love wearing false-eyelashes and thought it could be the beginning of something big. Our concept, Amora stands for love, femininity and female power. We’re now looking to head in a slightly different direction, but the eyelashes were the first opportunity that came to us. We want Amora to represent females in general and to establish it as a brand beyond just makeup. Our lashes sell at a retail price of £7-£9 as we wanted to ensure they were affordable whilst also being long-lasting, the pair I have on now I’ve worn up to 30 times. If you could see the business in 3 years’ time where would it be? I want our own little store that sells more than just eye-lashes. I want to expand into cheap but modest clothing, and we’ve got some ideas right now but it’s all in development. Right now, it’s about finding the perfect supplier and getting our designs finalised. Do you feel people on Instagram may only see the ‘beautified’ version of yourself? I feel like with my Instagram I’m trying to take a more open, relaxed approach. People don’t realise that I’m only 21 and I’m no one special. People think if they leave nasty comments, I won’t read it, but I read every single one. At the beginning of the year I was very sensitive about how others viewed me and the negative/hateful comments I would receive, but now I just block and delete. My mum follows me on Instagram and reads everything too and I think it hurts her more than it hurts me. I always try and get there before my mum does, but I think people don’t really understand that you’re not only hurting me, but you’re hurting the most important person in my life my mum. What was it like when the followers started creeping up, was it gradual or did they all come at once? Initially I had around 1000 followers and I posted a video of myself eating and it just shot up to 10k. Once you’ve hit 10k then everybody just follows you which got me to 20k, and then I did this beauty shoot which kind of went viral on Twitter, which got me up to 25k and then I went to this Nike event it went up to 34k. It’s slower now, I get maybe like 100 followers a day.

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When did brands first start approaching you? I feel like maybe from like 10k brands starting approaching me but I’m very picky with who I work with because I need to know everyone and everything, I need to know who you work with, I need to know all these things like the Tweets that you’re making, I feel like I’m very selective which is a good and a bad thing because I don’t really work for many brands and that kind of makes other company’s feel like I may not work with them but yeah I prefer working with smaller brands because I’ve got a platform I may as well use it to help other people. Do you feel pressure to maintain a certain standard on your Instagram? I feel like I’m really laid back with what I post, I’m not like it’s Friday, therefore, I have to post, I’ll just post whenever. I feel like I’m not a serious candidate for Instagram. I think that’s why people like my content especially with younger girls especially because they look up to me like an older sister which I love. Especially ones who don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to, I can provide that for them which is really nice. Sometimes it’s really heart-breaking knowing some of the things and insecurities these girls are facing but I just reassure them that they don’t have to look a certain way to be beautiful and that there is no standardized version of beauty. What does the word ‘beauty’ mean to you? I don’t think beauty has a meaning. I believe the term shouldn’t even exist because so many young girls now feel they have to look and portray themselves in a certain way.

“I feel like I’m really laid back with what I post, I’m not like it’s Friday, therefore, I have to post, I’ll just post whenever. I feel like I’m not a serious candidate for Instagram.”

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“Sometimes I feel like I’m just like everyone else but then other times I know people look at me differently because for example I’m wearing a headscarf and on the train. I feel like the media has presented this image and its really damaging to be a Muslim woman especially.”

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What does it mean to be a young, female, Muslim beauty influencer? Sometimes I feel like I’m just like everyone else but then other times I know people look at me differently because for example I’m wearing a headscarf and on the train. I feel like the media has presented this image and its really damaging to be a Muslim woman especially. I feel very vulnerable at times especially when I’m walking home alone or when I’m in central London after 8’oclock because you do get drunk people voicing their opinions and it makes me feel really uncomfortable especially as a woman alone at night. What is the hardest thing you face as a Muslim beauty influencer? When I’m on the train after a recent terror attack and you can hear people whispering about you. There will be a seat next to me and no one will sit there but when another seat opens up, they’ll sit down. It’s like I’m not going to hurt you, I’m just as afraid as you are, Islam literally means peace. It’s sad that the media portrays a certain perception of Muslims that is untrue. Did you ever personally struggle with confidence issues when growing up? For sure, I had a phase where I didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror. When I was growing up, I went to an all-girls school which really knocked my confidence it was horrible. I had a lot of stuff said behind my back like ‘she looks like a monkey’, ‘she’s got so much hair’ etc. Growing up in that environment was so toxic and horrible. I think that wearing makeup helped me a bit but then I feel like no girl should ever feel like you have to wear makeup to feel a certain way. I get using makeup to enhance your features, I’m all for that but don’t hide underneath it. If you could change one thing about the beauty industry today what would it be? The standardized idea of beauty, I’d change the mindset that you have to wear makeup, only wear it to express yourself but don’t wear it to hide who you are or to look like someone else. Have you ever felt pressure to conform to white beauty standards? I think so but I also think society is really fetishizing a certain culture and a certain look. It’s almost reversed now and that’s horrible because there was this period where you were bullied for looking a certain way, like for having massive lips and not being able to wear red lipstick, because it made you look like a ‘clown’, but now big lips are in and we’re moving away from this white idea of beauty but it feels just like a fetish.

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“My religion means a lot to me, it’s the way I live my life, I live my life through my religion. I feel like my religion has helped me carry myself in a certain way, it teaches me to be nice to my neighbours, to be kind and love everyone and that’s how I choose to carry myself, and I love the way I carry myself.”

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Have you ever faced conflict with your ethnicity? I feel like I’m really lucky because I grew up in London, East London, all of my friends were either Asian or Black, so I’ve never really felt awkward or uncomfortable about my ethnicity. I’m really proud of my ethnicity and where I come from, it’s more the media that has presented this awkwardness about it. I feel like the media has an agenda, and it wants everyone to think a certain way. Its clearly working because certain people especially those who don’t live in London, or in other multicultural cities don’t really interact with people from different races, which is really sad because we’re just like you, I may wear a headscarf on my head but we’re literally the same. What does your religion mean to you? My religion means a lot to me, it’s the way I live my life, I live my life through my religion. I feel like my religion has helped me carry myself in a certain way, it teaches me to be nice to my neighbours, to be kind and love everyone and that’s how I choose to carry myself, and I love the way I carry myself. What kind of commitment do you have to give to your religion? I think you just have to commit to being a better person. My religion offers so many life lessons on how to live and carry myself it makes me a better person. I feel like people need to understand Islam is about peace, and about loving each other my religion only promotes love and it’s ignorant if you only listen to the media. I don’t feel sympathetic to those who are ignorant because I believe you’re ignorant by choice. What is your advice for someone looking to dress both modestly and stylishly? I feel like its quite easy if you know what you’re looking for. Loads of big brands do cater to Muslim women, without intentionally catering for Muslim women just go to the plus sized section, get a larger fitted top or go up two sizes. Would you want a modest centred campaign to be run by a big brand? I don’t know because I’d feel comfortable with it if they use actual Muslim women but not if you get a white model and put a scarf on her. There are so many Muslim women, I don’t understand getting a white girl and putting a scarf on her, she doesn’t care for the hijab and the lifestyle that comes with it. The headscarf means so much to me and other people it is not just about covering your hair, it’s how you carry yourself, your mannerisms and the way you treat other people and if you’re just sticking a scarf on someone who doesn’t have reiterate those beliefs then what’s the point. Even with top brands like Gucci, it’s just fashion to them and those bigger brands are portraying it as a trend it’s creating more ignorance, and I’m not here for it.

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MEETING

03 identity Noun Who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others This section includes: Interview with Actor and Model Matthew Morrison Breaking into the Fashion Industry Life as an international student A Conversation with Marianna Madriz Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re human too- poem Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a First Generation Immigrant, This Is My Story

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Matthew Morrison. An interview with actor and model Matthew Morrison. I couldn’t say how old I was when my interest in acting began, but it was definitely from a very young age. My creativity blossomed at church from being in plays like the nativity, but I think it was the transition from primary to secondary school when I realised this was something I really wanted to do. I was a very confident child, I think I reached my peak of confidence when I was about 17/18. This was at a time when I was doing the Nottingham Play House youth theatre and school productions, I had little worries or anxieties. Slowly then my confidence began to go the other way, something you probably wouldn’t expect from an actor. I wouldn’t say that I’m not confident, but I have a lot more insecurities and am a lot more self-aware than I used to be.

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“I was definitely one of the only black people in my class at school. I remember how we used to have to read To Kill a Mocking Bird in class and everyone always says how it is this great book, but I couldn’t even focus on the story because on every other page it would say ‘Nigga this, nigga that’”.

I grew up in Nottingham and began to feel quite isolated because of my race, I found that my town was predominantly white. My parents were both born in Jamaica, and I was definitely one of the only black people in my class at school. I remember how we used to have to read To Kill a Mocking Bird in class and everyone always says how it is this great book, but I couldn’t even focus on the story because on every other page it would say “Nigga this, nigga that”. The teacher would call on me to read it out loud. I found aspects of my race like that so difficult. As my school years progressed, my interest in acting continued to grow and I had signed with my first agent at 17. With my first agent the progress was slower, and we eventually just stopped talking because with me still being at home and in school I couldn’t attend many of the auditions he had lined up for me. On the occasions that I would make it down to London, I would stay with my sister who was studying at the Royal Holloway. This was also when I began to get into modelling. My sisters’ friend Sue had begun her own online content magazine and asked me if I could model for it to which I agreed. Following this, she began to pass my name around to different photographers and it just sort of spiralled from there. I began then to apply to some higher-end modelling agencies all of which who turned me down saying that I didn’t have an interesting enough look and that if you

were black you needed to have something different, like a big tooth gap or green eyes, something that differentiates you from anyone else. You had to be more ‘peculiar’, I suppose. I began then to notice a similar trend with acting roles. There were very specific boxes they want you to tick and if you couldn’t then you’d be dismissed. When I finally moved to London in 2012, I got in touch with a new agent. I found that I just kept getting sent for roles like thug 1, thug 2, I remember signing up to this casting website called mandy. com and on the day I signed up I got two individual invitations for audition: one was for a serial killer and the other a drug dealer. In 2015 I graduated from the Queen Mary University of London with a degree in Mathematics. At the time I felt that the whole drama school route would be too subjective, and I was good at Math so thought why not get a degree and carry on acting afterwards. It was never Math, then acting, it was always acting, a little break, do the Math, get something to fall back on and then carry on pursuing acting. During my time at university, I immersed myself into the Queens Mary Theatre club: QMTC for short. I met some of my best friends through that society. The club put on two or three plays a year which you audition for and then at the end of the year they take two plays up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which I was lucky enough to attend.

My family have always been supportive of my career, although through slightly gritted teeth. I’ve had certain comments like my sister once said, “When are you going to get a real job?”, I think my parents have always wanted me to get a normal 9-5 job. Living sustainably on an acting salary is difficult. I currently pursue acting alongside a café job at the Southbank Centre. I’m sort of aiming to get rid of the café job because at the moment having to juggle the creative side of things and the café work is too much. You essentially become your own PA, having to manage yourself. I’ve been very lucky in that I live with my aunt and uncle there is so much I don’t have to think about. I couldn’t imagine what I’d be doing without them, if I didn’t have my aunt and uncle, I’d probably still be doing what I’m doing but just maybe not to the extent, and probably wouldn’t be where I am right now. If money was no problem, I’d love to pursue theatre, but I don’t think you can live off of theatre in London, so the plan is to hopefully make a bit of a name for myself and then go back into theatre because you then get a higher pay rate. But it is networking that is absolutely key. It’s not necessarily about how good you are or what you can do, it’s not about who you know, but who knows you. Networking is something that is essential to survive in this sort of industry.

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INTERVIEW

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“My sexuality was something I also struggled with when growing up, and even continue to struggle with today. I personally came to terms with my sexuality when I entered year 7- I was around 12 at the time. I used to pretend to be interested in girls.”

My sexuality was something I also struggled with when growing up, and even continue to struggle with today. I personally came to terms with my sexuality when I entered year 7- I was around 12 at the time. I used to pretend to be interested in girls, I never actually had to go out with or have fake relationships with girls, but I always had to be this subdued version of myself. I mainly hung out with girls in school and teachers. There were always whispers about my sexuality especially because I was in the same year as my sister and she was quite a tomboy, and I being more effeminate, meant they would call her the boy and me the girl. I didn’t really suffer from much other than that because I remained more or less incognito. I finally came out at school in year 12, I was very drunk and was at a gig, I ended up telling someone, and she told everyone else. It was strange because even though someone had taken my ‘coming out’ moment away from me I actually felt sort of relieved. It was a cat out the bag moment, what can you do, you can’t chase it. At this point, I still hadn’t come out to my parents and didn’t do so until I turned 21. The relationship I have with my parents in terms of my sexuality is quite difficult. I came out to my mum during my second year at uni, they’d come down to watch me in a musical the drama site put on. I came out to my mum and started crying and she was like it’s ok, it’s ok, although we had little time to speak about it because they had to drive back home but they weren’t happy with it. My dad’s a preacher and my mum is a deaconess and they have always firmly believed homosexuality

is wrong. When I was growing up, I would go to church and hear them preaching that being gay is wrong, that God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. If a man kissed another guy on TV, my parents would switch it over and say it is disgusting. Religion is very strong in black culture and so my biggest fear was that they would say we don’t want you in our lives, which they haven’t but if they had done a 360-degree turn and been like its completely fine then that would have made them hypocrites. I initially felt this sense of hate and anger towards my religion, but I began to see its more humans’ interpretations of religion that are toxic. I don’t think religion is a bad thing, I don’t think Christianity, in particular, is a bad thing, but I think the translations people make and how they interpret it is the problem. My sexuality affected my relationship with my family, my mum and dad, more than it did my religion. I remember being asked to do a role, which I later accepted for a music video by Marble Empire. The video showed the relationship between me and this other man and was the first time I had been intimate with a man on video. When I got asked to do that role I was like yes, yes, yes, I really wanted to do that role. When it was finished, I put it in the family WhatsApp group and the next time I went home my mum said to me if you have anything like that again I’d rather you not send it to us. Which really hurt me. I think I knew that was coming but I just didn’t want to deal with it so put it to the back of my mind.

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“I think if more people do it, it becomes normalized and then thirty years down the road, the next gay boy that comes around won’t even have to think about it.”

There are times when I’m completely fine about it, as far as London goes it definitely better being here than being back at home. I find and I know this is really wrong of me, but when I meet black people that I don’t know, I’m always worried how they’ll view me and my sexuality, whereas when I meet white people that’s never at the forefront of my mind. For example, if I was to hold hands and walk down the street with the guy I’m currently seeing in a white area, I wouldn’t be that bothered about it, but I’m not sure I would do it in a black area because I’m not sure what the reaction would be. I’m pretty sure that there wouldn’t be a reaction but it’s just what I have in my head and I know that I’ve grown up with this sort of attitude to gay people which is very existent within black communities, it’s probably me just projecting my own negative experiences onto things. These stigmas we face in the gay community is something I want to change and that’s why I try and make the effort to be more ‘PDA’ (affectionate) even though it makes me cringe because I think if more people do it, it becomes normalized and then thirty years down the road, the next gay boy that comes around won’t even have to think about it. Although I can see positive changes happening, I definitely don’t feel we are there yet. Take my industry of acting, for example, there have recently been some really nice films in terms of accurate representation like Call Me by Your Name, Moonlight and Gods own country. I was listening to a podcast recently by Will Young and Christopher Sweeney called Homo Sapiens and they were talking about a TV show from back in the ‘90s on the BBC. There is this woman who was saying, that she’d rather her son come home and tell her that he was a murderer rather than him being gay. I think it shows what a long way we’ve come and there is definitely a movement towards a better direction but it’s not yet long or far enough. I don’t ever necessarily think we’ll get there. I think equality is just a concept, they’ll always be too much one way or another.

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Final Thought I guess I’ll always see myself as being part of two minorities, being both black and gay but if I could tell my younger self one thing it would be, come out as soon as possible. My biggest fear was always that my parents would hate me for it and reject me, which they haven’t. I love my parents to pieces, we just don’t see eye to eye on that but find friends who are your allies and stick with them. I think there is a balance between living your life and not having to apologise for who you are, and that I believe is something you should never have to do.

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Breaking into the Fashion Industry interview with tihara smith Following on from her successful Windrush inspired graduate collection presented at Graduate Fashion Week in June 2018, Tihara Smith has launched a collection of handmade accessories and original art prints. Tihara is passionate about creating original and handmade accessories, each one lovingly hand embroidered and sewn together by herself in London, ensuring that each piece is a complete original. Inspired by her own identity and heritage as a third generation Windrush descendent, Tihara uses this is a starting point to explore the story and history of black immigrants to the UK.

How did you get into fashion initially, where did the interest come from? My interest began when I was in secondary school. I studied textiles and my teacher, who came from a fashion background, encouraged me to look into fashion. I was always interested in creative subjects, but fashion came from that teacher. I decided then to begin applying to universities to study fashion and then got accepted. What education did you take to get to your degree? I studied Textiles at GCSE and A-level but chose not to do a foundation because I knew that the interest was fashion and not any other creative subject. I did apply for a foundation in case I didn’t receive an offer without, but luckily, I did. Tell us about your university experience? I went to London College of Fashion first, but I left after my first year, I just didn’t like that they didn’t really teach you, they’d just give you projects and then leave you to it. I then transferred to UCA but had to start from the first year again, so I essentially did the first year twice. I found that UCA were a lot better, they actually taught you. What would be your best piece of advice for someone thinking of getting into fashion? I think it’s important to visit a lot of universities before making your decision, and not just look at the reputation of the uni but actually try and see if you find out how they teach and if that will suit you. Just because their reputation is high doesn’t necessarily mean they are any good. Tell us about the concept behind your collection I am a Windrush Generation descendant and based my final collection on The Windrush, my personal identity as a Black-British Londoner and the traditional crafts of the Caribbean. The starting point for my collection was around the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, which carried West Indian immigrants to the UK. The concept came to me in the third year because I actually didn’t know

what I wanted to do my final project on, but I had so much pressure to choose one thing. I knew I wanted to do it on something about myself, or my identity so I began researching into my background and discovered my grandparents were part of the Windrush generation. How extensive was the research process? The research was ongoing, right up until the very end it didn’t stop, I kept finding new things, or using different angles to look at things. What was your main research technique? Listening to stories from my grandfather, who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean in the 1950s, and through the lens of photographers, who documented the lives of the generation, with a focus on their everyday, domestic lives. This includes looking into the British West Indian front room, the décor, ornaments and souvenirs that they bought from home. I initially started with an exhibition at Tate Britain which had photographs of immigrants coming from the UK from the Caribbean and the images were just really cool. What techniques did you develop in your collection? The collection used a combination of colours, textures and patterns. Raffia forms one of the main materials used on the collection, inspired by the woven palm crafts from the Caribbean, often used to make bags and hats. Along with raffia embroidery, I mixed vinyl tablecloths with faux furs and knits, taken from the ‘West Indian Front Room’ decor and the fashions worn by the Windrush generation. I did a lot of hand embroidery on my collection which took days and days. What’s the current state of the Windrush generation? I think it’s mostly negative because a lot of them don’t feel appreciated after helping our society they now face deportation. When many of them arrived they were too young to even have the correct documentation and therefore risk being sent back somewhere they don’t even consider their homes even though they’ve lived in Britain for years.

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Tell us about your grandfathers’ story

ethnicity in the fashion industry?

My granddad came to Britain in the 50s when he was about 19. He worked as a mechanic and did professional boxing for a little while. He’s nearly 80 now and lives in Camberwell. Luckily he has never faced deportation because he was old enough to have the correct passports and documentation.

Possibly, I guess it depends on the person rather than the industry as a whole. It was something that I had to think about with my concept choice for my collection and although it didn’t stop me from doing it, I knew this theme could alienate some people and make them feel negatively towards it. So, it was a bit risky, but I guess but it’s better to do something you’re interested in and know if a future employee doesn’t like it then it’s not the place I should be working for. I think sometimes my ethnicity could be seen as advantageous as it may help me to initially get into a company but it’s negative to feel like they just hired me because they want to tick a box.

Why is bringing this topic to light so important within the fashion industry? I think a lot of people don’t even know what it is, even young black people whose parents or grandparents are from that generation don’t even know. I think it’s good to use fashion to educate people. What needs to be done on a bigger level? I think people need to learn more about the Windrush and why they came and clearly demonstrating that Britain called them to come here country. I think implementing it into the school curriculum could be a way to do it, we currently learn a lot about American black history but not enough about Black British history. I think some politicians make immigration seem so negative, I feel like if the media and politicians made and highlighted the positive aspects of immigration that could really help. What are your fears as a second-generation Windrush? I think it has impacted my relationship with my identity and how I view myself. It’s kind of difficult because I don’t really feel Caribbean because I’ve never lived there and more so British because I was born here and know the culture. But then with Windrush negative connotations you then feel like you don’t belong here and that you’re in the middle. You never know where to place yourself. Could you talk about the pressure and stresses involved with being a fashion student? Money is one of the biggest stresses. Your final collections are really expensive to create and because the tutors want you to get the best fabrics, it really adds up. Also, the time pressure you’re under is really difficult because there is so much to do in a short space of time. I think I got through it by following the guidance of what the teachers say you should be at, my advice would be listen to your tutors because they know what they’re talking about. Do you think you face disadvantages because of your

How are you planning to get into the fashion industry? I’m kind of continuing on with my final collection by making bags and prints as they were popular. So, I am seeing where I can go with that but hopefully, I will get a design job in the future. Tell us about your student advice blog Tizz-Tazz? I set Tizz Tazz up in 2014 after I got accepted into the London college of fashion because I just felt like the school I went to wasn’t really a creative school, I was just lucky to have a really good teacher but still I didn’t have much support applying for university, I didn’t even know foundations existed until I got to uni’s and they said you’ve got to have a foundation. Tizz Tazz is a blog created for young creatives interested in fashion, interested in studying fashion, or currently studying fashion, posting top tips, advice, and giving a fashion education insight from someone that’s been there already. How did you balance running the blog as well as having a full-time job? It’s really difficult, I wrote most of the content in the holidays when I had a lot of time but hopefully now that I’m getting used to working, I can find my feet and find a way to balance it. Why do you think platforms like Tizz Tazz are particularly important for fashion degree students than perhaps other more academic subjects? I think because there is already so much out there for academic course support but if you want to do something creative you may feel like you can’t, or maybe your parents would discourage you from doing it.

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Life as an international student words by caitlin ng

In my parents’ generation and for generations before that, studying abroad for an Indian was considered a status symbol, and the mark of an elite family was a degree from either Cambridge or Oxford. While we have come a long way since then, the glamour associated with studying abroad has not died down among the Indian student community. For many, the opportunity to go abroad is the chance to travel and see the world, experience a different culture and to also try their luck at settling permanently in a country with better living conditions on offer. For me, the reasons to study abroad were no different. Most importantly, I loved the confidence that there were no geographical limits to what I could achieve and that the world was my oyster. Thus it was that at 26, I set foot outside India for the first time, to study in Cambridge. Just as an infant opens their eyes to the world for the first time and tries to make sense of a world outside their mother’s womb, I felt that I had been transplanted into a different world altogether. Studying abroad is much more than travelling the world and making new friends, and unlike the leisurely globetrotting which is glamorised by blogs and the internet, studying abroad also requires a lifestyle and mind-set change which we are seldom prepared for. The things which we take for granted in our home country can seem like an effort when living abroad as a student- I took time to adjust to the food, weather, accent and long distances covered on foot. While these may seem trivial considerations, they can have a big impact on how you get along in a place. A misguided notion which many of us have when applying to universities abroad is that everything will be hunky-dory from the moment we step into an

international university. We fail to appreciate that we are moving out of our comfort zone into a world with its own etiquettes and definitions of socially acceptable behaviour. Fortunately, humans have the ability to adapt to changes and we inevitably learn to adjust to our new surroundings and also enjoy the freedom which comes with living in a new country, where we are the masters of our lives. We find people who share common interests ranging from sports to cheese, and end up challenging ourselves to try new things like rowing or volunteering at music festivals. You also come to realise that studying abroad at an elite university by itself is not enough to guarantee you an excellent life experience…it is what you make of that experience that determines how successful your stint abroad is. International students spend an exorbitant sum of money to study abroad and when the experience falls short of their expectations, they may wonder whether the decision to study abroad was indeed worth the money and effort expended. This is especially true in cases where international students fail to land a job in the UK to pay off their education loans. However, if we start evaluating our study abroad experience only in terms of its job prospects, we would completely overlook that studying abroad is as much an opportunity to grow personally, as it is about increasing our employability in a global market. The success of our study abroad experience should be measured by the life lessons we learn, which changes how we view the world. In the words of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, “Once your mind stretches to a new dimension, it never goes back”; this is what I hope to take back from my study abroad experience.

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A Conversation with Marianna Madriz illustrator Marianna Madriz is an illustrator born and raised in Venezuela. In 2014 she graduated from the Arts University Bournemouth with a First Class degree and became winner of the Dorset Visual Arts Prize, an annual accolade granted to the highest achieving art graduate in the region. Since then she’s gone on to create work for a variety of clients in the publishing and editorial sectors including Creative Review, Anorak Magazine, Narratively, The Eighty-Eight Journal, Aquila Magazine, and Revista Territorio. She’s also showcased her work extensively across the UK through group exhibitions and festivals.

How did you first get into illustration? I always had an interest in drawing when growing up. Growing up in Venezuela and in school I was in a class of around 30 girls and was the only one who drew, so I got a lot of attention from that. I always wanted to draw but I didn’t think I could do anything about it until I moved to the UK. I got into illustration during my foundation course shortly after moving to the UK, I was 19. I had initially thought about doing fine art, but I realised through reading graphic novels and graphic anthropologies that they would comprise a lot of illustration and comic work which resonated a lot with me. I thought that given my love for drawing characters and creating narratives, illustration was the most fitting path that I could take. Where did you study your foundation? I did it in Milton Keynes as when I moved to the UK. Initially my family and I moved to Milton Keynes. I moved to the UK when I was 15 as my dad pretty much envisioned the future situation in Venezuela which he felt was just going to get worse, so he took the decision by finding a job elsewhere which happened to be in Milton Keynes of all places. I did my foundation at my local college. It was ok, it wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the worst, but at least I got the support I needed and most importantly I met other people. It was interesting to have this mini-community of people with a similar interest to me which actually helped me for the first time begin to feel settled living in the UK. From there I went on to study my degree in illustration at the Arts University Bournemouth. Why illustration? I’m not sure, I’ve sometimes wondered the same because as I have grown up I’ve had a lot of different interests. At one point it was fashion, then literature and philosophy and then fine art. I think that I chose illustration because it has so many different avenues you can do: comics, children’s books, editorials, big scale things or something quite niche. I think that’s what I love about it, it can be so specific but very broad at the same time. I think that’s why I’m an illustrator. Why did you decide to study illustration at university rather than just continuing to grow as a freelancerdo you think you made the right decision?

For me personally I just didn’t know where to start, I always knew that I wanted to go to university because of the community aspect, to meet more people and create mini communities and that’s exactly what happened. I ended up becoming friends with not only people who did the illustration course, but also the costume design course, or the graphic design course and we still keep in touch to find ways of collaborating with each other and that’s what the industry is all about. For me personally I knew that was what I needed. Obviously you can do the opposite and start by being a freelancer in your own right, but I think you need a very specific motivation and self-determination to do that. Freelancing doesn’t come from day one it’s something that you grow, and it takes like a year or two years to come. It makes it so much harder when you’re not only worrying about your personal problems but also having to pay your rent, and how you’re going to sustain yourself, it needs a certain kind of determination. My advice would be to reflect on what kind of person you are. Do you need support? Or can I be that determined to work on this and build it up or do I need to go elsewhere? Did you have support from your family to pursue illustration? Yeah absolutely, they’ve supported me in anything that I’ve wanted to do. Venezuela’s support for the arts isn’t that great and in fact, many parents discourage their children from pursuing a creative career. So, I have had great luck with my parents who have always supported whatever I’ve wanted to do as long as I work hard because it’s not going to be easy. Why would you recommend freelancing rather than working for a company? I kind of do a little bit of both, I do freelance but I also work part-time in an organisation called the Association of Illustrators. The company basically promotes and encourages commercial and ethical standards within the industry, to improve the standing of illustration as a profession. It’s just an amazing place to work because it fits into my practice as well, it offers business advice that I, for example, didn’t get at university. I feel it’s good to have a balance of security but also the space to work on my own projects. Eventually, I would like to be freelance full time but at the moment this is the balance that is working for me.

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What do you enjoy sketching the most?

fast paced because they need it more quickly.

Girls, plants and more girls.

What has been the proudest moment in your illustration career?

What’s the benefits and the negatives of freelancing? I think the hardest thing about freelancing is that you’re out of that community you built up in university, you’re either living back at home or move elsewhere whichever decision it’s hard because you need to build up those connections again. It’s also very difficult because nobody tells you how much you should be charging, or what makes a good contract, people are going to try and take advantage of you because you don’t have that much experience. The first year after I graduated was quite hard, starting is the hardest part of freelancing but then once you start and you get a few commissions in and you begin to build your presence online and offline then things kind of snowball. It’s important for you to start to realise what your value is. What kind of topics do you discuss through your art form? It really does depend because recently I have been getting more of commercial work, some for children’s books, some for magazines and so, therefore, the themes are dependent on each client. In my personal work, it’s something I want to work on more this year. I want to look at my identity and reflect on how I’ve changed by living in the UK. But I guess I could say my illustrations are about imagination, reflecting on yourself and having a quiet space to escape the noise of the city. Tell us the process of getting that final illustration It always starts off with a sketch to generate a few thumbnails to send back to the client, they’re always in pencil, it’s very quick and shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes and then once they give the go ahead, I will then digitally colour the sketch. I will always send the client a few colour options and allow them to pick whichever they want. That’s for commercial work but for personal work, it’s fairly similar in the sense that I have a sketchbook that I take with me when I’m out and about to do quick, loose sketches. What usually happens is that maybe weeks or months later I’ll be looking back at that sketchbook and I realise I quite like that drawing and decide to develop it further into a more finalized piece. It’s the same process with both but it’s a lot quicker with a commercial client as the work is more

Probably working on the illustrated children’s book ‘Frida Kahlo: Little Guide to Great Lives’ for Laurence King. I think it was not only my proudest moment because it was my first book but because it was a really interesting process. It allowed me to understand a lot more about freelancing and the importance of having a relationship with the team you work with, I’ve now worked on a second book with them. Also, its subject being a biography about Freda Carlo, Latin America and strong women, it feels very close to home. You’ve got a very unique style, how did this develop and become what it now is? It’s funny because when I finished university, my style was quite different, as I used to draw characters in a certain way. I used to draw them on their side, so they were always on profile, kind of like Egyptian style characters. Which I always got good feedback on, but I realised that for children’s books it was not going to work as they needed to be able to be in different angles therefore, I had to kind of force myself to draw them in different angles and I guess my style built up from that. I think also from doing commercial work you really need to force yourself to work faster and I think that speediness changes the style of your work because it makes it looser and less restricted. I think my style is always changing, in 2 years’ time, it will probably be different again. If you could describe your illustrative style in one sentence what would it be? Hopefully, playful. What are your future goals/aspirations in terms of your illustrations? I’ve always been interested in comic and graphics work, I’m part of a small independent scene and comic fairs all around the UK. I would love to create my own comics, but I think I need to find the right story and discover how to tell it well. I think I’ve realised I don’t want to just do stuff for the sake of it, at university, it feels like your tutors can be going on about your concept at times but later on, you realise that people are going to pay more attention to the meaning behind it, it’s about the story.

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What do you think the hardest thing about illustration is ? I think keeping connected. People rely too much on social media, but that is not a real connection, it’s about being connected with a real community. It’s really easy to stay at home and just be getting work through social media but it’s so important to also be going to exhibitions, fairs and networking events to meet other illustrators and you can establish lovely friendships that way. A lot of illustrators don’t realise how important that is because the more connected you are with your own community and your environment the less isolated you feel, and maybe better work comes out of that. Would you define yourself as an immigrant- or be happy if someone else called you one? Yes, I’m definitely an immigrant although I’ve been established within the UK for 11 years at the end of the day, I do come from another country so if somebody calls me an immigrant I’ll say yes I know I am, I have been for a while. What was your relationship with your ethnicity growing up- did this change at all when you moved to London? Venezuela is such a multicultural country; my mum is Italian so she herself is an immigrant who moved to Venezuela when she was 5 years old. There are many people in Venezuela who are children of European immigrants: German, Italian, Portuguese. There are also people from all other countries like Syria, Lebanon, Latin America. There is such a mix. I believe there is no 100% pure Venezuelan person just as there isn’t a 100% English person. As a white female, I used to always get picked on for being too white and pale and also because I am not a very extrovert person and in Latin America, the stereotype is that everybody is extrovert and loud. When I moved to the UK if I got asked where I was from and I said Venezuela people would wonder why I was not more tanned. Again it’s that stereotype of Latin American women being voluminous, having great bodies, tanned and sexy. I’m don’t really fit that stereotype, so I just laugh it off, it’s just an ignorant misconception. Why do you think there is so much negativity currently around the topic of immigration? I think most people don’t understand that I and many other people don’t want to leave their country. My parents forced me to leave as things

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were getting really, really terrible in my country. A lot of people turn a blind eye about why you’re leaving and focus more on why you’re coming and settling here. But in most cases, it’s not really about a choice it’s more that we need to leave and don’t know where else to go. What does it mean to be part of two nationalities? I think it’s like having a split identity in a sense. It means being from two different places but also not being from anywhere. Now that I’ve lived an equal amount in the UK as in Venezuela, I still feel Venezuelan, but I cannot ignore the fact that I have adjusted to life here in the UK. When I see my Venezuelan friends, they laugh at me for loving my tea and kind of accept that the longer you spend at a place the more you’re going to assimilate and adjust to it. What do you miss most about Venezuela? I miss the warmth and I’m not talking about the climatic warmth I’m talking about the warmth of the people. I miss it being so easy to strike up a conversation with anybody. I miss the spontaneity because there aren’t many resources. You have to improvise with what you can. What does Britain do better than Venezuela? Order, in Britain there is actually law that does apply. Politically we cannot compare the two, although things are messed up here, they’re not as messed up as they are in my own country. I do feel that the appreciation of the arts is something that Britain has that my country doesn’t. People in Venezuela still have the mentality that you need to be an engineer, work in administration or do something practical to earn money. Luckily, I had that support to do whatever I wanted to do but I understand it’s not as easy for other people. It’s something that needs to change- the support and resources for art. Do you think you will remain now in Britain for the forcible future or do you see yourself moving abroad soon? I’ll have to see how Brexit plays out. Sometimes I feel like I would love to remain in the UK because I have built a life here and I can’t imagine moving and starting over again. But I don’t discourage the idea that if I ever get fed up, I can just move away and do freelance work living elsewhere but we’ll just have to see.

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“We are human, just like you. We breathe and bleed red too. These hate crimes aren’t shocking anymore. IT can happen simply by opening the doors. We can show you signs of peace. Whilst being gunned down until our lives decrease. Living as a Muslim is now sad and frightening. But our religion is one that is liberating. The politicians have been feeding off lies and fuelling the fire. Televising terrorism as a religion to satisfy their desires. They speak of eradication but it sounds like world war two. We deserve emancipation, I think we’re overdue. Hate speech breeds hate crimes, And they justify it so no one has to serve time. The scarf pulls and the vulgar curses. It hurts and makes some of us push ourselves towards hearses. The violence and intimidation. We ignore in silence despite the agitation. The hateful stares can be too much to bear. But when our blood is shed, we know it’s not warfare.”

We are human too- rayaan

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I’m a First Generation Immigrant. This Is My Story interview with ruth blenk Ruth Blenk was born in Zimbabwe but moved to Australia when she was only 2 years old and then from Australia to the UK when she turned 15. Now studying acting at the Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama in Cardiff. We talk to Ruth about being a first generation immigrant in the UK today.

Why did you move from Australia to the UK? We moved because my dad who is English found a job in Cardiff close to where my Grandma lives. I think we also moved partly so that I and my sister could have a better university experience. In the UK, because of Oxford and Cambridge, the university system is more competitive and therefore generally the standard of teaching is better. What do you miss most about Australia? Probably the weather and the more laid-back lifestyle, I miss that. I think people over here work a lot more, and therefore are more stressed and life just seems a little harder. I think that when the sun’s out it does actually affect people’s mood. When you’re cold you’re not as happy and relaxed. What do you prefer about the UK over Australia? That it’s closer to all the European countries which all have so much history and culture. I love Europe so much. The culture here is more vibrant and exciting. Do you think you will ever return to Australia? Maybe when I’m older, I think Australia would be a nice place to start a family because it’s a lot safer than most places here. It’s by the sea, the weather is good and it’s just a nice place to be. Would you refer to yourself or be happy to be referred to as an immigrant? Yes absolutely, I have no negative thoughts about being referred to as an immigrant. I know that some people would find it almost offensive, because of all the negative connotations associated with it especially in the UK, but I’m pro-immigration so that doesn’t bother me. Why do you think there is so much negativity behind being called an immigrant in the UK? Because I think it’s easier for people to blame others for their own problems. I think some politicians also latch onto that negativity associated with immigration to help them secure a majority and get elected even if they don’t actually have those ideals themselves.

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What is the biggest misconception/stereotype you face as being an immigrant? Or if not you what other immigrants may face? Because I surround myself with very liberal-minded people I haven’t actually experienced anything myself. It’s more from what I read online about how other immigrants are treated. But I think people would probably be surprised at how well educated I am, and equally hard-working. There are a lot of negative ideas about immigrants being lazy and just sponging off the government. People may be surprised to know I’ve never received any benefits, I work hard and am a tax paying, law abiding citizen. Do you think Britain is a welcoming/inclusive country towards immigrants? The experience that I have personally had would suggest so, but when you read about things, or watch the news you get a very different opinion, I think it’s 50/50. Do you think social media has played/plays an important role in spreading/promoting the truth and more information about the current political mayhem? Definitely, but I think it happened too late because it also helped spread a lot of lies. What do you think needs to be done to improve the negative perceptions around immigration? I think when immigrants do come to the UK they should be more evenly spread across the country because it’s often in places where there aren’t that many immigrants that people have these negative attitudes because they’re afraid of what they don’t really know. But in places like London, where there are a lot of immigrants’ attitudes towards them are generally very liberal. I think that it’s about making the UK a place that people want to move to no matter where they go, rather than just making the big cities attractive.

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“I think people would probably be surprised at how well educated I am and equally hard-working. There are a lot of negative ideas about immigrants being lazy and just sponging off the government.”

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“I think Britain leaving the EU is a terrible thing. I was surprised that that was the result, I knew some people had those ideas, but I was just surprised by how many people thought that way. The EU gave us so many benefits, so I am really sad about that.”

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You talk a lot on your social media platforms about your opinions on political goings on especially around Brexit. Could you discuss where you currently sit in terms of this? I think Britain, leaving the EU, is a terrible thing. I was surprised that that was the result, I knew some people had those ideas, but I was just surprised by how many people thought that way. The EU gave us so many benefits, so I am really sad about that. I think the fact that we can travel to Europe with such ease is amazing and we definitely benefit more from immigration then we lose out from it. People should understand it’s good that people come here to work. The NHS, for example, wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for immigrant workers. I think it’s really sad what’s happening. Is there a story in recent headlines that stands out to you to show how poorly immigrants are treated? One headline which I found really shocking was the case of a boy who got accepted into Oxford University but because he wasn’t born in the UK, he couldn’t take up his offer. It wasn’t until his friend made a petition and got lots of support around it that he actually got the right paperwork from the Home Office and was allowed to stay in the UK. But the story made me think about all the people who are in that situation but aren’t getting offers from Oxford and don’t have supportive friends to help them draw attention to their story. If you could change or create one law what would it be? That the government should have to be clearer about what actually happens to immigrants once they’re here because coming to the UK isn’t that hard, but once you’re here, being accepted into society is very hard. If the government are planning to keep the current laws intact, they need to tell people not to come or change it so that once people do arrive here life is a lot easier. If you could give your 11-year-old self one piece of advice what would it be and why? To care less about what other people think of you because what other people think of you doesn’t matter. Someone’s always going to have something negative to say, you’ve just got to let it not get to you.

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“I think whatever your situation it’s good to understand what it’s like to be in some sort of minority in life whether that’s because of your ethnicity, gender or age, because it makes you more sympathetic towards other people.”

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What have been your experiences of growing up as a mix-raced female? I think whatever your situation it’s good to understand what it’s like to be in some sort of minority in life whether that’s because of your ethnicity, gender or age, because it makes you more sympathetic towards other people. I wouldn’t say anything negative has come from it because from feeling insecure and self-conscious about my identity, I now feel more confident than I think I would’ve have felt if I hadn’t experienced this. I think only good has come from it really. Did you ever feel a pressure to conform to white beauty standards? I definitely did have issues with my identity when growing up especially because of having curly hair and being the only girl in the class who did. I remember when I was younger obviously looking up to a lot of people on Disney channel it was always people like Ashely Tisdale and Miley Cyrus on TV who are white, straight haired girls which made it difficult for me. I chemically straightened my hair once before and damaged it quite badly. I’ve found that since moving to the UK I just don’t care anymore, I don’t know if that’s a change in an environment allowing me to sort of start afresh, but now I don’t see it as an issue. Do you think that society is becoming more accepting of a more diverse beauty standard? Yeah, society is definitely becoming more accepting of diverse beauty standards, but I think we still have a long way to go. I have noticed things change like yesterday I was watching TV and it was a clothing advert for Tesco’s F&F line and the main-model was a mixed-race girl with frizzy hair and I thought that was really refreshing to see. Do you have any experiences with first-hand racism? Or know of people close to you who have? I personally haven’t, but I do know people who have. My mum has felt discriminated against before and sometimes she can’t help but feel it is a race thing but then you don’t always know because there are nasty people out there regardless of race, it’s hard to say sometimes.

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04 individuality Noun The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights. This section includes: Interview with Basket Ball Player Asma Elbadawi My Journey Through Trans Masculinity Being Black in the Beauty Industry ‘Muslim Girls Don’t Wear Makeup’ Part 2

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Asma Elbadawi. An interview with basketball champion Asma Elbadawi. I always played sport when growing up, however back then it would have been netball or rounders. When I left my hometown Bradford to go to university in Sunderland, I decided not to play sports anymore. In Bradford there was this sense of supportive community where I was able to play sports in a relaxed women-only environment, I feared this wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t follow me when I left for university.

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“Growing up I’d never seen anyone wearing the hijab at sporting events or on TV. I convinced myself that it was my religion that had something against women playing sport and believed that my family wouldn’t be proud of me if I continued it further”.

Growing up I’d never seen anyone wearing the hijab at sporting events or on TV. I convinced myself that it was my religion that had something against women playing sport and believed that my family wouldn’t be proud of me if I continued it further. I put that down to me not seeing women that look like me to motivate me enough to reach that level with the sport. I played it because I enjoyed it but playing at a professional level just wasn’t something that occurred to me. It didn’t feel realistic. It didn’t even pop up in my head. I’ve been lucky to have been brought up in Bradford because Bradford is very much multicultural, and I remember the first time Bradford came to play Sunderland and I saw a girl wearing a hijab on their team this opened my eyes to the fact that I can still play regardless of my faith. I went to university with the full intention of not playing sport and for the first two years I didn’t. I began to feel more and more miserable and decided I needed to begin playing a sport again. I ended up going to the gym to ask what sports they offered and the one they suggested was equestrianism. I signed up to it for 3 weeks but then on the third week my coach didn’t show up and as I was already in my gym clothes, I went back into the gym to ask if they offered any other sports to which they suggested basketball. I joined the basketball team, initially as a trial. I think because I played netball when I was younger, I was aware of how to shoot and put a ball in a basket. Growing up we had a small court near the house, the one that is actually in these photos, I’d go and shoot around but the physicality of the game put me off. I really enjoy that court because I

can just put my headphones on and shoot around for ages. It’s a completely different experience playing by yourself compared to competitive games, where there is so much emotion and pressure. Basketball was the first sport to really challenge me. It made other sports look not necessarily easy, but far less challenging. In netball you have this whole designated area of space which means you don’t have to make a decision quickly whereas with basketball as soon as you get the ball that’s it, it was you against the world. I had to learn to make quick decisions in split seconds. Because I was quite athletic to begin with, with basketball it was adjusting my skills. At the beginning I would get so frustrated with myself, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get it and how people would steal the ball of me as soon as I got it or why people would shout my name as if I didn’t know what I was doing. In my first two years of basketball I didn’t get chosen to play that much because I was still a beginner, I would go to training and all the games, but I’d only get to play for like 5 minutes. I would come home and cry and say I wasn’t going back, my friends would ask why I was doing this to myself and I would say it was because I needed to prove I wasn’t a shit player, and that I could actually do it. At the end of the year I decided to sit down with my dad to explain how I’d felt uncomfortable playing sport worrying about what their opinion of me would be. He turned to me and said: “Mate what’s the fuss about? We were actually worried about you when you weren’t playing sports”.

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“Now when I take a shot, I know whether it’s going in as soon as it left my finger, if it’s not touched these two particular fingers, I know it’s not going in. I truly believe that the level I have reached has a lot to do with hard work.”

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My family have been so supportive in my decision to pursue basketball, my dad especially. We’d always been quite a sporty family, although my brother and my dad are more football focused so I’m like the odd one out. It was my dad when it came to sport who was most encouraging. He reminded me that in fact our religion says nothing against women playing sports and that perhaps in the future I could help inspire other young girls to take part in sports. I feel like had they not been supportive, especially being the male figures in my life I don’t think other people would’ve accepted it as much. In our community if your dad and brother are against it, people instinctively see it as a bad thing even though I don’t think I need to prove what I’m doing is right. I believe its really important to discover whether you genuinely don’t have that support or if you just think you don’t have that support. Initially I thought my parents wouldn’t accept it whereas they were fine with it. Compromise is key, if your family don’t approve there are always ways around it. I then travelled to Serbia for two weeks for further training, I ended up being the only girl there and getting one-to-one training for the whole time. They changed my entire form in just ten days. Before, if I was shooting, I’d get like 3/10 shots initially. When I changed my shooting form I initially couldn’t get anything in, but they made me practise and practise and I began to get out of my head and think I can do this and I’m going to do this. Now when I take a shot, I know whether it’s going in as soon as it left my finger, if it’s not touched these two particular fingers, I know it’s not going in. I truly believe that the level I have reached has a lot to do with hard work, but the other thing is about the time I started playing. Young girls who start playing sports early tend also to leave early even the ones who are really, really good. When they stop playing, I then almost get the chance to sort of take their positions.

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“When I’m training regularly, I feel like my body does things that I don’t expect it to do. I can get to the basket better, I can play quicker, my body and the ball sort of become one. You get so used to the ball that you don’t even have to think where it is in terms of your body.”

When I’m training regularly, I feel like my body does things that I don’t expect it to do. I can get to the basket better, I can play quicker, my body and the ball sort of become one. You get so used to the ball that you don’t even have to think where it is in terms of your body. It wasn’t until I actually started writing poetry when my basketball actually got better, suddenly I was less conscious of making mistakes. I’ve been writing since I was 8 years old. it was different at school though, I struggled with my spelling and grammar but for some reason I understood poetry. I liked how the craft wasn’t restrictive in the sense that I could put a full stop in the middle of a sentence, and no one could say anything. In poetry if you make a mistake, you have to just carry on, you’re so vulnerable and that helped me a lot more with my sports because I now didn’t care if I didn’t make it anymore. A lot of my time spent in education was also whilst I was playing sports and it just helped to keep me focused and disciplined. During my under grad and post grad I found that I was inserting little poems into my work. When I finished my masters I wanted to take a break so I decided I wanted to explore poetry further, so I joined a workshop and there is where I found out about the Word’s First competition. I joined, got selected, and ended up winning. I was then mentored for 6 months. During these six months I undertook a placement in Tanzania where I worked with secondary schools to discuss life skills and gender issues facing pupils by running a series of discussion groups. I also started a basketball team for both boys and girls, to introduce ideas around gender equality and teamwork to these children. It was on this trip that I began to realise what women in these countries are going through. I began then to write these experiences into poetry and this developed into the three first poems that I properly performed in front of an audience. My poetry touches upon a number of topics: gender, equality, what it means to be a woman, toxic masculinity. A lot of my earlier work feels freer and more creative whereas now my topics are more focused. It’s no

longer about making it sound pretty I know exactly what I want to say and I want it to say what it needs to say and that’s it. It was through my work in the arts that I ended up connecting with a girl who invited me to go out to different countries and do some art projects. So, we set up this workshop together and as we were in contact, we somehow started speaking about sports. I explained my interest in basketball and she had said how she had also played professionally but stopped because in Europe as soon as she took her hijab off she wasn’t allowed to play anymore. A lot of us at the time didn’t even know there was an official ban against wearing the hijab in basketball. We decided then to start campaigning with a petition directly to the FIBA (The International Basketball Federation). We also went in our local communities to speak about it to whoever we could. When my friends and I who all wear hijabs go to tournaments I feel people just assume we don’t know how to play or that we can’t be aggressive but when we get onto that court and do what we’ve come to do people really don’t expect it. It’s almost like the hijab somehow makes you both visible but at the same time people just don’t expect much from you. For them it’s like you’re on the team to help tick a diversity box, which is not the case. We successfully forced FIBA to remove the ban on hijabs and religious headwear in the professional sport, armed with 130,000 signatures. It still feels like a dream, in my head it felt like no way are they going to remove the ban, but I had some hope because FIFA had already removed it in 2014 for football and then the Olympics allowed girls to wear the burkini in the beach volleyball matches. I felt like if they said no that would bring so much negative attention to basketball, especially because they had been trying to make basketball a lot more inclusive. But when they actually said yes it took me such a long time to process it, I knew that although it might not necessarily benefit me, I know there won’t be a 12-year-old who wants to play that’s suddenly told no you can’t.

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“I’m not sure where I see my future in basketball, I guess I want to see where I go with it. I think there are other things I want to pursue in my life, I always want to continue playing in some form, but I am conscious that I actually need to earn a living.”

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I never planned to be a ‘role model’, but a lot of people do see me as one now which can be difficult. When I was younger, I was expected to be a role model throughout my school life because my mum was a teacher in my school, and I was constantly told I wasn’t as good a role model as I should be considering I was a teacher’s daughter. I guess for me it’s this thing of keeping doing what I’m doing and if that inspires other people then I’m happy, but I don’t want to consciously do things on purpose so that young girls will think I’m a role model. I’m not sure where I see my future in basketball, I guess I want to see where I go with it. I think there are other things I want to pursue in my life, I always want to continue playing in some form, but I am conscious that I actually need to earn a living. For women sports there is a huge pay gap. If I was paid to play basketball, I would probably be a lot healthier, a lot more athletic, and both physically and mentally stronger. A lot more women drop out of sports because there is no pay in women’s sports, we have to have side jobs because otherwise we can’t survive. I had a friend who played semi-pro football and was getting paid as little as £20 a week whereas guys get paid a couple of grand a week. This lack of funding as a result has made women’s sport extremely competitive. You believe you can only make it to professional levels if you start from such a young age and when you’ve got so much going on in terms of family life and work you can’t always make training. For example, locally in terms of Bradford there used to be two female basketball teams, and now it doesn’t even have one team for women. 4 years ago you had to literally trial out to make the team because there were so many people wanting to play.

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INTERVIEW

“A lot of girls stop playing sports when they hit puberty. It’s almost because they’re so conscious of their bodies that they didn’t want to take part. Perhaps it’s about changing the uniforms because if you’re conscious of your body you’re not necessarily going to want to wear a little skirt.”

I think we need to create more women only spaces, because I love playing basketball, but I don’t want to always wear my hijab because when we play in mixed environments we have to cover up. I’ve gone swimming before where it’s said women only and then there will be a male guard. I think there needs to be more funding in the sense that we only teach girls sports that we think they should be playing so more diversity in the sports that we’re actually exposed to from a young age. A lot of girls stop playing sports when they hit puberty. It’s almost because they’re so conscious of their bodies that they didn’t want to take part. Perhaps it’s about changing the uniforms because if you’re conscious of your body you’re not necessarily going to want to wear a little skirt no matter how much you love it because you’re going to be so self-conscious of your body. With my own confidence it was an odd one, I felt like within certain communities I would be fine but when I went into the South Asian communities suddenly, I was the dark person. I found it shocking because the white kids didn’t have a problem with me, whereas when I moved to this school that was predominantly Asian and them telling me to go back to Africa, they’d call me names like black jack and rubber lips, it was awful. I was suddenly getting abused for something I genuinely had no control over. I remember being

so confused because my skin colour was pretty much the same as theirs, the only thing that was different was that I had African features like my curly hair. In their heads Muslim people couldn’t look like me, a lot of the prejudices I’ve had in my life have actually come from people who supposedly look like me. It felt like I never really fitted in wherever I was. When I went to Sudan I didn’t quite fit in there, and when I came here, I didn’t really fit in properly because I’m not English, it’s not where my roots are from. I’m not 100% part of this society and I’m not 100% part of that society. I always felt pressure to conform to white beauty standards but could not understand from who this ideal came. The Sudanese community really love people who appear more Caucasian than African so if their features include a straighter nose, straighter hair, lighter skin then that was ultimate beauty. When growing up whenever I would go to Sudan, I would be very aware that all the girls they would say are pretty were the lighter skinned ones, if you had that and a pointy nose and straight hair it was like a triple wow so that’s what people aimed for. I think also until recently we never saw other women who looked like us in magazines or on TV. There was this idealism of beauty and if you didn’t conform you weren’t seen as beautiful.

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Final Thought I believe now I’ve realised that identity is not fixed. Our identities are fluid and can change. I’m not trying to put myself in any box anymore whereas before I felt like I had to be Sudanese to be Sudanese or I had to be British to be British whereas now I’m like I’m Asma and I’m comfortable with whoever I am right now and whoever I might be in a year or two years’ time. If I could tell my 11-year-old selfone piece of advice it would be to carry on playing sports and do more of it. Look for opportunities and don’t wait to see people who look like you on the TV to pursue things that you want to pursue. Whatever it is trust the journey, just be true to who you are and everything will fall into place.

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My Journey Through Trans Masculinity interview with chiyo gomes Transgender, Afro-Latinx drag king Chiyo Gomes is challenging the ideals of mainstream drag. Chiyo as self described is a transgender identifying as non-binary but falling under the Trans umbrella. He identifies heavily with the acronym QTPOC, being both Queer, Trans, and a Person of Colour. Chiyo says he uses the drag scene to blur gender lines and as a coping mechanism for gender dysphoria as well as a way to introduce race narratives to a predominantly white conversation.

I think I started to acknowledge that I wasn’t a ‘sis’ when I was about 18. I had just moved to university but at that time assumed I was just a queer individual, exploring my gender. As I continued to explore and I discovered drag it came to light that there was more depth to my gender than met the eye. I now identify as a trans guy, but as I don’t resonate with masculinity I identify more as non-binary. I would call myself a non-binary trans guy and use he or they pronouns. I truly believe the biggest misconception faced with being transgender is the invisibility of trans men or trans boys. People that are on that side of the spectrum are assumed to exclude male privilege and therefore there is not really much talk about the experiences of trans boys and men. There is this entire community of people whose experiences are never spoken about and the invisibility of their trauma and what they go through today is our biggest misconception. When I was growing up, I always felt like one of the boys. I was this little androgynous tom boy who was essentially born in the wrong body. The best analogy to describe how it feels is if you were to grow up in a really disgusting shitty home, like everything about this home is traumatic, it’s gross, it stinks, it’s all your worst fears in one place. If you grew up in a home like that but you knew there were better places you could be that’s almost what it’s like. My body dysmorphia is something that I am always trying to escape, I just want to wake up one day and not feel like this. It’s ever present, almost like a shadow. The idea of me fully transitioning, returning back to the shitty house analogy, is like I’m in this shitty home right now but it’s my home so it’s really scary to leave it but I know that this is better, and I could be so much happier elsewhere. I found that it was the other kids who were actually more tolerant towards me as this little androgynous tom boy than other parents and adults. I’ve felt supported from some people. In the queer community we have a cliché speaking of your ‘chosen family’ because if you are queer a lot of the time you don’t get to decide who accepts you and who doesn’t. Other people decide that for you. I wouldn’t say there is a community of people that I rely on for support

but there are definitely individuals in my life who give me strength and I give them strength and we survive by just supporting each other. Your ‘chosen family’ is the people you choose to keep around you because they’re the supportive ones. I recently turned 22, and I remember when I was growing up and beginning to discover who I was, I had always envisioned that by the time I was 22 I would look how I wanted to look. I would have had my top surgery and I would be living my best life. So, when I turned 22 in July and that was not the case, I found it very difficult to continue existing because in my mind I was already a failure. The way I bind my chest is quite different to other trans people because I do drag for a living, and I perform on stage and a lot of my drag involves me being half naked on stage. For me to feel confident enough to do that I tape my chest to a tight enough extent where I feel good on stage. The physical damage of my binding are quite brutal. I’ve had blisters, open skin wounds and texture changes but for me I just wanted it tighter and tighter. I recently found out that my binding can actually prevent me from having top surgery because no surgeon is going to want to go near a chest that is already so fucked up and that was a real big wakeup call for me. I felt like I was never going to be the person I wanted to be. That’s when I thought if I wanted to continue to be here it was time for me to get top surgery, and so I set up a GoFundMe page. Within a month I had managed to raise £5000, and since then am up to £6500 with the end target being £7000, so we’re nearly there. In just two months I’ve been able to work and promote my story in any way I could to afford the surgery. For me the NHS was not an option. The NHS is good depending on how much privilege you have. As I don’t have British citizenship, I can’t legally change my name in this country, which is one of the ways you have to ‘prove’ yourself to be trans to the NHS. It is also very difficult to get top surgery on the NHS if you don’t want to go on Testosterone which I don’t. I just don’t resonate with masculinity too much, I’m very content with how feminine my soul and my body are, and my dysmorphia doesn’t revolve around that.

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“I think drag has helped me in quite subtle ways, but it’s definitely made me more of a bad bitch because I’m surrounded by fierce, powerful and strong people who take no bull shit.

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What I grew to love so much about drag was that I could present myself however I wanted to. It’s a small movement where people are engaged and focused on me and I can do anything. There is a dynamic that is so authentically punk and queer it’s just beautiful. It’s a place where I feel at peace with every one of my marginalisations being both gay, trans and brown. I’ve always said that I went through three identity crises, first it was my sexuality, then it was gender and then I had a racial identity crisis. Am I white? Am I Black, Latino, or African? I was born here but I don’t have British citizenship. I am so grateful and in love to be part of these groups, but it does come with a lot of pain. I got into drag through sex work when I was at uni as I was needing to make a bit of money. I was watching drag race so I had all these ideas of gender in my head and I started a drag king illusion where I took some selfies and put them on Instagram with hashtags like #dragking and as people saw those selfies they assumed I was a proper drag king and then started requesting to book me. I think drag has helped me in quite subtle ways, but it’s definitely made me more of a bad bitch because I’m surrounded by fierce, powerful and strong people who take no bull shit. The biggest misconception about drag culture is that drag is equivalent to Ru Paul’s Drag Race, but it’s so much more than that, Ru Paul’s Drag Race is like not even a small branch of what drag can be. My view and experiences of the drag community are nothing like what Drag Race shows it to be. Everyone on Ru Paul’s drag race is assigned male at birth, they don’t let any assigned female bodies on. Ru Paul is also very commercialised, it’s very stigmatized, there have been racist and transphobic people on Ru Paul’s drag race and Ru Paul himself is transphobic. I believe that most trans people who go out and live their true lives will have faced many events of trauma and violence. I do believe that society has taken steps towards learning a language that helps trans people place themselves more and there are more discussions being had about transgender people and their experiences than I’ve ever seen before. But I do still think that trans people are not safe, no matter where they reside. Naomi Hersi was a black trans woman who was murdered last year. Another trans woman was murdered in her home, in London a month ago. I don’t think society has made enough progress, but they’ve made enough progress for us to be able to talk about it. I think that a lot of trans people are waiting for it to get better for them, and I have faith that it will.

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Being Black in the Beauty Pageant Industry interview with onyx uwandulu Onyx Uwandulu first started going into beauty pageants when she was 14 years old. She used it to boost her low selfesteem. It was her mother who first entered her in an online competition, which she won. Through winning she was made aware of UK Galaxy Pageants. She first entered as a junior and was placed 4th. This drove her to more pageants and in 2017 she won Miss Teen Galaxy Wales. Onyx was the first person of colour to receive the Miss Wales title.

Did you feel pressured to get into pageantry or was it completely self-initiated? No, it was completely my own decision. My mum has always backed everything I’ve wanted to do, it was just something she suggested to help boost my confidence because I was in that stage where I was very quiet at school, so it was more of a confidence booster for me than anything else and it definitely did that. Do you feel TV programmes like TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras have impacted people’s perceptions of beauty pageants in the mainstream media? Yes definitely. Toddlers and Tiaras show glitz pageants, and what I do is different. Mine are considered natural pageants. With glitz, you can do them every weekend and they’re more like dance competitions. You go and compete, you win the prize and you move on to the next one. With a natural pageant, if you win you have your title for a whole year and alongside you have to do appearances and charity work. I did over 100 appearances during my reign of Miss Teen Galaxy Wales, but a lot of people don’t really see that side of pageantry. Pageantry is just like any other hobby. There is no difference between going to a dance competition where you’d do full makeup, your hair, and put on a dance costume to a pageant, where you do full makeup, hair, and put on a costume. A lot of people, including myself, use pageantry as a platform to access other things as it enabled me to do speeches in and around local schools for girls between 8 and 12 to talk about self-confidence. How did pageants help you with self-confidence? I was a really loud and confident child when growing up. I had danced and therefore performed from the age of 3, so it always felt natural, but when I began secondary school that all changed. At school if you were loud you were an attention seeker. This, therefore, led me to become more and more quiet, and in on myself. That’s when I began appearing in pageants, but I got a lot of stick in school for doing them. One thing I used to get all the time was people saying, “Who does she think she is?” Now as I’m older I can realise that a lot of it is to do with jealousy. My mum also helped with my confidence loads, she

always taught me to be dependent on myself and nobody else, because she raised me on her own, a lot of me comes from her. Do you think people misconceive you as being vain because of your involvement with the pageant industry? I think there’s a line between self-confidence and being conceited, but it feels like when somebody reaches that level of self-confidence they are automatically seen as conceited. People today preach about mental health and about loving yourself but as soon as they see somebody who does, they automatically get labelled as self-absorbed. I think it is about defining that line between those two traits and not automatically assuming that somebody who is comfortable with who they are is somebody who is vain. What is something that people may not know about being involved in pageants? I think mostly the amount of charity work you do alongside, people don’t necessarily hear about it because it’s not something we flaunt because it seems like bragging, but I think people should be open and proud about their achievements. Is there a particular charity that has significant meaning to you? I worked a lot with the Christie Cancer Charity and the work they do is incredible. I also personally dealt with the Wooden Spoon House in Blackwood which does a lot of work for disabled children that are on respite, and I also did some work with social services for children in foster homes. I’ve always wanted to be a role model for other people growing up. I never had a role model like me in the media. For me being successful means that another little black girl in the Valleys has somebody to look up to and knows that I came from the same place that she did. It’s what drives me to do everything that I do. What is the biggest misconception you face with being involved in beauty pageants? Probably that I’m self-absorbed and an attention seeker, things that I had a lot through school.

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What is the proudest moment you’ve had in your journey of getting into beauty pageants? Probably becoming first-runner up at internationals, because I got the chance to represent Wales, although I was competing against people from all around the world, hardly anybody even knew where Wales was. Do you believe you face either advantages or disadvantages of entering the pageant industry as a Black female? I think a bit of both. Obviously, you face disadvantages in any industry as somebody of colour, but I’ve got the advantage that I’m very light skin. Often people want to use people of colour as people are beginning to embrace ethnic diversity a lot more, but they don’t want to use somebody too dark. I acknowledge that I’ve got a privilege in this respect but then I’ve also faced adversity as well. I can’t personally comment on the struggles of all people of colour, but I can comment on what I’ve experienced. Do you think the beauty pageant industry is inclusive to ethnic minority groups? I do in certain ways, I feel it is becoming a lot more inclusive now. For example, this year’s Miss Universe Britain winner, Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers, was the first black woman to be crowned in the pageant’s 66year history which is shocking when you think about the percentage of people of colour in this country. Do you think it was more of an achievement for you to win the title you did considering your ethnicity? Yes, especially coming from Wales. If it was someone from America it may be expected because there are a lot more people of colour there, but there are not many people of colour from where I come from, I live in the Welsh Valleys and it’s basically just me and my brother who are ethnic minorities. What was the hardest/most challenging moment you’ve faced in your pageant career? Probably ageing up from junior to teen, trying to make that jump from previously trying to look younger to then trying to look older because I was competing against girls who were 18/19. This was very challenging especially in terms of my confidence because at 15 you don’t have the same confidence as somebody who is 18. When you age up from junior to teen you also have to do bikini wear, which I always dreaded. I struggled a lot with my body and my weight between the age of 13 and 16 so that round was really difficult for me.

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“When you age up from junior to teen you also have to do bikini wear, which I always dreaded. I struggled a lot with my body and my weight between the age of 13 and 16 so that round was really difficult for me.”

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You talk a lot about mental health and body positivity through your work. Is this something that has significant importance to you? I feel like mental health needs to be talked about more. We shouldn’t stigmatise it, we should acknowledge that body dysmorphia isn’t normal, I know a lot of teenagers think it’s normal to feel insecure about their bodies but realistically when you actually put that into perspective it’s not normal to feel so self-conscious and insecure about yourself. When I was growing up my biggest struggle was my eating. I wouldn’t necessarily say I had an eating disorder because that’s a big title to put on yourself. Mine didn’t stem from thinking that I was too fat or wanting to be skinnier. It stemmed from other things, other traumas which led to eating being my least concern. I used to get confused as to why on the internet if you Google the symptoms it would automatically say you have an eating disorder. For me it was easier to deal with my own problems by myself. It’s something I now wish I would’ve talked about as it was really difficult but in other respects, it’s helped me heal a lot as a person. What doors has your successes in pageants opened for you- if any? It opened my eyes to pursue performing arts. I was already doing it at A-level but once I finished pageants, I missed being on stage so it pushed me to do more performing arts which I now study at college level. It also opened me up to singing and modelling as well. Around the same time that I joined Galaxy, I walked in London Fashion Week which was insane, being 14 at the time was mind-blowing. What does it mean to be a former Miss Teen Galaxy Wales- both the positives and negatives? Negative was probably the pressure, especially around my appearance and always having to look good. Also, the pressure it put on my studies and trying to balance that, when I started college, I had to slow down on my appearances because my education was the most important thing to me at the time. Positives included being able to represent Wales and the almost authority that it gave me in situations to go into schools and speak to younger children. Having that initial respect of people from your title helps you later down the line with whatever else you may want to achieve. What are your goals for the future? Do you plan to remain in this industry? Pageantry no, I think that’s something I’m going to move on from, I sort of got everything I needed out of that experience, so I think I’m going to move on from that and do more acting, singing and dancing and see where that takes me.

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What is one piece of advice you would you give your 11-year-old-self? To continue doing what I was doing, people are going to talk about you, no matter what you do so you may as well do what you want to do. There is nobody in your life that is so important, this includes family, friends, strangers, that they should have a negative impact on you. It’s not about cutting people off left, right, and centre, it’s about really re-evaluating who and what makes you feel good about yourself and pursuing that. What does it mean to be a Black British female? To me, its something that can be difficult especially when other people won’t acknowledge those challenges you face. People are now saying things like its 2019 we have black people everywhere, but what they don’t understand is that there is still institutionalized racism everywhere. People used to be open about the fact that there was racism everywhere but although there is still racism people sort of brush it off which is making it more difficult for black women to be treated in the way in which we deserve. What sort of racism do you think still remains today? Mostly subtle racism, so in the way that we treat people when we first meet them. A lot of people don’t want to speak about race as if it’s something that should be ignored, that everyone’s the same and we shouldn’t see colour. But I don’t think that’s the message that we should be taught, we should see colour because somebody who’s black is different to somebody who is white, and we should be able to openly talk about that without it being an awkward conversation.

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if I was in a crowd you would notice me because of my curly hair. I continued to straighten my hair till it got to the point where my hair was ruined and started falling out and then I had no choice but to stop. The actress Yara Shahidi was somebody who inspired me to accept my curls. She’s the same age as me and one of the first black girls that I ever saw on TV who wore her natural hair. I also struggled with my name. My name is actually Onyekachi, I changed my name to Onyx because that’s what people could pronounce better and it stuck. I’ve been called Onyx now for about 7 or 8 years. Whenever we had supply teachers, they would pronounce it wrong and then that wrong pronunciation would become my name for the next couple of weeks because people would find it hilarious. I remember one time we had a supply teacher and there was me and one other black boy in my class and the teacher got to my name on the register and said to the black boy sat at the front I’m assuming that’s you, and he was like no my names Drew. You wouldn’t consider it as racism as it’s sort of what can be perceived as an innocent moment, but when you really sit down and think about it he saw a black person, saw an unusual name and just made an assumption. Did you ever feel pressures to conform to white beauty standards when growing up? Actually yes, in the way I dressed, I never wanted to dress like a typical black person because I felt people would stereotype me. I wanted to dress the same as all my friends so I started dressing more girly and wore makeup every day for years but that really wasn’t me. What is your current relationship with your ethnicity? Positive or negative? I love my ethnicity in every way now. It makes me stand out for the right reasons.

Did you ever face conflicting relationships with your ethnicity when growing up? Did you find these positive or negative?

What advice would you give someone who perhaps is struggling to come to terms with their confidence/ self-love around identity issues?

My hair was definitely something I struggled with. I have extremely curly hair and obviously, everyone else around me had straight hair, they’d come into school with plaits and ponytails, things I could never wear. When I got to secondary school, I began straightening my hair every day so that my hair would be the same as everyone else’s. My fear was sticking out for the wrong reasons, I thought that

To just be yourself, whatever you feel is natural is you. If you have to really try hard in the morning to pick an outfit that you think will be socially acceptable don’t wear it. If you feel like you have to try really hard in a group of people to fit in, that’s not the people that you should be around, everything should come naturally to you, you shouldn’t have to try hard to be you.

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‘muslim girls don’t wear makeup’ 02

sumayyah Sumayyah Islam is an 18 year old History student from Swansea, Wales. She has reached over 76.4k followers on her Beauty centred Instagram platform in just under 7 months. She believes in breaking stereotypes of Muslim girls and their association with fashion and makeup.

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How did you get into makeup initially? I don’t know exactly when I got into makeup, but I’d always been playing with my mum’s makeup from a very young age. I probably started wearing it properly when I was in year 9 and that was because of my cousin introduced me to YouTube and other makeup influencers like Zoella and Tanya Burr. Have you felt supported in your decision to pursue makeup by friends and family? 100%, they’re all very supportive. I actually film in my parents’ bedroom even if they’re sleeping and they can’t get out of bed unless I’ve finished filming. What would your advice be to someone who doesn’t have support to pursue this field? Keep trying to convince them. At first my mum didn’t want me to do it because of people like internet trolls and bullies. But once I sat her down and said it’s something I really wanted to do she was like ok you try it out and see if you like it. So, just keep trying. Who/what inspires your work? I don’t have one person specifically, I have a lot of different people that I look up to in the blogging industry like Dina Tokio, Habiba Da Silva and Nabella. What I love about them is that they are unapologetically themselves and are confident in their own skin and that’s what I aspire to be like. What has been your proudest moment so far in your makeup career? I have been reposted by huge brands like Hudda Beauty but I don’t think it’s those moments although I’m proud of those accomplishments, but I think it’s when I get messages from little girls saying that

they look up to me and they’re proud to wear a scarf or that they love my videos is what I count as real achievements. For me it’s about making a positive impact. If there was someone in your starting position today what advice would you give them to pursue a career in makeup? You’re going to get hate whether you like it or not, you’re just going to get it. You could be perfect, they will find something. Just brush it off, they don’t know you, you don’t know them. Only your opinion matters in the end. What kind of things have you dealt with in terms of online hate/negativity? People say I’m a fake Muslim who eats pork and who uses Islam as a tool. I’ll have people saying I don’t wear the scarf properly and to just take it off. It’s never really about the makeup it’s just about me as a person and tends to come from fellow Muslims. What was it like for you when the followers started creeping up? I was shocked by it, I was confused because some of the people I followed before I began like other Hijaabi influencers and bloggers still are on 30k and now I’m on 70k, so in my head I’m like how am I surpassing them because they’re like the ‘OG’s’. Why do you think people are drawn to your channel? What makes you different from other beauty influencers? I think it’s because I don’t have a professional set up, I take pictures outside my house and I film in my parent’s bedroom. It’s very much like the girl next door vibe, just a normal person doing what professional bloggers do, I guess.

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“I think it’s a big responsibility but I’m happy to take that on, knowing a little Muslim girl may have someone to look up to in me is something I’m very proud of and I hold it very close to my heart. As well as representing myself, I’ve got to represent my culture and religion as well.”

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What does it mean to be a female Muslim beauty influencer? I think it’s a big responsibility but I’m happy to take that on, knowing a little Muslim girl may have someone to look up to in me is something I’m very proud of and I hold it very close to my heart. As well as representing myself, I’ve got to represent my culture and religion as well. This means I have to be cautious in how I represent them which means I’m very prone to criticism for both. There are a lot of negative/false perceptions that dismiss Muslim women as having the freedom to be involved in fashion and beauty- what is your opinion on this? I think we help break these misconceptions, to be honest. These conceptions mostly are based around saying that Muslim women are oppressed and forced into things like wearing the hijab but I’m here to prove them wrong. I think it’s illogical to rule out Muslim women from fashion and beauty because it’s a universal thing and strange to just dismiss them just because they have to be modest. What is most important to you when pursuing brand partnerships? That I like their product, I would never lie about a product because I used to be that girl looking at bloggers and believing what they’d say about products. I know that people spend their hardearned money on these products so I would never lie. So, if I do a partnership with a brand, I always like their products. Have you ever felt pressure to conform to white beauty standards? 100% yes. Even though I’m considered light skin for an Asian, in year 8 and year 9 I used to want to keep my light skin or make it even lighter, so I used to go on YouTube videos about how to whiten your skin, loads of my friends did it as well. It would be horrible stuff like scrubbing lemon juice all over your body with sugar. Now I’m not like that, I’m so happy with my skin, my culture, my religion and everything else.

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“In sixth form I got diagnosed with depression, OCD and anxiety which were all linked to school and the pressure I would put myself under. My school was very high achieving and my friendship group even more so.”

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Why do you think you felt this when you were younger and not now? Because when you’re growing up, you’re given this idea that beauty can only be white, when you go to buy foundations, they only have pale shades or white women modelling for campaigns. Even in our culture, there is something called colourism, which means the lighter skin you are, the more beautiful. How do you handle the pressures of school/university? I don’t really, I am starting to begin to now but all through year 10 and year 11 I found it very difficult to cope with. In sixth form I got diagnosed with depression, OCD and anxiety which were all linked to school and the pressure I would put myself under. My school was very high achieving and my friendship group even more so. My mental health is something I haven’t really talked about on my Instagram, but I was never good at dealing with stress for example if I got an A I’d cry that it wasn’t an A*. I think it’s so important for students to seek out help with their mental health. I’m in a good place now considering the amount of stress I used to put on myself it was just crazy. It was my mental health at the time that pushed me into trying a new hobby which ended up being makeup, I used it as a way to express myself and to promote positivity on Instagram. I now realise that at the end of the day if you’ve tried your best that should always be good enough. What does your religion mean to you? It’s everything, you get me and my religion as one. It’s not oppressive like people think, people who do judge it like that need to do their research on Islam. I think people like me going on social media and breaking those stereotypes, shows these misinformed people, but it’s time people became more open-minded. Have you ever faced conflict with your relationship with your religion or culture? Yes, I think it’s healthy to question your faith because it just makes it stronger, I believe you shouldn’t blindly just go following something. I’ve questioned why I need to wear a Hijab, why do I need to do certain things, and why I can’t do others. But at the end of the day, I’ve always come back to my religion and it’s made me stronger in my faith.

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CONTRIBUTORS

our contributors Creative Direction Yoko Hargreaves Photography Joe Andrews Interviewees Jack Price @pricespoetry Elyssa Rider http://www.elyssarider.com/ Lily Webbe @lilyjaye_ Katouche Goll @itskatouche Jo Morondiya @memojoand_i Zayanb Abbs @zaynabss Matthew Morrison www.matthewjamesmorrison.com Tihara Smith www.tiharasmith.com

Marianna Madriz www.mariannamadriz.com Ruth Blen @ruthblen Asma Elbaadawi @asmaelbadawi Chiyo Gomes @chiyogomes Onyx Uwandulu @onyxuwandulu Sumayyah Islam @sumayyah.islam Submissions Draya Campbell Jamilah Dobson Cailtin Ng Sophie Huskinson Rayaan Ali Support Alex Greatwich, Michael Kay Amy Johns

To keep in touch visit our website or follow us on social media. http://bellicoseonline.co.uk @bellicosemagazine

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