Back in 2018, Elizabeth Uviebinené and Yomi Adegoke held a brunch in a private room at a London restaurant to celebrate the publication of their first book, the critically acclaimed Slay In Your Lane. After the meal had finished, some of the group – Black women Elizabeth and Yomi had long admired – made their way into the main restaurant to carry on chatting, but they were soon told they were talking too loudly and asked to quieten down.
‘When we looked around, we could see that the whole restaurant was filled with people talking very loudly, yet we seemed to be the only people being chastised,’ Elizabeth writes in the introduction to her and Yomi’s new book, Loud Black Girls. ‘We looked at each other in disbelief, but we were not surprised; we knew what was going on. We were the “loud Black girls”.’
By opening their book with this anecdote, they provide a vivid example of the kind of everyday racism that is endemic in British life. The incident wasn’t an isolated event. Rather, it speaks to regular occurrences ‘where Black women are silenced and shamed into being quiet and less’, Elizabeth tells me, ahead of the release of their second book together this month.
‘That was just one of many examples that we can probably reel off where we were being told we’re too loud when everybody else was essentially the same volume, but our presence was felt and wasn’t welcomed.’
Elizabeth, 28, and Yomi, 29, have encountered this ever since they met at predominately white, middle-class Warwick University as 18-year-old freshers, where they were often seen by their peers as being ‘too much’. ‘You become accustomed to it because it happens so frequently, from being seen as more disruptive than your white counterparts in school, all the way through to university, the workplace, to restaurants,’ says Yomi. ‘Essentially, it would make anybody feel insulted and sidelined.’
Loud Black Girls seeks to change this by giving Black women a voice and platform. While Slay In Your Lane – praised by the likes of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg – focused on the past and present experiences of Black women, Yomi and Elizabeth asked 20 Black British female writers to focus on what happens next for loud Black girls.
It’s clear to see why a second collaboration made sense: they seem tenderly at ease with each other, exuding closeness, respect and a sisterly antenna when it comes to knowing who will answer which question. Yomi is a multi-award-winning journalist and author and Elizabeth a multi-award-winning author, columnist and brand strategist.
The writers in their new book include authors, journalists, actors, activists and artists who explore what it means to them to exist in these turbulent times. The essays are moving and insightful, assessing everything from the cultural impact of Marvel’s Black Panther to thoughts on mixed-race identity.
The book was already finished by the time we saw the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in June, but the events of the past few months highlight the appetite for books like this to help effect change. ‘The conversations that we have in this book are things we’ve been discussing intra-communally for years. They just feel more important now – and are now being had in the mainstream – because of the tragic death of George Floyd,’ says Yomi.
Do they feel the recent movement has accomplished much, or do they worry it has been mainly superficial?
‘It’s been a bit of both,’ Yomi says. ‘There’s been a lot of immediate attempts to redress things, like buying loads of books or putting a black square on Instagram, as if these things will undo the scourge of centuries of systemic and institutionalised racism.’
But, while it was initially ‘quite heartening’, she says a lot of people quickly grew cynical. ‘It felt like there’s a lot of surface-level change, stuff that’s easier to implement, like making a show more diverse or adding a minority influencer to a brand campaign,’ she says. ‘But when it comes to actual institutional change, which is more difficult to implement, it’s difficult to say.’
On the day we speak, Conservative MPs are being criticised for voting against implementing recommendations from the Grenfell Inquiry. Yomi says news like this makes it hard to feel optimistic sometimes. That said, it’s too early to say whether change at all levels will come from this period. ‘I don’t want to fall into the trap of being too cynical and suggesting that it’s all just on face value and nothing is going to come of it.’
Whatever happens next, it’s clear Yomi and Elizabeth’s books are part of an important body of work helping to shift the status quo, which for so long has amplified white voices above all others. In her foreword to Loud Black Girls, Booker Prize-winner Bernadine Evaristo writes that the anthology shows that Black British women are ‘fighting back through the power of essays that recontextualise the hegemonic structures of Britain simply by positioning Black women at the centre of public discourse and therefore transforming the conversations’.
Elizabeth thinks the book should be added to the school curriculum. ‘The breadth of the topics that have been spoken about and the nuance of the subject matter that’s been tackled by these amazing writers deserves to be read by every child, regardless of colour, because it’s capturing a particular Black history moment,’ she says.
In terms of what should come next, Yomi believes change needs to happen across society, from hiring, retaining and promoting a diverse mix of people in business to changing the schools curriculum. ‘Everyone has a role to play so it’s not just Black people who keep having to rehash their experiences every Black History Month, or when the next resurgence of Black Lives Matter is an active thing,’ she adds.
The women belong to a cohort of Millennial go-getters and campaigners who are standing up and fighting for what they think is right. It’s hard not to feel hopeful around this kind of energy.
‘Where there is a lack of representation, we’re creating it; where there is a lack of opportunities, we’re creating them,’ says Elizabeth. ‘There is still a massive need for huge systemic and institutional change, but I feel we’re more able than ever, as a generation, to take matters into our own hands and to try and make our voices heard.’
‘Loud Black Girls’, edited by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené, is out now