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Last year, the soap’s producer Iain MacLeod shared their plans for a “slow-burn exploration of systemic racism.”
“Obviously we touched upon that subject area with verbal racism earlier in 2020, but we’ll now be playing out a more long-form exploration of system racism, which is of the more insidious and almost subliminal form,” he said.
“Rather than overt name-calling, it’s more the kind of things that our actors have told us they’ve experienced in their day-to-day lives – unconscious bias and systemic racism,” he continued.
Russell explained that they want to focus on the “subtle sense of racism within the world.” As an actor, he wants to show the many different forms of racism that are happening these days. It’s not as upfront as many people imagine, such as the verbal racism that Ed Bailey (Trevor Michael Georges) had to go through earlier in 2020, but a more subtle form of racial prejudice that’s common in the modern world.
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Coronation Street Spoilers – Ed Bailey Endures Verbal Racism
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Viewers may recall that last year, Ed Bailey had to deal with racist name-calling and abuse. For this storyline, the soap worked with Baroness Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen Lawrence was killed in a racially motivated attack in April 1993. The latter offered significant insights into the negative effects of verbal racist abuse.
Russell admitted that he also had his share of personal experience with racism. For him, he and Nathan Graham, who plays the role of James Bailey, need to raise awareness, especially among the next generations, regarding this sensitive yet relevant topic. He praised the soap for being the kind of soap that incorporates real-world issues such as racial prejudice into their storyline to encourage conversations about this subject.
“It’s not making it all about racism, but it’s part of life and if we can show something as serious as that within such a platform of Coronation Street, and do it well with nuance and truth and honesty, I think it’s important,” the actor explained.
Coronation Street Spoilers – Michael Bailey And Grace Vickers Get Racially Profiled
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Earlier in 2021, Russell’s character, Michael, experienced racism from a police officer after he was racially profiled and questioned about a robbery in the cobbles. Fortunately, Grace Vickers (Kate Spencer) was there to defend Michael and accused the officer of racism, which forced him to back down and release Michael.
Grace Vickers also had a similar experience when she was accused of shoplifting. After shopping at the supermarket for an upcoming party, a security guard locks Grace in an office for failing to present a receipt for her purchase. Grace went to labor and was rushed to the hospital and gave birth. Later on, she managed to find her receipt and Michael showed it to the security guard and accused him of racial profiling.
Viewers can expect more similar incidents to come as Corrie producer Iain MacLeod revealed that the systemic racism storyline will come to “a more explicitly dramatic peak around July time.”