Interview: Deaf artist Vilma Jackson on her new project, ‘The Vilma Jackson Show’

Deaf artist Vilma Jackson is aware that the poor representation of the Black Deaf community requires acknowledgement, debate and action, and her brand new chat show looks to address that.

The Dear Hearing World performer talks to The Limping Chicken‘s Liam O’Dell about her latest project, The Vilma Jackson Show.

“To be honest, the deaf community – doesn’t matter if you’re Black or white – they’re just not very supportive people,” says Deaf artist and performer Vilma Jackson. “If people are successful, it’s not like they’re all really celebratory, people put each other down – and I wanted to break that cycle.”

Her proposed solution comes in the form of The Vilma Jackson Show. Prompted by the global Black Lives Matter movement, Jackson launched a two-part series which sees the Deaf community discuss issues which matter to them, motivate them and get them going.

“It wasn’t just for myself,” Jackson explains, “it was to create opportunities to give a voice to explore racism, to be able to talk about rape, sexual harassment and violence and just elicit information that we don’t know is here.

“So I invited people to come along and it was just a natural communication. It wasn’t like it was too stated, it was just a natural kind of flow. Once I started the first question, then it became this beautiful conversation, really.”

Such a beautiful conversation happened between Vilma and panellists Kelsey Gordon, Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq and Kevin ‘Signkid’ Walker in the first programme, where the trio discussed the arts and the ‘favouritism’ which occurs with deaf representation. (It can be seen on Facebook here).

Not long into the 30-minute programme are the intersections between panellists’ Black and Deaf identities explored – something which Jackson, who won multiple awards for her short film Triple Oppression, knows all too well.

The video, released in August last year, sees Jackson discuss her life as a Black Deaf woman – three identities which cause her to experience prejudice in three different ways.

“Triple Oppression was my experience,” she says. “So it was my personal [experience], my generation. It was all about those three elements of where I was discriminated against.

“[With] The Vilma Jackson Show, it’s different again. I want to say The Vilma Jackson Show is not only about Black people. There’s going to be different topics and I invite a variety of people [on board] – both Deaf and hearing people. It’s about raising awareness and getting interesting people out there.

For both communities, Jackson says there’s something for them to take away from The Vilma Jackson Show. “I’m sure if I invited a panel of hearing people, they would watch it and I think that would really hit them hard.

“For them to be able to sort of reach in and have a look into that culture, I think they’d be quite surprised, because the hearing world is massive and obviously you’ve got all the media and information, but the deaf world’s tiny,” she says. “So we talk about British Sign Language and that’s maybe all they know – a small amount of deaf awareness.

“They don’t know anything deep about the culture, hearing privilege or anything like that. This is what I wanted to bring up and I want them to take on after having seen it.”

Vilma continues: “Within the Deaf community, some people have said to me, ‘I found it a bit difficult’, for example, with white deaf people.

“Maybe they think, ‘Oh God, I’m racist, maybe I won’t speak up’. Maybe they won’t say anything, they’ll avoid some language. Some people watched it and took it on board and was like, ‘right, okay’ and they’ll be proactive. ‘I’m going to get out there and make sure that I’m challenging and thinking about my actions’.

“With the community being so small, I want to sort of just stretch that support, and just encourage people to be a bit more clued up and switched on,” she says.

The programme debuted on Facebook on 11 March, with the second and final episode released later this month.

However, Vilma tells me “there is no date” in terms of when the programme will be published, but does go on to explain more about what people can expect in the programme itself. “I’ve invited two women and two men,” Vilma explains. “We’re going to talk about privilege, talk about all sorts of different things […] What we talked about is actually quite heavy, in the second episode. It’s dense information and we get quite deep.”

There’s only two episodes of The Vilma Jackson Show so far, and a question of making more comes down to viewer feedback.

“We’d like to do more, obviously, but I’ll have to wait and see if it’s successful, and see what people’s comments are, if they like it…” she says. “If it’s giving people pleasure and it is enjoyable, then we’ll look at maybe three or four after.”

The first episode of The Vilma Jackson Show is available to view online now on Vilma Jackson’s official Facebook page.

Photo: Vilma Jackson.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.