Talia Grant: Black people are treated like we're disposable on TV

Talia Grant believes black people are treated as "disposable" within the TV industry.

The \'Hollyoaks\' actress says change will not come about from "diversity training or racism training", but only by people\'s attitudes changing, but the 18-year-old star - who is autistic - admitted she is "extremely grateful" to the soap for making an effort to find out more about autism when she joined the show.

Speaking on the show\'s \'Don\'t Filter Feelings\' podcast - alongside her co-stars Trevor A Toussaint (Walter Deveraux) and Richard Blackwood (Felix Westwood) - she said: "It\'s amazing that there is a black cast and there\'s all of us and there is that diversity, but I can\'t help but feel that sometimes in the industry and in life in general, they treat black people like we\'re disposable."They can capitalise off of us without actually doing the real work behind the scenes. It\'s great for us to be in a high-up position, but the revolution will not be changed by diversity training or racism training. It will be changed by people changing their attitude, and the way the structural system works.

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"I\'m extremely grateful for \'Hollyoaks\', especially with my autism, because they really made that effort - they all went on training and I just felt really accepted and understood and I was finally in a place where people didn\'t view me as a problem. It\'s people\'s outlook and attitude that need to change."

What\'s more, Trevor claimed he doesn\'t know of one person of colour who has a "position of authority within Lime Pictures", which makes \'Hollyoaks\'.

He said: "Systemic racism exists in all stratas of society, and television is no exception to that. Lime, who I work for, is no exception to this.

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"There is not one person of colour - black, mixed race - that has one position of authority within Lime Pictures. Why is that? Not only are they not in authority as in the head of those departments, they are not even deputy head of those departments.

"What is Lime getting wrong? They\'re getting a lot of things right, but what are they getting wrong so that people of colour do not feel they can apply to Lime for work?

"What is it that keeps those people out and when those people are in, what is it that stops them from going up the ranks?"

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In response, Lime Pictures said in a statement: "\'Hollyoaks\' celebrates inclusivity on-screen and off; whilst we believe that is evident on screen, we recognise that we need to do more to increase and support inclusivity behind the camera, especially for black writers, directors and crew.

"We have significantly increased the number of writers of colour working on \'Hollyoaks\', but we need to do more to support black writers in particular.

"We strive to overcome the significant barriers that black people face within our industry and through the New Writing North Hollyoaks Award, the Lime Interns Scheme, the Channel 4 Production Trainee Scheme and Lime\'s own Networking and Workshop events we support up and coming TV talent with entry-level opportunities on \'Hollyoaks\'.

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"We need to broaden and amplify these schemes to encourage and support new entrants from black backgrounds in particular and to nurture black creative talent at all levels within Lime.

"Lime\'s Liverpool site has been integral in providing vital regional employment and will continue to do that together with endeavouring to be more representative and inclusive both behind the camera at \'Hollyoaks\' and at Lime Pictures across the board."

It comes after former \'Hollyoaks\' star Rachel Adedeji recently claimed she had experienced racism on the programme, including alleging she was once told "you\'re all the same" by a make-up artist.

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Lime Pictures have since issued a statement insisting they have "a zero tolerance of racism or any form of discrimination across all of its shows", and \'Hollyoaks\' announced they are "investigating" Rachel\'s claims.

Richard admitted on the podcast that it was in development before Rachel\'s comments came to light, and insisted the pod wasn\'t "playing clean up".