As a second-generation Black British immigrant woman in the UK, I never understood why I’d never been taught about Black British history in school. I grew up in Harlesden, a predominantly African-Caribbean area where seeing faces that looked like me was a normality, though I’ve slowly watched the area change through gentrification and the systematic erasure of Black people and Black culture, which has spread throughout London.

As someone who trained at Drama school with aspirations of one day becoming a performer, I was the only “Coco Pop in the Rice Krispies”. I felt I had no choice but to assimilate stories and narratives that were not culturally mine. A notable experience was being cast as one of the many Black alumni who had played Olga, the spinster older sister in Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which made me question the world's view on the Black female identity. Outside of this space, all I had to do was look around me to understand that we were not monoliths. And that many of the archetypes that exist in mainstream work were not reflective of the women I know.