Emigrating to England in 2001, I was grounded in who I was. I was a Zimbabwean girl who played pada (hopscotch) in the dusty Harare streets, stole mangoes from neighbouring properties’ trees and considered Brenda Fassie the encapsulation of womanhood. 

Within months of trading sunny afternoons kicking stones outdoors for rainy days fighting dial up in my new London home, it became clear that there wasn’t much space for Blackness in this country. When June Sarpong, Trisha Goddard and Angelica Bell did grace my TV, I felt elation but I could not shake the feeling that something was missing. These women looked like me, but outside of sharing a shade of hue, their Blackness was not mine.

While I am incredibly proud of how far Black women have come in shattering the cement ceilings that serve to confine us, I have been questioning the very core of a representation that is void of intersectionality.