24/04/2026
So this post was only intended to be in my stories but my friend Farah encouraged me to share it as a post, and she’s right because this is what it’s all about. My 7 year olds words put it all in perspective.
Representation!
Before my book has even landed on the shelves it’s shifting generational patterns.
It’s redefining what is possible for my ancestral line.
Representation is more important than many people recognise, especially if you’ve had the privilege of growing up seeing people who look like you, from similar backgrounds to you achieving varying visible forms of success.
Those who have over the decades traditionally taken up the seats in the boardrooms, those that shape politics and law, those that write the scripts, direct the movies and dominate the bookshelves and chose what makes it on to the shelves.
The subconscious message that sends to working class kids, working class black and brown kids is that of limitation.
It limits what they perceive to be possible for them too.
It creates glass ceilings and false limitations.
It’s like a whole game is being played, but we weren’t invited to play, let alone handed the instructions and the rules.
If we can’t see it how can we be it?
So for a working class mixed-race kid like me, daughter of an immigrant mother… I never saw myself represented in ways that made me feel like I could ever really be anything in this world.
This is a moment of real significance.
My daughter gets to see me become an author, the first in the family line, and in turn she knows that is possible for her too.
So if you grew up with a lack of representation go forth and be who you needed to see in the world.
Build the tables, create the community, voice your experience, invite people to in to your vision.
Shine your light and illuminate the pathway for others to do the same.