Image ID: This is a selfie of a brown skinned person with dark pink glasses, red lipstick, black eyeliner, and black chest-length locs. They are looking directly at the camera and smiling. They are wearing a red and black top and a red necklace.
About me
Page updated March 2023
If you're on this page, you probably want to find out more about me as a person: my background, my character, and so on. So, here goes!
I'm originally from an industrial town in the north east of England, but these days I live in London. I used to think I'd move back up north when I got bored of the capital city, but as time goes on, that seems to be more and more unlikely.
I identify as Black and mixed race. My father was from a white working class area in Birmingham, and my mother is from The Gambia, West Africa. My Dad passed away in 2011, but my mother and I are very close.
I started my career in London as a marketing assistant in 2013, and then became a copywriter. After a few years, it became clear that office life was not for me, so I slowly transitioned to freelancing. By 2018 I was doing it full time, which remains one of the best decisions I've ever made.
But work isn’t all I was doing. From my time at university onwards, I'd been developing my political views and doing a lot of reading. Then again, I was studying English literature, so lots of books do tend to come with the territory.
When I got to London, I fairly quickly became involved in a few activist groups - and also in the local indie gaming scene. I ended up giving lots of talks and workshops over the next few years about the overlap between culture, media, politics, oppression, and freedom. I still do public speaking on a semi-regular basis, actually.
I'll quite happily say I'm a pretty staunch leftist (taking after my father, who was a member of the Young Communist League, and later a vital part of his local teacher's union). I'm mentioning this because it influences how and why I work as a sensitivity consultant: it's my small way of trying to improve the world and create a safer, more diverse environment for people like me.
I'm including all this so you can see how a background in literature, a career in copy editing, and my broadening political understanding has led to where I am now. 'It's not my job to educate you' has been quite a common phrase in social justice discussions, and of course they're right: random members of marginalised groups are under no obligation to explain their own oppression to you. Instead, I've literally made it my job to help out where I can!
Outside of work, I'm a big fan of basically every creative media: film, television, games, books. If I think it looks interesting or unusual, I'll give it a go, especially if it's in the horror genre. I still have a lot of friends in various nerdy circles (mostly gaming and podcasting), and I count myself very lucky indeed to know so many amazing people.
I have a wonderful partner who I love very much, and high hopes of getting a cat as soon as I can make my balcony safe for them.
I hope this gives you a better idea of who I am as a person, and maybe I'll hear from you soon!
H x