Another area where I, as a Black woman, am really privileged, is that I am an incredibly light-skinned, mixed race Black woman. And that shouldn’t be a privilege. But in a society that values whiteness, proximity to whiteness is an advantage. And it’s one that I have that I’m aware other darker-skinned Black people don’t. And that’s something that I have to recognise in the work that I’m doing.

For example, Millennial Black [Williams’ upcoming book] is a book that is about Black women’s experiences at work. But if I want to be an ally, I can’t just use myself as the example here, because my experience is not universal. And so I went out of my way to interview women with all kinds of lived experiences. Black women with all kinds of different intersectional identities. So I could tell the widest, most representative story about them. Because allyship is not just about telling your story; it’s about using your privileges and your platform to uplift the voices of others.

Why privilege matters: activist Sophie Williams on the first step to becoming an anti-racist ally