Becoming: On belonging, ambition and the dreams we inherit

Perhaps I didn't outgrow the American Dream. Perhaps I simply discovered that I could dream differently.

Growing up as a Black girl in Switzerland in the 90s and early 2000s, much of what I knew about being a Black woman came from American television. That's where I saw women and girls who looked like me. Women who were visible, successful, confident, glamorous and unapologetic.

I was so obsessed with Destiny's Child that I even pretended I was related to them. 😂

My goodness. The things we do to be cool. Or perhaps the things we do to feel that we belong somewhere.

At 17, America was the dream. Hollywood, Miami Beach, Ocean Drive, shopping malls and the Kardashians' DASH store. I loved every bit of it. I genuinely believed this was the place where people who looked like me got to live freely and proudly.

And now, walking through America again, I find myself wondering when exactly that dream stopped being my dream.

Perhaps it started when I moved to London and was introduced to Black academic excellence. Suddenly, my references expanded. Blackness existed beyond the representations I'd grown up consuming. I encountered intellectual, political, academic and creative expressions of Black identity that fundamentally challenged my understanding of what I could aspire to.

But exposure and belonging are two very different things.

I was still longing for connection. For people with whom I could share experiences I hadn't quite found the language to articulate. That longing led me to bring people together, create spaces for dialogue and eventually participate in Je Suis Noires.

Filming that documentary was an extraordinary part of my becoming. For perhaps the first time, I felt that my journey towards understanding my own Black womanhood had somewhere to exist. Meeting women who were navigating similar questions gave me a sense of belonging I hadn't experienced before.

The camera held up a mirror. And once I'd looked into it, there was no turning back.

AfroSwissters became a continuation of that journey. Born from a profound desire to connect with other Black women, it grew into something far greater than my own search for belonging.

And yet, building a community has taught me something rather unexpected.

Even belonging has its limitations when it comes with expectations about who we are supposed to be.Because I'm many things.

I'm a nerd. I love research, intellectual exploration and questioning things. I love humour and being ridiculous. I'm a dreamer, an entrepreneur, a daughter, a partner and a woman who still has an enormous amount to learn.

I'm the daughter of a Ghanaian immigrant mother who arrived in Switzerland almost 45 years ago, built considerable financial independence and simultaneously carried beliefs and limitations inherited from her own circumstances. I'm also the girlfriend of a white man.

To some people, I'm bougie and upper-class. To others, I'll always be perceived as inferior. Others simply don't like me.

And that's perfectly fine.

I'm all those things, and none of those perceptions captures the entirety of who I am.

Somewhere along the way, I realised that I didn't want to spend my life escaping one set of expectations only to find myself confined by another.

And then there's another dimension to all this.

I also have to earn a living.

Today, much of my professional life revolves around the future of work. And the more I think about it, the more I realise how deeply connected that work is to the questions I've spent much of my personal life exploring.

Belonging.

Who gets to belong? Who gets to participate? Who gets to imagine a future for themselves? And who gets to define what success, intelligence, professionalism and potential look like in the first place?

For me, rethinking the future of work isn't simply about technological transformation, artificial intelligence or developing the skills we'll need tomorrow.

It's also about questioning the very boundaries, structures and assumptions that have historically determined who gets access to opportunities and who is made to feel that they belong.

And recognising that belonging cannot simply mean making people feel comfortable within structures that weren't necessarily designed with them in mind.

Sometimes it means rethinking those structures altogether.

In many respects, I find myself professionally working on the very questions that have accompanied me throughout my life. Only now, I'm trying to translate those questions into practical approaches, programmes and opportunities that extend beyond my own experiences.

I'm also learning that there is a difference between creating spaces where people can belong and creating conditions in which people don't have to compromise their individuality in order to belong.

That's a distinction I'm still exploring, including within the communities I've helped create.

Which brings me back to that 17-year-old girl.

Walking through these American streets, seeing places I once queued to enter, I'm overwhelmed by how much my aspirations have changed.

I wonder what she would think of me today. Would she recognise herself in the woman I've become? Would she understand why some of the things she dreamed about no longer excite me?

And would she be surprised that, after all these years, I'm still asking myself where I belong?

Perhaps the biggest difference is that I'm no longer convinced belonging is something I'll eventually find in a particular country, community, profession or identity.

Nor do I think I've arrived at some enlightened destination where I've figured everything out.

I'm still becoming.

And perhaps that's the thread connecting the little girl who dreamed of America, the young woman who discovered Black academic excellence in London, the woman who found herself reflected in a documentary, the founder building a community and the professional working on the future of work.

Every version of me has been negotiating the relationship between who I am, what I aspire to and the environments in which I'm expected to exist.

And I suspect that will continue.

Because what happens when we stop asking people to fit into our existing definitions of belonging and start questioning why those definitions were so narrow in the first place?

Perhaps that's the future I'm interested in helping build.