Kimya: The Power of Silence

In June of last year a friend was very ill and was taken off life support. In the midst of hurriedly attempting to navigate the Ontario medical system through hospital visits, story time, family conversations, and connecting with specialists it seemed there was so much happening around her life at such a fast pace that I was very unsure of what to say or do. Watching her quickly deteriorating health I began to feel powerless in the situation and silence suddenly became my place of refuge, partially forced and partially out of dejection.

In an attempt to remain strong I started forcing faces to cover up my choked back tears and closeted crying from the world. Silence due to stigma, silence due to fear, silence out of respect, silence out of understanding, silence out of sadness, silence out of disbelief. When she died on June 14th 2013 I felt overwhelming despair and guilt for being complacent in my silence. I then began to equate silence with weakness and cowardliness. Silence came to represent images of my failure as a friend and its consequences, the horrific images of her lifeless black female body.

For a long time after her death I shut down and remained quiet. I kept my thoughts to myself, I blocked people out, lost interest and hid my intimate self away out of shame. It was as if I was trapped internally and externally by silence. Wordless-ness came to represent the greater part of the last year for me. I was caught  in deep thought reflecting how it was possible that  a young black woman could die in Canada under such disgusting circumstances. I was disillusioned to start thinking about Ontario health institutions as sites of structural violence against black bodies, in the case of my friend not only did they contribute to limiting her access to specialized care as a living being, but they also affected whether or not she got to die with dignity. It was heavy thinking about the broader political and economic contexts that contributed to her death, and I was pissed the phuck off. Her truth was tangled up in medicalized rationalizations of her death and entirely glazed over the larger health inequities that exist in our society, especially for poor racialized womyn.

It wasn't until March of this year when I was at two day retreat that things started to change. I remember being hyper aware of not wanting to say a word to anyone and feeling intensely awkward inside of myself. Whenever we were asked to speak or even just in causal conversation my heart would race. I would feel my heart pumping in my chest, my eyes would fill with tears and I'd develop this hard dry lump in my throat. On the second day of the retreat we were asked to participate in an activity. We were asked to write a word on a piece of paper based on how we felt and move around the room and explain to others why we had chosen that word. I had chosen silence, but I couldn't speak, I just cried. Openly in the arms of a gentle stranger I finally felt peaceful, like I was able to mourn the loss of my friend and the sadness+anger I felt around the circumstance in which she died. It was like coming out of the closet. I realized that my silence was a way of being compassionate with myself, to slowly try and understand and reflect on everything that happened at my own pace. Silence is the opportunity to be with my thoughts, and be within myself in a way that does not involve verbal communication. In that moment silence and compassion gently became intertwined and I was finally able to step outside of myself and gain a different perspective of death, mourning and loss and the realities of structural violence. The initial fear of exploring death and lifting the veil to reality is something that without silence I would not have been able to experience and learn from. The process of turning death to memory through reflection and crochet opened up a space to think critically about inequity and the intersections of class, race and gender. So to my friend gone too soon in life and death you have given me strength to be courageous and act with compassion. You have helped to redefine what community is and how to keep people in our community especially those whose voices are not prioritized. You have taught me the difference between passive and active silence and have opened up a space within me to be able to reflect on how to work advocate for change critically and with love.

So remember Polar Vortex? I dunno about y'all, but last winter was something fierce and I learned a harsh (and freezing) lesson. So I felt compelled to be thoroughly prepared in case we get glazed over with ice again! I made this fall inspired ruffled green, brown and yellow cowel with different kinds of acrylic blended yarn from this pattern on Crochet N' Crafts. I love it! I used about 5 skeins of yarn for this and it took roughly a day to finish making. The shell stitch is really great cause it gives a bobble/ribbed kind of look when complete and it adds for extra warmth! I love making things that reflect the turn of seasons, to me they are metaphors for the different kinds of transitions we make in life and the preparations we make for coming change; whether they be crocheting a cowel to keep warm or making mental and emotional preparations in silence to inform how we support each other, I am in the process of learning to move forward in ways that make sense to me and speak to my lived experiences as well as the lessons learned alongside the people I have grown with.

Kimya
Ruffle Infinity Cowel
%100 Acrylic Blend

Kimya Cowel

Kimya Cowel

Many smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Ukinzani: Universal Soldier

Ukinzani
[ou-keen-zah-knee]
My Symbol of Identity

I move fluidly and rigidly in and between defined lines, I am. Aspects of my identity do not move in a linear motion existing parallel to once another, but they encompass each other, bleeding into one another, all while feeding off of each others experiences. They can not function individually, but consistently contradict one another through their interactions both internally and externally. I was told I am black, I am learning that I am east African, I am trying to be human & I am embracing my sexuality as a universal soldier. But the hybridity of my layered existence has been challenging. I am trying to find a place where my contradictions can live simultaneously in harmony & peace. But which aspect of me comes first and which one is last? Well I was born as a human, I have lived as a visible black womyn all of my life, I became east African through working toward reconstructing my blackness and I am acknowledging that I have always been a universal soldier...that being the chronological order. More and more I have been thinking, do we create a hierarchy within ourselves where we relate more closely with other parts of ourselves than we do with the rest? And what facilitates the 'orderliness' of identity?

I have spent a lot of my life attempting to function on solely one level of my identity and it has sadly denied me from entirely experiencing myself. In intentionally refusing select aspects of my identity to fulfill the needs of another, I have been lying to myself and instilling a sense of falsehood in my existence and longing for who I want to be. I have come to learn that sometimes the contraction is intentional, for safety purposes. In hopes of blending in and actively avoiding confrontation and conversations which I did not at the time have the language, supports, courage or space to engage in. But that false sense of safety has been no compensation for the shame I have carried for years around my race, ethnicity and universality.

So let us start from the begin assuming the chronological order. I grew up in a white town, and other than my immediate and extended family my everyday life consisted of mostly in engaging with white people.

I remember being at school playing in the school yard and a kid stepped to me and said 'hey, do you know what a ABK is?' I said 'No..' she replied 'an African Butt Kisser!' so I told on the witch, and the teacher made us play together. The threat and discomfort of white people in addressing racism coupled with the ease of brushing it off because we are children, as many other encounters of isms it went unaddressed.

I remember always feeling so angry when other classmates assumed poverty with my ethnicity, and at age 10 having to carry the onus of challenging that alone without the support from teachers or peers.

I remember having  a family party at my house and inviting two of my closet friends, they left my house went down the street to eat food that was 'normal', on a another occasion someone threw up after smelling the food being cooked.

I remember riding my scooter with one of my only friends of colour growing up, and running into one of my closet friends at age 12. She stepped to me with three other white kids and said 'we don't like smelly Africans, do you know what we do to them?' She held up a plastic water bottle a filled with a yellow liquid and opened it. With a sly smile, and affirming laughter from the other kids she continued 'We pour dirty toilet water on them'. She proceeded to pour the water on my head. And as the piss water poured down my face I burst into tears not knowing what had prompted someone who I considered my friend to do such a thing. I was convinced it must have been the fact that I was a dirty African and not that she was racist.

I was absolutely brokenhearted and devastated to hear a childhood friend of mine tell me after over 10 years of friendship that 'growing up we made you feel welcome!' hastily suggesting that I did not belong in that space. 

More recently I was so disappointed having a friend of 13 years refer to me to her white friends as her 'black friend'.

This has been my experience of the ethno/racial aspects of my identity with non-racialized people. As I got older and I started having more black friends I realized that there was an ethnic divide, that even to this day the black 'community' does not address. In being black I was forced to subvert my 'Africanness'. I am choosing to call this my doubled otherness, because not only was I a visible minority among whites, I was also an ethnic minority among blacks. I remember not wanting to carry the food I love and ate at home, and recall being absolutely terrified to talk about my heritage, because it was always understood to be located in a backward, weird, ugly, smelly, desolate, or undesirable place in the world. So for a long time I only assumed a black identity to subvert my ethnicity in hope of to escape being associated with its distorted ideologies.

In accepting my universality I have also chosen to deny myself in identifying my sexuality. In naming who I claim to be within the limiting lables of  sexual identity I become overwhelmed with the inability & space to be anything else. Trapped.  In naming my sexuality I force myself into a rigid place that assumes an unshifting set of desires. In indulging or admitting to the fluctuation of my desires I lose respect from my peers for engaging in them, and through that I somehow delegitimize my sexuality. Then there is the intersection of my universality and my 'Africanness', which at this point I would rather not talk about in depth because I intentionally keep them separate. I can not risk losing support of my extended family, relationships I have for so long been detached from for reasons of physical distance and circumstance, and have grown to value these relationships beyond anything. In this case I also face losing my connections to east Africa and it becomes meaningless a geographical space. For it is not the geographical area that matters, but the connections established with the people who live there that solidifies my attachment to the space. And in growing up as a black person in Canada there has always been the assumption that I do not belong, so If I lose my east African ties then where will I belong? So yet again I find myself having to revert to safety tactics of subverting, prioritizing and lying about my identity to keep a sense of belonging within a 'community' and family that is supposed to act as a support mechanism...simply because if I am rejected then who else will I turn to? My experiences again become void, false and undesirable. I am left floating between who I really am and who I claim to be.

I beg, please disagree with me. The intersections and the complexities of our identities are lived out differently for many reasons not limited to; where we physically are located, how we situate and adapt our selves within that location, how others experience us and we them...and so on. The process of learning and unlearning who I am has proven to me to be circular, I have had to revisit who I was to deepen my understanding of who I believe I am today. My identity contradiction arises from searching and longing for a space to belong. They lie within who I claim myself to be internally and the way it is manifested externally through my identities interaction with everyday life. The challenges in finding this space is heightened by feeling like I have to exist on a parallel level where my identities can not intersect. In my experience, the hierarchy and prioritizing of my identity is deeply influenced by where I am located, and how that identity will be understood externally. Currently, I am searching for a space where I simply just am a hybrid being...if such a place exists...

To end with a quick quote I heard a brilliant mind once share that is constantly on my mind, 'complex not complicated'

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Sexploration: Tantalizing Titties! Crochet Pasties for Areola of Colour!



Tantalizing Titties
Crochet Pasties
$15.00

I have been on this interesting personal journey for a while. I am currently in the midst of trying to expand my sexual possibilities and figuring out what that even means. I initially thought that this journey was only about exploring and finding a personal definition of what sex is, but after having some really insightful conversations in some really...interesting locations I have come to find that so many other aspect of myself are tied into this three letter word.

Prior to taking the first few steps of this journey I had to first sit down and seriously think about what my boundaries are and what I need to say and do in order to keep things safe, consensual and above all sexy. As many things it has been an amazing up and down learning experience.Thus far I have learned that my boundaries aren't static, they shift and really do depend on context; like how I am feeling that day, who the person(s) involved are, or where I am and these different variables influence how I navigate my exploration from one experience to another.

So as a part of this sexual exploration I am now calling sexploration my girl who has whole heartedly supported many of my wild ideas, together we will be venturing into the unknown to check this fetish party and the first thing she asked me was 'ooooh my gosh girl, what are we wearing?!' Now I dunno about y'all, but I think that whether you are going to a wedding or a fetish party what you wear is a question that must always be answered, and your answer must be delivered in the most fly way possible!....but how? 

A few days ago another friend of mine was really excited to show me these nipple pasties that her friend had bought for her. They were really dope, but there was one problem...they were made for white peoples breasts. I am not  saying that there is anything wrong with white people breasts, in fact I think all breasts equally rule! But just like clothes that don't fit right I am not going to wear something that wasn't made for me or made to suit my body. So we resolved to make our very own sexy pasties for areola of colour! I decided to call them tantalizing tittes because I think mine are just that! I always tell people that I want my titties to look as tantalizing as possible, and lets be honest here whose wouldn't be when adorned with crochet goodness, and golden nipple piercings with chain tassels?

Sexploration for me is keeping an informed and open mind in finding out what works for me, and what I wear (or don't) is a reflection of just that. So I'll flaunting my sexy, big and brown areola in my own fashion.

shake your big brown areola, cause they tantalizing too!

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Dolli

Dolli
size: 18'
material: 100% worsted
stitch: single crochet

I decided to make a dolli of myself...why? It has always been a challenge to find a black doll that I can look at and see myself. Just cause a doll has black skin does not mean it can stand to represent the complexities and variations found within black populations. So this dolli is my big "Eff you". If how I look is not marketable or profitable, I'll do it myself simply because I can.

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Artducation: Vulvas?

Crochet vulva's

 I have been making these vulva pins for a while and giving them to my friends as gifts, as well as rocking my own. I have been presented with varied reactions from both friends and strangers

"Ew!"

"So F***ING COOL!"
"What is that?"

"Why would you make this?"

Why would i make this...? It is not so much the question that bothers me, but the tone in which the question is asked. There is a lot of disgust and hostility, but ultimately interest. I was recently at a symposium where we spoke about how different vulva's can look and how in text books they are presented as uniform; symmetrical labia, hairless, and cut off from the rest of the body. So that night I came home and looked up diagrams of vulva's. I was baffled (not really) when I tried to look for diagrams that show vulva's that belong to bodies colour and...surprise! I found none! Now you might think, well a vulva is a vulva...right? Yes and no. Sure I've got a vulva and you may have one too, but historically bodies have been presented through race (racialization) and through that, differences have been assumed to justify many historical events that books don't often tell you about. Let us take a few steps back and look at the well known hottentot venus exhibition of Saartjie Baartman, a relative of the Khoikhoi ethnic group born in 1789 in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

In 1735, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) divided humans into four racially classified subspecies: Homo sapien americancus (Amerindians), europaeus (Europeans), asiaticus (Asians), and afer (Africans) (Hamilton, 2008).  Later, anthropologist Jonathan Marks attributed traits and behaviours to these subspecies, calling the afer “black, impassive, lazy. Hair kinked. Skin Silky. Nose flat. Lips thick. Women with genital flap; breasts large. Crafty, slow, foolish. Anoints himself with grease. Ruled by caprice.” (Hamilton, 2008). Another example of this is the French scientist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who also based his findings on the taxonomy of Homo sapiens and depicted the afer as “marked by a black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe; the hordes of utter barbarianism.” (Hamilton, 2008). From this established approach to race in academia in the eighteenth century, there is an acknowledgement and acceptance to the validity of the racialization of traits and the hierarchy based off of it. The Hottentot Venus exhibit recreated and brought these ideas throughout Europe, it specifically reinforced and reflected race based on the social hierarchies that existed. The presentation and representation of black bodies in contrast to white ones placed emphasis on differences, and more specifically differences of physical anatomy. The anthropological rhetoric represented the Hottentot as primitive, inferior, secular and uncivilized  and from this made distinct connections between the Hottentot and animals. Labeling black bodies as primitive attributed animal characteristics to them, such as animalistic instincts of reproduction  “…Buffon stated that this animal-like sexual appetite went so far as to lead black women to copulate with apes” (Gilman, 1985). Academic travelers went further as to say that the black woman also show external signs of being primitive, from “Steatopygia a protruding buttocks resulting from the accumulation of fat, and what was then called the “hottentot apron” the elongated labia of the genitalia” (Moudileno, 2009) (see fig.1). 

Saarjtie Baartman’s exhibit relied heavily on the discourse created by academic and scientific elites. These assumptions  presented as fact romanticized ideas about non-white populations, and constructed a false identity that according to Gareth Knapman (2008) pushed non-white populations to a status below that of white Europeans. By labelling these populations as animals, an ideology of inferiority became common thought.

fig 1 the external genitalia of the Hottentot Venus, standing upright

200 years later and this is the only image of the vulva of a woman of colour?! So when someone asks me why I made this I tell them that I am serving to represent my own vulva, sexuality and ultimately myself. And of course I'm gonna make a pin and make sure its all up in your face! Additionally I love making people feel uncomfortable...for a good reason though! I believe that when we are the most uncomfortable is when we are in a space to absorb knowledge and have conversations that we might not otherwise have. We must keep in mind that knowledge and academia are never depoliticized spaces and they entirely selective, meaning there is choice in what is included or excluded given the political and economic climate...think of it like the news, there is always another part of the story we don't hear and we have to be critical and ask why. Knowledge as a form of power is inaccessible for a variety of reasons and it has always been used as a tool of inclusion and exclusion....but that's a whole other conversation!  It's actually hilarious to me when it falls on the ground, and someone will be like "oh, you dropped something!" they go to pick it up for me, but immediately hesitate and retreat once they see what it is. I always say "Ooups, I dropped my vulva!" smile and walk away. Sometimes you have to laugh at other peoples expense, so make things that have a personal statement and challenge normative ideas, it makes your craft that much more meaningful.

Smiles:)

Tuly Maimouna