Tumaini: Dolls for Black Girls

Michelle (left) + Friends

I played with dolls until I was 13 years old, with all the active imagination and thrill necessary to make their world come to life. In my imagined world, my dolls were typical city people facing the troubles of relationships, girlfriends, boyfriends, cheating, and work. I had this Groovy Girl and I named her Michelle, she had light brown skin and big curly brown hair. I loved her dearly and used to 'borrow' my next door neighbors Groovy Girls clothes so she would always be looking fly. Although she had brown skin I remember always wishing that I could have beautiful bouncy curls like hers instead of my ole brillo like hair. I always used to make her swing her brown curls with attitude, wishing I could do the same. I was jealous of her and she soon became my ideal standard of beauty and penetrated my imagination. When making Sims characters, Michelle. When I would draw pictures, Michelle. When writing stories, Michelle. When trying to represent myself, Michelle. When thinking about who was beautiful, Michelle. Rarely did I see girls or women who looked like myself in my imagination.

Michelle was one of two black dolls I owned growing up. The second, her name is Stephanie. I have had her for as long as I can remember, but I have no recollection of ever playing with her. Stephanie is a dark skinned doll with shoulder length black yarn hair that resembles locs, she has a coy and full smile, broad nose, green and brown eyes that look up and to the left, and she wore a kitenge (Kenyan dress) - which has since been lost. She never garnered any interest in my childhood imagination so she remained at the bottom of my closet, then in a cold basement, then in a storage unit. A couple of years ago I finally unearthed Stephanie with surprise from a garbage bag full of toys I had been meaning to give to my younger cousins. Despite being in my adult years I gently dusted her off, warmly gave her a hug and apologized. Suddenly Stephanie seemed so beautiful and worthy of my love. Michelle who had also been in the bag with Stephanie harbored no sentiment, despite how integral she had been in my childhood she looked unfamiliar to me like an imagined person from a distant past. I threw Michelle + her friends into my suit case and delivered them to my cousins in Kenya who received them with delight, but I couldn't ignore the feeling of guilt I had giving them dolls that they likely couldn't see themselves in. 

I think there is something to say about people - particularly children, being able to see themselves in the things that they love. Whether it be TV shows, story books, games, or in my case dolls, I think having access to accurate representations of how we see ourselves is important in developing a sense of who we are. Flaws and all, I never realized how much of a privilege it was to be able to insert and see myself in my own imagination until it actually started to happen.

Tumaini
[To-My-Knee]

Tubetops, flowing skirts, bright prints, dreadlocs, pink hair and bare feet make me feel sexy

 I tend to be unimpressed with many things and question everything.

My waist is narrow and my hips are wide.

My booty is big and I have black stretch marks above my hips.

Smiles,

Tuly Maimouna

What happened to all the book worms?

Book MONSTER!
material: 100% worsted
Size:10'
Stitch: Single crochet

....the book monsters ate em all! Growing up I was never really too big on books, mostly because up until I was in grade three I had trouble reading. The weird thing is that I always used to read with my mom before going to sleep as a child, but for some reason when in school the ability somehow escaped me...so I used to attend after school reading classes with my homeroom teacher. Since then I have developed a healthy appreciation for reading, I have come to the conclusion that it stems from past inability! My appreciation has manifested its self in different ways throughout the years, and reading has developed beyond an action or pass time to a deeply personalized experience.

I first started reading novels by black authors when I was in high school. It first started off with black erotica, anything from Eric Jerome Dickey to Mary, B Morrison was a must read, which is probably attributed to underlying teen sexual frustration haha! But more importantly while reading I started to realize that it was hard for me to imagine black characters in novels, and to this day it honestly still proves to be a challenge for me. I thought "oh gosh, has my mind been white washed?" This was really a troubling thought for me, so I started to look for books that distinctly addressed historical events pertaining to the black diaspora. Books like, Roots By Alex Haley, The Book of Negros By Lawrence Hill and so on. While this proved to be helpful, I hated the idea of black populations not being represented beyond traumatic events of displacement, and mostly I did not relate to these stories because my experience of 'blackness' is fragmented between being a racial minority and being of East African decent.

While searching for 'new' types of stories, to my surprise (not really) the only ones I could find in school/public libraries & book stores were stories about slavery,  war/political/civil unrest, travel guides or half-assed romanticized Eurocentric novels about African countries. Never stories of the Africa (I am using this term loosely) I have known, lived and understood. I also started to wonder why novels by African authors outside of those themes are so inaccessible. A lot of novels available on African countries tend to speak to non-African understandings of those countries experiences, so stories of love, families and everyday life outside of trauma, poverty and despotism seldom matter or exist in the conscience of the reader, or more frequently, the idea that these themes can not exist seperately. In the search for new literature my eyes were forced open to ideas and questions that extend beyond the books themselves.

I only recently started to think critically about the novels I had been forced to read throughout primary and secondary school. What obligation or responsibility does a white author have to represent bodies of colour? Should schools be forced to teach black diasporic history beyond slavery? What implications/ repercussions does ignoring contemporary African history have on the black diaspora? How has the absence/under representation of bodies of colour in government school curriculum, and mainstream media affected how and where people of colour place themselves within these exclusive and selective outlets, and how does this effect the way we navigate ourselves through everyday life? While all these questions require larger discussions and subsequently greater actions, my first step is to change the limitations my socialized imagination by inserting characters of colour into contemporary western stories that I read to challenge normalized ideas of white bodies as a neutral or default characters, and secondly to continue reading novels by various African authors past and present.

Books by various African authors

My favourite novels by African authors:
1. Ambiguous Adventure - Cheikh Hamidou Kane (Senegal)
2. Tsotsi - Athol Fugard (South Africa)
3. Tales Told by the Son of Kenya - Aggrey Chepkwony Sambay (Kenya) 
4. Going Down River Road - Meja Mwangi (Kenya)
5. A Grain of Wheat - Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya)
6. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
7. On To Kilimanjaro - Brain Gardner (this book is an exception because is not by an African author, but it gives you a very clear definition between self representation, and othering )

If you're a book worm like me, don't let the book monsters take away the ability to exercise your imagination by keeping truly reflective stories out of reach. Go out and look for a good book.

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

P.S. If you are interested look up Roots (Alex Haley) vs.The African (Harold Coulter)...a really interesting back story to our friend Kunta Kente and the so called "timeless American Saga"

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