Seeing Ourselves: The Art of Black Girls & Women Loving the Skin We’re in
When I was younger, I recall a Christmas when I opened my gift and realized I’d been given a black barbie as opposed to the white one I usually got. At the time I was about age 4 or 5, and I didn’t even know they came with darker skin. When I questioned my mother about the sudden change, she simply said, “Because It’s important that you see yourself in the world around you.”
At the time, I had no idea what she meant. I remember asking myself how my Barbie’s skin color had anything to do with the playhouses and toy Corvettes my black barbie rode in with her ‘boyfriend’ Ken. I was also confused about what she meant when she said, “she wanted me to see myself.” I recall thinking, “I look nothing like Barbie or Ken, and I don’t drive a pretty car like that (yet), so what does she mean?” That line of thinking of course, was the problem.
Looking back, I understand completely what my mother was trying to do. By allowing me to play with a barbie who ‘had it all’ (so to speak), at an early age I was getting something that unfortunately, most black girls grow up without: positive representation. By playing with my Barbie and Ken set, I could start to ‘see’ that it would be possible to have these things, even if I couldn’t consciously grasp this at the time.
