4.Reflect on a time when you felt on the brink of burnout. What boundaries could have been set to prevent reaching that point, and how can you implement them moving forward?

5.How has prioritizing self-care benefited your ability to handle external responsibilities? Are there areas of self-care you’ve overlooked that could further enhance your capacity to manage obligations?

6.How do you currently celebrate your physical beauty? Are there societal narratives or personal beliefs that sometimes challenge this celebration, and how can you work to transform or reject them?

7.How do you affirm your inherent worth, separate from any external factors or achievements? What practices or rituals help reinforce this acknowledgment?

8.How do you navigate the tightrope of ambition and self-care? Are there any compromises you’ve made that you regret, or any boundaries you’re proud of setting?

9.Reflect on the external pressures that might affect your perception of beauty, success, and worth. How can you work to internalize a self-affirming narrative instead?

10.How does your community or social circle support or challenge your self-care practices? Are there conversations you can initiate or boundaries you can set to enhance communal support for individual well-being?

affirmations

1.My physical and mental well-being are paramount. I honor my body and mind, nourishing them with love and care.

2.While I am proud of my achievements, I prioritize my well-being above all. My worth is intrinsic and not solely defined by my professional successes.

3.I cherish and protect my personal time, knowing that rest and rejuvenation are essential for my holistic health.

4.I set firm boundaries to protect my energy and space, ensuring that I do not stretch myself to the point of burnout.

5.By caring for myself, I equip myself with the strength and resilience to handle my external responsibilities with grace.

6.I embrace and celebrate my unique physical beauty, understanding that I am a reflection of generations of strength and resilience.

7.I am worthy, valuable, and deserving of love, respect, and care, regardless of external validation.

8.Every moment I spend on self-care is an investment in my well-being and future. I am intentional with how I allocate my time.

9.Rest is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. I give myself permission to pause and rejuvenate whenever I need to.

10.I celebrate every part of who I am—my strengths, vulnerabilities, achievements, and learnings. I am a holistic being deserving of holistic care.

chapter 6

the influence of

societal constructs

and personal

experiences on

perception of beauty

“You can’t eat beauty, it doesn’t feed you…beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. You can’t rely on how you look to sustain yourself. What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion—for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul.”

—Lupita Nyong’o

Have you ever had a Black baby doll? Did you want one? Not me! As a child, I idolized Barbie’s perfectly laid blonde tendrils that flowed down to the middle of her back. In contrast to my daily life, there was one figure that seemed to have it all: Barbie. This blonde doll with her perfectly styled hair became my alter ego, embodying everything I longed for but couldn’t attain. My Jamaican parents didn’t believe in allowances in exchange for chores. Chores were the job of children to “earn their keep.” So, growing up in our small terrace house in southeast London, I didn’t have any illusions about being in the lap of luxury and living in a dream house with a pool, like Barbie did. My parents only bought dolls at Christmas. Barbie was always at the top of my list. The fact that I was so enamored by her even though she looked nothing like me was an inconvenience I had learned to overlook. None of my friends or cousins had Black baby dolls either, so I wasn’t alone.

The only semblance of what was supposed to be a Black baby doll I had ever seen for sale was called a golliwog. Golliwogs were sold in many convenience stores all across South London. And I hated them. They scared me with their black skin, huge white eyes, and clownlike, oversized red lips. My skin was a warm brown, my eyes a soft black, and my lips, while full, were not exaggerated like a clown’s. So, why was a toy that looked so dissimilar to me being sold as something I would enjoy? My five-year-old self was confused. I wondered where this doll had come from. Wherever it was from, I wished it would go back there, never to return. Its very existence repelled my tiny body, even though at the time I didn’t understand why.

I would later discover that Florence Kate Upton, a cartoonist, created the frightful figure known as a golliwog (or golliwogg, or even just golly) in the late nineteenth century. It was designed to be a type of rag doll and found popularity in various parts of the world, despite being clearly rooted in blackface minstrel tradition. It appeared in children’s books in the late nineteenth century, usually depicted as a type of rag doll. It was reproduced, both by commercial and hobby toymakers, as a children’s soft toy called the “golliwog” and had great popularity in the Southern United States, the UK, South Africa, and Australia into the 1970s. The doll is characterized by jet black skin, eyes rimmed in white, exaggerated red lips, and frizzy hair, based on the blackface minstrel tradition. Since the twentieth century, the word has been considered a racial slur against Black people.⁸⁰

Of course that had happened to me—yet another reason to hate the golliwog! The first time, I was bewildered, scared, and sad. I was playing with a group of my friends in the playground of our South London primary school. Our games of choice were typically jacks, hopscotch, Cat’s Cradle, and marbles. That was more than enough to keep us busy, along with the occasional game of Kiss Chase, which was one of my personal favorites. But the one day I remember, the game took a turn for the worse. The boys were chasing me and my group of friends. We were the five-year-old children of immigrants from all over the world—Jamaica, Africa, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. But they weren’t chasing us to give us a peck on the cheek when they caught us. They were chasing us and calling us golliwogs. We ran screaming. This game was not fun. I was horrified. Later, I remember thinking about what had happened and asking myself questions to try to understand. Did they think we looked like golliwogs? I knew we didn’t. So, why had they said that? My young mind imagined what had happened and replayed it over and over again, trying to find meaning. I couldn’t.

Contrasting the disturbing appearance of the golliwog, Barbie—with her slender body, full breasts, small hips, and dainty hands and feet—appealed to my aesthetic sense. Her physical attributes embodied the beauty standard I found myself drawn to, a standard far removed from the racialized caricature the golliwog represented. Her teeth were perfectly white, with a cute pointy nose and thin pink lips—not big, red, and obnoxious ones like that awful Black doll. My cousin had one, and I was deathly afraid of it. Its face angered me, even though I wasn’t sure why.

Barbie, on the other hand, made me feel happy. Her world of endless possibilities and beautiful clothes filled me with delight, a stark contrast to the fear I felt toward the golliwog. She had multiple changes of clothes and shoes, the dream house, and, of course, Ken, the perfect boyfriend. I loved her. And I wanted her to love me back. So I took care of her by changing her outfits and driving her across the living room floor in her pink car. She had places to go and people to see. Her days were full of shopping sprees and parties with cool friends. I meticulously brushed her hair for date night, adorning it with a little clip that matched her dress and tiny heels.

I wanted my coily kinks to be mid-back as well, but…shrinkage. I begged my mother constantly to straighten my hair. But she ignored my pleas, and only agreed on special occasions like Christmas and my birthday. I was five the first time my mom straightened my hair with a metal hot comb. I distinctly remember the sizzle as it was wrapped into a damp cloth on the kitchen counter after being heated on the small gas stove in our tiny kitchen. The warmth on the back of my neck intensified my fear of being burned as she slowly and meticulously pulled the comb through my resistant curls. The unforgiving, tightly aligned teeth of the comb gnawed at the roots near my scalp, releasing a sigh when my hair finally relinquished its willful disobedience. It relaxed because there was no fighting this. It was finally happening.

As scared as I was of the hot steam, I wanted this more than anything else at that moment. Narrow shoulders raised, I flinched at each hot breath on the back of my neck. But I dared not make a sound. My mother had already warned me that jumping could mean a burn. She also had little patience for little hands attempting to feel the progress she was making. A quick rap on the knuckles with her comb sent my hands right back into my lap. I willed myself to just relax, and I twirled my fingers around each other. I wiggled my toes gently. I thought about how I would feel when I was finally allowed to gaze into the mirror to witness the miraculous transformation. I would do anything to take my mind off this hour of pain because it would bring me at least a week of pleasure.

When my mother finally laid down her tools, my previously stubborn coils had surrendered to the heat. In place of the familiar tight curls, a sleek, straight curtain of hair flowed down my back. It wasn’t quite mid-back length, but that was okay. I still dashed as fast as I could to see myself in the mirror. “I love my hair!” Swinging my slick hair around my shoulders was such a welcome reprieve from the thick braids tied with ribbons I usually wore on each side of my head. This was what I wanted every day, but my mother warned me again before I could even open my mouth to ask. She only agreed to the arduous process for special engagements. I would have to be satisfied with that, or nothing at all.

The week of pleasure would be cut short in its tracks if I ran too much on the playground to get it all messy and sweaty. It meant I couldn’t get it wet in the bath, which meant no playing with toys and splashing with my siblings. My mother gave me an extra-large silk scarf to wear from her priceless nightstand, which also contained other treasures like pantyhose and bras that I was too young to wear but wanted to touch just to experience how they felt against my palm. Instead, I would need to be content with running my fingers back and forth across the knot in the scarf to ensure it was secure for the night. I would need my newly straightened hair to be protected from my very worn, moisture-depriving cotton pillowcase.

As the years rolled on, the process of managing my hair evolved. Entering adulthood, my hair routine took on a more potent edge—every few weeks I repeated the process with chemical relaxers, each time with a fresh fear of painful chemical burns on my scalp, making my heart race. But as soon as I entered college, I began the ritual of relaxing my hair. When I was a teenager, my mother was adamant about me not getting a chemical relaxer. She had instead opted for the kinder, gentler Jheri Curl, an alternative that unfortunately made me the object of jokes during high school and middle school. Bottles of activator needed to be kept on hand to keep my curls nice and moist. My classmates called it “Jheri Curl Juice.” But I ignored that. I had to be sure not to rest my hair on any surface for too long. A greasy headprint would indicate I had been there. How embarrassing! And besides, I often reminded my classmates that this was actually a “Leisure Curl,” not the obnoxious Jheri Curl. This Wave Nouveau was much looser in curl pattern than the coiffed afro worn by the likes of “gangster rappers” such as Straight Outta Compton’s NWA. I was trying to emulate the refined, professional women I saw in magazines, not portray the image of a West Coast Gang Banger, as the Jheri Curl was often stereotyped. Couldn’t they understand that?

And since my mother didn’t approve of my “ladylike” obsession with needing straight hair, I waited until I entered college to go from curly to straight. I scraped together any money I could save to get my hair done every six weeks. Most of us couldn’t afford top-shelf relaxers like Mizani, so we opted for the cheapest brand, called Bantu. It was notoriously strong, and the horror stories of scabs on scalps were enough evidence for us that it worked exactly as it was supposed to. That new growth needed to be bone-straight, just like the rest of our hair! In the days leading up to my appointment, my friends had warned me against scratching my scalp. Doing so could be detrimental because it left the pores of the scalp vulnerable to the white, strong, pungent chemicals that were slathered on the unruly new growth. But none of that could happen unless you could sit through thirty minutes of your scalp feeling like it was on fire, no matter how much petroleum gel had been used to protect it. When the hairdresser at the salon asked if it was burning, we dared not say yes for fear that she would wash out the chemicals too soon. That meant we would waste the forty dollars it cost to undergo this arduous process. The thought was unbearable! With burning eyes and a burning scalp, I tapped my toes on the salon floor, attempting to distract myself from the pain. But we waited and counted down the time until those thirty minutes were up. There was a sigh of relief as cool water touched our tortured scalps. There was a small smile as we felt gentle fingers and shampoo scrubbing the chemicals from our new growth. It was no match for Bantu! It had melted away to meet the relaxed hair that we willed to grow to that coveted mid-back length.

To ensure I had enough coins for my beauty routine and fashion needs, I resorted to a diet of Ramen noodles and three-dollar pizzas from the local pizza place. This allowed me to get my hair done, my nails filled with acrylic, my toes pedicured, and even buy a budget-busting outfit from Forever 21 at the only mall near the University of Florida campus. I was ready for the weekend! Fraternity parties were our main outlet for fun. So, outfits and shoes were selected and laid on the bed hours ahead of time. Cute skirts, tiny midriff tops, and stiletto heels were modeled, so we could vote on a group consensus of the vibe for the night. It was going to be a long one as well!

An hour before it was time to strut across campus, my roommates and I jostled for position in front of the mirror to plaster on lipstick and black eyeliner, wondering how it was possible that we had all been color matched for NC45 at the mall’s MAC counter despite our various skin tones of caramel, copper, bronze, and mocha. Fashion Fair was too heavy and caked our faces like smiling masks. Maybelline and CoverGirl makeup never had colors that matched either. So, NC45 for all it was!

Nonetheless, the final step was placing the multiple curling irons we had all collected on the dorm room desk and plugging them into the surge protector. Some were ceramic. Others were gold-plated. Some could crimp. And of course, we had at least one flat iron among the various barrel sizes. The one common denominator was that they could all get our hair bone-straight. We carefully applied Ampro Pro Styl Marcel Wax. That was a must-have and definitely not to be skimped on. Baby hairs needed to be laid to the Gods. Let’s Jam Edge Control Gel made that wish come true and was not to be spared either. We slathered it on and meticulously shaped our curls, adhering them to our foreheads and sculpting them like artists with our worn toothbrushes set aside specifically for this task.

Given the steamy atmosphere of the gym, a common venue for frat parties, our hairstyles needed to be resilient. We knew the heat and humidity would put our carefully crafted looks to the test. Our five-dollar entrance fee was hard-earned from our Ramen noodle diets. And for our troubles, we would dance with wild abandon to the sweet sounds of 2 Live Crew, 69 Boyz, and Sir Mix-A-Lot. The beat dropped and bass rattled the windows as we forgot for a moment all of the preparation we had put into our ladylike appearance that didn’t quite match our gyrating hips, dancing in the dark. “Baby got back,” we chanted as we looked back at it.

We scattered outside in embarrassment when the last song came to an end, and we saw faces that matched the sweaty bodies we had been grinding against all night. The overhead fluorescent lights brought us back to the reality of the dingy gym. We erupted into laughter, playfully pointing at the state of each other’s hair, our faces caught in the harsh, unforgiving fluorescence, glistening like morning dew. Despite our meticulous preparation, we always stumbled outside with fluffy halos of hair billowing like crowns of dandelion wishes coming true around our heads. We marched defiantly into the cool night air, back to the dorms, with our heels clutched in our damp palms. This process would be repeated every weekend—the battle against our hair. Our hair always won. It was undefeated.

Reflecting on these memories now brings to mind a question I was asked on a podcast a few months ago—a question that left me speechless and a little sad. The host asked a panel of Black women who work in social justice and advocacy when the last time was that we felt truly beautiful. The question, I believe, left us all in a state of shock. It was something I had never really thought about before, much less been asked about. Though I had always understood, on an intellectual level, the sentiment that “Black is Beautiful,” I found myself struggling to provide an easy, straightforward answer to this question. But as I searched my memory and waited for the other panelists to respond, I started to feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. One by one, each of us admitted we couldn’t think of a particular time. Ever. I answered honestly as well. “I don’t know. I can’t think of a time that I remember.”

According to historians at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, toys offer opportunities to reiterate children’s inclusion or “otherness” in a society that has traditionally viewed Blacks as second-class citizens. Prior to the 1950s, dolls that were anthropologically correct in their depiction of African Americans were nonexistent or not widely marketed. The media, including the toy industry, was rife with negative, exaggerated depictions of Black individuals—caricatures that emphasized stereotypes and minimized our beauty.

These depictions deemphasized the beauty and humanity of Black people. Understanding the cultural, social, and practical significance of dolls, it is important to consider how a lack of positive representation can have an adverse impact on children’s self-esteem, confidence, and perception. Through dolls, children can learn about their self-worth and roles within society, as confirmed in the Clark study of Black children’s racial perceptions. The Clarks’ Supreme Court testimony contributed to the outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, which led to the desegregation of American schools.⁸¹

In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of experiments known colloquially as “the doll tests” to study the psychological effects of segregation on African American children.