The Ebony Dolls

Author's Note:

I present here a character with a very similar interest to my own. The key difference being that he is distressed by the imagery in question, whereas I am disgusted, though fascinated by it. I think we've all--in our times--encountered those who use fear of subjugation as an excuse to mistreat their own. I like to challenge this notion. Our stereotypes are weaponized realities of our people, made specifically to incite fear and hatred. Combating them does not mean denying them, but rather to challenge the very notion that these features make us worthy of hatred and fear in the first place. To hate niggas is to hate yourself. After reading this story, go out and find a nigga that you love, and tell them that you love them.

I hate them all.

You know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you've seen them at least once.

Minstrels.

Sambos.

Gollywogs. Jigaboos. Mammies. It doesn't matter what you call them, I can't stand them all.

But no, I don't mean that in the "Grandad is just from an older time" kind of way. I do not hate other Black people, no matter what anyone says. It's those 'caricatures' of us that I can't stand.  Those things are more than offensive, they make my stomach spin and bubble. I hate seeing minstrel drawings or costumes and I ESPECIALLY hate the dolls.

I don't know if I can say exactly when my fear started, but I can say the earliest memory I have of it. I was in preschool, and it was time for everyone to pick a toy from the big box at the end of the room to play with. I was too slow--missed my chance to grab a dinosaur or a Voltron, everything was gone except one toy, the same one I had avoided everyday before.

It had big, white eyes that weren't looking at anything at all. It's hair was a dirty mess of lint and fuzz, more like rat fur than anything else. It's skin was like the hot frying pans my parents had conditioned me to fear and avoid at all cost. And all of that I could have ignored were it not for that plump, crimson grin.

She told my dad that it was a Golliwog, a character from a book. She told him that I picked the doll myself. She said that no one else would play with it. I won't repeat what my dad said to her, but I will say that I never went back to that preschool. 

I did take the doll up myself, I won't lie about that. But understand that I did not want to play with it. I only took it because for weeks, the other kids had tortured me with it. They knew I didn't like it, they knew that I cried for them to put it away whenever they shoved it into my face. I knew that they left the doll there to force my hand. 

I didn't like them calling me a chicken and laughing at me every single day. I wanted to make it stop. So I forced myself to grab the doll out of the chest. I brought it over to my mat and I just held it, looking into it's empty, mesmerizing gaze until my dad arrived to pick me up.

I can't be the only person that's terrified of those things, but no one ever talks about being scared of them. I think I'm the only one that's cursed like this. But how can I be? People must see how horrific they are! The eyes, specifically, are just so...innocent. Too innocent. They don't have the empty gaze of naive children, they have a deranged wide-eyed innocence of soulless monsters. I can never see the red of their lips as anything other than bloodstains and the torn flesh of their victims. 

In my mind, a Golliwog was a man-eating, mindless, soulless beast that was always creeping behind me. In the shadows. Where I couldn't see. It would silently creep upon me and I would have no idea until it scraped my skin with its coarse hair.

That sounds crazy, but it's exactly how I would always encounter the doll, thanks to the other kids in my pre-school. They hid it in my cubby, dropped it on books I was reading, and did whatever they could to make me believe the beast was out to get me. And I believed them. I still believe them. I avoid the damn things all the time.

Do you know how hard it was growing up? I couldn't watch cartoons because I would always cry when Daffy Duck or Goofy came on. I never knew the taste of Cream of Wheat or Aunt Jemima pancakes that everyone swears by. I would force myself to look away from old paintings in my history book, and I never once bought into the little ceramic knick-knacks so many Black grandmothers had. If I saw any imagery even close to those damn things, I would cry and have nightmares. Because all I could see were the soulless eyes, messy hair, and bloody smile of those damn dolls.

But no matter how bad things got, it was only the dolls. People didn't bother me. No, that's not true, people do bother me and they have for a while. But it's not my fault. Whenever I see certain people...

It didn't start until I was 19. I saw a movie with a white actor in blackface and a fake afro. I hadn't expected that to happen. Everyone in the theater, including other Black people, laughed at his crazy way of talking and moving. But I wasn't amused, I was terrified. I could feel the actor looking right at me the entire time. Every move he made only seemed to bring him closer to me. The pressure got to me too quickly; I started to scream. People gave me terrified, puzzled looks, but my mouth wouldn't stop. I felt tears well up in the corners of my eyes and that was enough motivation to make me bolt from the theater. As I shamefully walked home, I couldn't stop looking over my shoulder, expecting to find the movie actor following me.

The moment I got to my dorm room, I locked myself in and turned on all the lights. I went to my mirror, and I looked at myself. For the very first time, I really looked at myself.

"Your skin isn't a shadow" I said, "that's good."

I looked at the top of my head. "That will have to go," I thought to myself as I grabbed my scissors. It took some doing, but I managed to whittle my afro down to a small fade. But even that was too much hair. It was still so coarse and dark and dirty looking. I grabbed a razor and shaving cream and finished the job. 

I focused on my mouth next. I knew then that I would never smile again. Which was good, a man in my professional future should always appear serious.

I flared my nostrils to remind myself they were there, that I had a nose. I took out a tape recorder and started practicing my new accent. The idea that I would look good in sunglasses formulated in my mind. I was ready.

Some years later, I was a bald lawyer with light sensitivity. I avoided anyone that reminded me of the dolls, so most of my Black male friends were either bald or nearing it. I was married to a woman that never worried me, for she had the complexion of a southern princess and spent a hundred dollars a week to loose her curls of her own volition. But that still wasn't enough.

Even as an adult the nightmares wouldn't stop. I'd fall asleep, and two huge eyes and a red banana smile would appear. They would stare at me for hours until I finally woke up, frantically searching the room for any signs that I wasn't crazy and the monsters were real. I would never find any such evidence, and the dreams would only come back again the next night. Alcohol was the only thing that could make the dreams stop.

It wasn't long before I realized alcohol could make a lot of things stop. The paranoia, the fear of random people walking down the street, it all faded in wait to the back of my mind. Let the liquor tell it, I could finally be free. But I knew deep down that it was all just a trick, a lie to turn me into one of them. I just wish I had found the strength to do something about it before my wife left me.

I'd considered going to therapists, but a part of me was more afraid of them than the dolls. They wouldn't understand, they'd say that I was crazy or obsessed or something. They'd say that I needed meds, or to go away for a while, because they couldn't understand the danger. The white psychologists would see nothing wrong with the dolls, and the fool Black ones would say that I was overreacting. Because they were blind. I couldn't talk to friends either. I didn't have many Black friends, I only trusted the ones that I knew would understand my fear if I ever told them. But I never did. I would never risk the humiliation of anyone knowing my secret.

I had to clean up entirely on my own. It was hard, and I won't go through all the gory details, but eventually I found the strength to toss out all my liqour. It took a few months to become sober, and another few months more to patch things up with my wife. After a year, she forgave me and finally returned home with my baby girl.

Her name was Monica, and she was the most beautiful, precious creature I'd ever seen. She was asleep, like an angel, when I first saw her and remained that way for the rest of the afternoon. My wife was happy because she hadn't had a successful night's sleep in a long time.

"Go rest, sweetie," I said to her. "I'll watch our daughter. I can handle anything if she wakes up."

She smiled and walked away to her room. I sat with our daughter – this amazing, special thing we created – in my arms. I sat us both down in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth and humming to her. I think she calmed me more than I did her, because before I knew it, I was passed out asleep.

For the first time in my adult life that I could remember, I didn't have a nightmare. I wasn't intoxicated, and yet I managed to sleep through the whole night without a single nightmare. Happy isn't strong enough to describe how I felt. Even as I slept, I knew that a smile had formed on my face. The first smile I'd had in years.

I woke up to the sounds of animals screeching.

A minstrel was in my arms. Its eyes were wide and big and whimsical and murderous. Its skin like a devious tar which had sucked me in and tricked me. Its hair felt like rusted wires against my arms. It laughed at me, with its evil, blood-soaked lips. My ears bled with the same noise that had awoken me from my sleep. I nearly threw the thing down in disgust and horror.

"No," I said, realizing that it was time for me to stop being afraid. I placed the monster in the crib and backed away. If I wanted to be rid of my demons, then I had to change. I couldn't just let this happen to me and my family anymore. It was high time I stopped being the scared kid in preschool and acted like a man!

I returned to the room a few minutes later. Scissors in my pocket, a sponge in my left hand, and a bottle of bleach in my right. 

"I promised your mother that I would handle you..."