Mardi Gras is my favorite holiday next to Halloween. Clearly, I'm partial to any holiday or celebration where dressing up and glitter are customary and encouraged. Even though I'm here in NYC for this year's Mardi Gras, I want to share a post I wrote last year after my experience masking with the historic Baby Doll Ladies as part of their centennial celebration. It was an honor and one of the most thrilling and surreal experiences of my life. Thank you Andrea Plaid and Racialicious for providing the space to talk about Black women's herstory in Mardi Gras.
Here's an excerpt and the full post is available at Racialicious.
What is the significance of Mardi Gras in the African-American community? What is masking about? I read about the connection between the Skeletons (Skull and Bone gangs) and Baby Dolls as symbolizing death and rebirth. Can you explain further?
Dr. Kim Vaz: African Americans have been participating in Mardi Gras from early on. It gave black people another opportunity to draw on their African heritage of singing, having processions, and dressing in costumes. Their background mixed with the fun and festive air of the French-inspired Mardi Gras created a time-out from the toils and drudgery of their work and the realities of their political condition. For those who could get away from the White people they worked for on Mardi Gras, it provided a special opportunity to have fun with friends and family. Before integration, Mardi Gras was an event that was local to specific neighborhoods for African Americans. Claiborne Avenue, with its swath of oak trees and large “neutral grounds” and which was a hub of black shopping and business, served as a gathering place where blacks dressed in hand- made “Indian” costumes. Members of the Skeletons, the Baby Dolls, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, and many other marching clubs and maskers could thrill the crowds. Black people called Mardi Gras “Old Fools Day” in recognition of the ability to let go of cares and worries.
The Baby Dolls themselves never gave a thought to the symbolism of birth and death. This is an imposed idea that makes sense when we think about the inherent meaning of dressing like a doll and dressing like skeletons. But the Baby Dolls in the beginning up through the mid-twentieth century saw themselves as sex symbols, entertainers, and people out to have a good time.
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