“Who Going to Take Care of the Baby?" Diasporic Baby Dolls and Carnival Activism

In Trinidad carnival ‘Baby Doll’, dressed in frilly bloomers and a bonnet, screams at male onlookers to pay for the care of their illegitimate baby and thrusts a white doll into their arms. This traditional carnival masquerade has long been implemented as a form of social commentary on absentee fathers, racial mixing and the rape of black Caribbean women by white men. While the Baby Doll mas has been less visible in Trinidad carnival since the 1930s, it is now being reused and reinterpreted by social activists such as Amanda McIntyre, Eintou Springer, Tracey Sankar-Charleau, Makeda Thomas and others as a way of highlighting feminist concerns, exploring queer sexualities and tackling issues such as teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse. Over in mainland America, in the New Orleans Mardi Gras, large bands of women dressed as Baby Dolls representing the role of segregated black sex workers under Jim Crow, take to the streets to proudly ‘walk raddy ’in defiance of sexual, economic and racial oppression to strengthen the bonds of sisterhood. This article will examine the complex ways in which the Baby Doll mas has reflected, resisted and challenged capitalistic sexual and racial politics. It will outline the history of the mas in New Orleans and Trinidad and explore the multiple manifestations of Baby Doll as a form of political activism in contemporary carnival culture.

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