ABOUT MAMMA DONNA NERA

Hi! I am

Bousso Benussi Thioune

I am a young Italian woman - from Trieste! - of Senegalese origin.

I write since I can remember.

It is the way I open myself to the world, I tell about myself and observe, dialogue.

I have been working for years in the educational and humanitarian environment, with particular attention to the well-being of women and children.

I currently live in France with my partner (a white man) and our little girl (who has the beautiful color of multi-ethnic love).

About my project

My story

As a black woman who grew up in Italy I have a particular story which feeds on my origins in Senegal and my homeland - Trieste.

it is a richness but has also been a burden; as it's not easy to find the right balance, to find an identity, to live between two cultures.

In a country like Italy, that has a different historical material from many other European countries, my path was also forged around prejudice and discrimination

I'm black. I'm italian. Get over it.

What is

my message

What does it mean to grow up as a daughter of immigrants and a black woman in Italy?

Why am I still not recognized as fully Italian like my white compatriots?

This project was born from the desire to question myself and question other people, open a dialogue on complex issues and often unfortunately considered taboo in Italy (and in France, where I live): systemic racism and micro-aggressions, the intersection between ethnic and gender discrimination, motherhood, my daily life in a mixed couple, the burden of building an identity as a “first generation immigrant”, the violence of this terminology that excludes and denies my Italianness.

Not out of vanity, not out of pride

Why I write

about it

I will take the time to make you understand the reasons why I speak.

I will take the time to open up and expose myself to you.

I will take the time to tell how I became the woman I am now.

Not out of vanity, not out of pride; mine is not an exceptional story.

I think it's a story common to many and that's why I want to tell it.

For all those women who can't, don't dare, don't have the courage; because I've been one of those women too, sometimes I still am.

We live in a world where being a woman is a constant challenge.

Being black (or not white) is an ongoing challenge.

Dialogue is not only necessary but fundamental.

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