The Alt Black

You would be hard pressed to find a girl today who doesn’t wear makeup, they’re thousands of self-created makeup gurus and artists in youtube. Thousands of more pages on Instagram are created for the sole purpose of teaching people how to create a certain look. I have seen many aritsts and videos, but that is all that they are looks. The message for the viewer stops there, that is why when I found Muslimah more commonly known as MooseLovesU. What sets Moose apart from other makeup artist is that she uses makeup as a way to make a statement. She is a plus sized black woman who supports the rights of LGBTQ members and is not afraid to show it.

Could you state your name, age?
My full name is Muslimah Carpenter. I’m 23 and I’m originally from Columbia, Missouri.

Ok, so I and a lot of followers know you as moose.
Lol yes, I actually prefer to be called Moose. The only people who call me by my real name is my family so it feels kinda weird when people call me Muslimah.

How did you come across the name Moose?

My friends actually gave me that name. For some reason, people find it difficult to pronounce my name so they would shorten it to Moosie or moose (I fucking hated being called Moosie). By high school, I started going by Moose to avoid all the mispronunciations.

How did your relationship with makeup begin?

Since I was at least eight. My mom and I would do community theatre and that was my first memory of liking makeup. I loved performing because I got to wear makeup. Even though it was only blush, mascara, and gloss I couldn’t wait to put it on. I liked the idea of transforming into something else.

You are currently in school, what are you studying and why?

I major in Public Relations with a minor in French at Howard University. I was originally a journalism major but decided to switch to PR to have more options in the communications field. I chose to minor in French because I’ve been taking it since middle school. But to be honest, I’m over going to school. I’m glad I’m getting a degree, but I’ve decided to go into makeup full-time post-graduation. I like PR but my heart is in makeup.

You often talk about how your relationship with your blackness changed once you began attending Howard University. Could you describe your change from day one to your last semester?

When I first attended Howard I was really ignorant, I didn’t even see what was wrong with being called an “Oreo”. The city that I’m from is a really awkward place to grow up when you’re black. Columbia isn’t big enough to have an abundance of black culture, but it’s not small enough to be devoid of it. We also have a weird mix of modern white liberals who believe we live in a post-racial society and white people who are textbook racists. So a lot of times there were micro aggressions that I experienced living in Columbia, but I wasn’t educated enough on racism to articulate what I was experiencing. I knew that there was racism, but I didn’t know HOW to express that I was being oppressed. Since I’ve been at Howard I’ve been educated and equipped with the necessary tools to articulate how I have been oppressed and explain all the fallacies in racists beliefs. I’ve also been given the time and space express my blackness. I never felt like I was completely black in Missouri because I didn’t do all the things that the black community did. I didn’t listen to rap, I didn’t party with all the other black kids, I didn’t smoke. But when I was at Howard I was able to explore my blackness in other spaces besides drugs, partying, sports and music. I realized I was black because I WAS black, not because I participated in the mainstream culture.

When did you decide that you were going to include various messages in your posts and looks? (I see Oshun, Marsha P. Johnson, and Shuri have all
been people who you recreate.)

I’ve always included some kind of messaging in my looks since the beginning, the need to self-express has always been something I’ve needed to do. I did an SFX look last year where I faked having a slit throat and that was my way of expressing a broken heart I was healing from.

But it wasn’t until my Black History Month Series that I decided to take it further. I really wanted to do something for Black History Month and the idea of doing a series just popped into my head. At first, I thought it was crazy but I liked the challenge, so I went through with it. I think that series was a turning point for my artistry because I realized that I could make a real impact on others through my artistry.

Out of all of your looks which one has gotten the most responses and why do you think that is?

Jeez, that’s a tough one lol. If you’re talking about which look has generated the most conversation, it would definitely be my body positivity post where I introduced myself as a plus sized blogger. People still comment on that post and reach out to me about it. It generated so much conversation because I was EXTREMELY vulnerable and transparent about my relationship with my weight and its correlation to my love life, and to my surprise, my story resonated with other people going through the same thing.

The other reason why it generated conversation is because of my name and body modifications, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I have a tattoo of my name in Arabic on my right arm, and when my account started getting more exposure a lot of people from the Muslim community openly disapproved of my post. They assumed I was Muslim and criticized me for not being a “good Muslim” because I was not being modest. When I explained to them that I was not Muslim I got even more shit for not being Muslim and having a very traditional name. Someone even told me I was, “Disrespecting their culture”, even though I was given the name Muslimah because both my parents were practicing Muslims when I was born. My father still practices. So there were a lot of positive, and unfortunately negative, responses to that look.