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A review by katie_is_dreaming
Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
Emma Dabiri’s first book is impressive in scope and style. She talks about the history and cultural meaning of black hair, and uses this as a focus through which to explore racism, community, concepts of time, technology, and all sorts of other ideas. It’s also very nicely written.
Dabiri is Irish Nigerian, and now lives in the UK, and it’s interesting reading about her experience of racism growing up in an Ireland that was not multi-cultural. There’s still not as much written about racism in Ireland as there is in the UK and the US, but Dabiri’s experiences highlight the casual racism that she faced, and what’s most surprising and interesting about her experience, is that, often, it was not her skin that people drew attention to or singled her out for, but her hair. She discusses how, in her teens, her skin was envied by her friends who wanted to be tanned, and remembers other instances where people saw her as beautiful, but, on seeing her hair, they would be disappointed.
It was so interesting to me that her blackness, or her racial ‘otherness’ was bound up in her hair having the tight curl that is shared by many of African descent.While her brown skin was a marker too, her hair was what most stood out, what was most problematic for others. She writes about all the ways she used to style her hair so that she could better fit in with her white peers. It’s this personal history that leads her to explore the history and cultural significance of black hair in her work and in this book.
She explores how black women and men have sought to straighten or treat their hair in order to fit in with Western ideals. She explores the history of black hairdressing in Britain and the US, including biographical details about black businesswomen who made fortunes from selling patented products for straightening and styling black hair. She also explores how black performers who adopted European styles of hair succeeded in their careers where other black artists didn’t. And she explores issues around cultural appropriation, where ‘blackness’ is othered and vilified when it’s black people celebrating their own cultures or simply being themselves, but it becomes fashionable when white people claim it as ‘inclusive’ or a ‘new’ style. It’s incredibly offensive how white people seek to appropriate other cultures without acknowledging or celebrating the specialness of these cultures themselves. We never acknowledge the origins of many of the things that we have appropriated from other cultures, and we have appropriated so much from black cultures.
Dabiri seeks to address some of that cultural appropriation, as well as the negative stereotyping of African hair. The history of black hairstyling was not something I knew a lot about, and Dabiri goes into the fact that hairstyling in black cultures can have spiritual or religious meanings, and that certain types of styles have historic significance. She talks a lot about Yoruba practices around hairstyling. It has extremely potent spiritual links, even to the point of the hairstylist having links to specific gods, which is something that is unfamiliar to us in the Western world. Dabiri seeks to elevate black hairstyling beyond the stereotypes associated with black hair, and her arguments are very successful.
She also writes about how European concepts of time don’t include, or don’t see as profitable, the time needed for communal hairstyling that is crucial to African communities. She writes about the communities of black women, the mamas, grandmas, and best girlfriends, she needed growing up, and has since found in her life in the UK. She writes about hairstyling for black women as intimacy between women, a sign of sisterhood and close friendship.
I really enjoyed this book. One of the things that struck me about Dabiri’s writing is how she can meld academic writing with a more conversational style. It makes the book so warm and easily readable, as you feel like Dabiri is just having a chat with her readers.
There’s so much here to unpack and talk about, and I think I really would get more from it on a second read. Rating: 9/10 - it’s just an incredibly impressive piece of scholarship that’s also very relatable.
Blog: awonderfulbook.com | Instagram: katiemotenbooks | Twitter: katiemotenbooks
Dabiri is Irish Nigerian, and now lives in the UK, and it’s interesting reading about her experience of racism growing up in an Ireland that was not multi-cultural. There’s still not as much written about racism in Ireland as there is in the UK and the US, but Dabiri’s experiences highlight the casual racism that she faced, and what’s most surprising and interesting about her experience, is that, often, it was not her skin that people drew attention to or singled her out for, but her hair. She discusses how, in her teens, her skin was envied by her friends who wanted to be tanned, and remembers other instances where people saw her as beautiful, but, on seeing her hair, they would be disappointed.
It was so interesting to me that her blackness, or her racial ‘otherness’ was bound up in her hair having the tight curl that is shared by many of African descent.While her brown skin was a marker too, her hair was what most stood out, what was most problematic for others. She writes about all the ways she used to style her hair so that she could better fit in with her white peers. It’s this personal history that leads her to explore the history and cultural significance of black hair in her work and in this book.
She explores how black women and men have sought to straighten or treat their hair in order to fit in with Western ideals. She explores the history of black hairdressing in Britain and the US, including biographical details about black businesswomen who made fortunes from selling patented products for straightening and styling black hair. She also explores how black performers who adopted European styles of hair succeeded in their careers where other black artists didn’t. And she explores issues around cultural appropriation, where ‘blackness’ is othered and vilified when it’s black people celebrating their own cultures or simply being themselves, but it becomes fashionable when white people claim it as ‘inclusive’ or a ‘new’ style. It’s incredibly offensive how white people seek to appropriate other cultures without acknowledging or celebrating the specialness of these cultures themselves. We never acknowledge the origins of many of the things that we have appropriated from other cultures, and we have appropriated so much from black cultures.
Dabiri seeks to address some of that cultural appropriation, as well as the negative stereotyping of African hair. The history of black hairstyling was not something I knew a lot about, and Dabiri goes into the fact that hairstyling in black cultures can have spiritual or religious meanings, and that certain types of styles have historic significance. She talks a lot about Yoruba practices around hairstyling. It has extremely potent spiritual links, even to the point of the hairstylist having links to specific gods, which is something that is unfamiliar to us in the Western world. Dabiri seeks to elevate black hairstyling beyond the stereotypes associated with black hair, and her arguments are very successful.
She also writes about how European concepts of time don’t include, or don’t see as profitable, the time needed for communal hairstyling that is crucial to African communities. She writes about the communities of black women, the mamas, grandmas, and best girlfriends, she needed growing up, and has since found in her life in the UK. She writes about hairstyling for black women as intimacy between women, a sign of sisterhood and close friendship.
I really enjoyed this book. One of the things that struck me about Dabiri’s writing is how she can meld academic writing with a more conversational style. It makes the book so warm and easily readable, as you feel like Dabiri is just having a chat with her readers.
There’s so much here to unpack and talk about, and I think I really would get more from it on a second read. Rating: 9/10 - it’s just an incredibly impressive piece of scholarship that’s also very relatable.
Blog: awonderfulbook.com | Instagram: katiemotenbooks | Twitter: katiemotenbooks