{"id":57996,"date":"2019-05-03T13:35:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57996"},"modified":"2019-05-03T13:35:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:35:48","slug":"dont-touch-my-hair-by-emma-dabiri-review-a-voyage-to-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57996","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri review \u2013 a voyage to empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri review \u2013 a voyage to empowerment<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2019-05-02<\/p>\n

Colin Grant<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nEmma Dabiri<\/a> records the external and internal pathologising of black hair as a chronic condition. Photograph: Silvana Trevale\/The Guardian<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Combs, braids and Bob Marley\u2019s<\/a> bad-hair days are explored in this richly researched cultural history<\/em><\/p>\n

When Rita Anderson\u2019s teenage boyfriend Bob<\/a> was growing up in Jamaica\u2019s Trenchtown<\/a> ghetto, the fair-skinned future Rasta reggae star<\/a> was so concerned to demonstrate his black heredity that he would get Rita<\/a> to rub black shoe polish into his hair \u2013 so that, she says, it appeared \u201cblacker, coarser and more African\u201d. But after reading Emma Dabiri\u2019s richly researched book<\/a>, you wonder which model of African hair Bob Marley<\/a> had in mind. For Dabiri shows that Africans have always paid close attention to the grooming and careful styling of hair, and in Yoruba<\/a> the phrase for \u201cdreadlocks<\/a>\u201d is irun were<\/em>, which translates as \u201cinsane person\u2019s hair-do\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like Marley, Dabiri also has black and white parents, and has wrestled with her identity. As a child in Ireland<\/a>, people volunteered opinions about her hair that made her feel ashamed and \u201clike an abomination\u201d. But her personal story merely serves in the book as a jumping off point for an exploration of many subjects, among them colourism and self-worth.<\/p>\n

Dabiri, who is a teaching fellow at SOAS<\/a>, argues that the \u201cdesire to conform\u201d to a European \u201caesthetic which values light skin and straight hair is the result of a propaganda campaign that has lasted more than 500 years\u201d. European powers saw African culture as an impediment to productivity. \u201cIdle husbands\u201d, fumed one colonial administrator, wasted hours setting their wives the task of \u201cbraiding and fettishing out their woolly hair\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Combs, braids and Bob Marley\u2019s bad-hair days are explored in this richly researched cultural history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,1649,12,5,8,10],"tags":[573,4651,13842,2103],"class_list":["post-57996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-bob-marley","tag-colin-grant","tag-emma-dabiri","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57998,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57996\/revisions\/57998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}