{"id":58857,"date":"2019-09-09T00:48:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T00:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58857"},"modified":"2019-09-09T00:48:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T00:48:30","slug":"my-blackness-and-my-hair-texture-was-a-very-defining-feature-of-that-experience-and-my-hair-was-treated-very-much-like-it-was-an-affliction-certainly-something-to-be-ashamed-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58857","title":{"rendered":"My blackness and my hair texture was a very defining feature of that experience, and my hair was treated very much like it was an affliction. Certainly something to be ashamed of."},"content":{"rendered":"

Your book covers academic arguments surrounding these things and the culture surrounding these topics, but it was born from a very personal place. What was it like for you growing up in a larger white society as a person of colour?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The term person of colour is quite generic; I feel like if I\u2019d been a person of colour who had straight hair I would have had a very different experience than somebody who was racialised as black and had extremely Afro-textured hair. My blackness and my hair texture was a very defining feature of that experience, and my hair was treated very much like it was an affliction. Certainly something to be ashamed of. I didn\u2019t see anybody with this type of hair, so there was very much a sense of “why have I been sabotaged in this way?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Growing up in Dublin<\/a>, the expertise and the products that were required to maintain my hair were sorely absent. My Mum would bring me to the UK<\/a> occasionally and I remember when I was 12 she brought me to Tottenham<\/a>, and I got a Jheri curl<\/a>. When I was 17 I got my hair properly relaxed in a salon and had all this weave attached for like the first time \u2014 honey blond tracks, I was overjoyed. It felt like salvation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mariko Finch, \u201cEmma Dabiri on the Politics of Black Hair<\/a>,\u201d Sotheby\u2018s: African Modern & Contemporary Art<\/em>, September 3, 2019. https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/articles\/emma-dabiri-on-the-politics-of-black-hair<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your book covers academic arguments surrounding these things and the culture surrounding these topics, but it was born from a very personal place. What was it like for you growing up in a larger white society as a person of colour? The term person of colour is quite generic; I feel like if I\u2019d been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13842,30237,30236],"class_list":["post-58857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-emma-dabiri","tag-mariko-finch","tag-sothebys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58857","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=58857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58858,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58857\/revisions\/58858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}