Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture

<b>4.5 Stars. What a powerful book! I mean if you know anything about the Black hair experience than you know how phenomenal this book is</b><br /><br /><i>Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture</i> is Emma Dabiri's take and insight to the complex world that is Black hair. This book not only focuses on her own personal experience, but also the beautiful yet sometimes heartbreaking history that Black people have with their hair. While it may insignificant to most, Black hair culture is a complex, dynamic part of our identity. Dabiri spends chapters of the books discussing all facets of Black hair in relationship to Yoruba traditions, the hair binary, the relationship between Black men and their hair, historical figures like Madame C.J. Walker, cultural appropriation, and more. <br /><br />What I enjoyed most about the book was the different views and perspectives that Dabiri explored. There were aspects of the text that I was familiar with while there were others that enlightened me on my own experiences and the experiences of others. One of most interesting points centered around "hair binary." According to Dabiri, we have become a culture where Black women who have natural hair are considered "woke" while those who do not are still considered to fit within the confines of traditional European standards. Dabiri attempts to reinforce the idea that this binary is not so black and white. At first, I didn't get what point she was trying to make, but then I realized that our relationship with our hair is so complex that creating something like a hair binary could never work. I also loved that she explored the complex relationship that exists between Black women and Black men in relation to hair. I think that Dabiri does an excellent job bringing the whole idea of internalized racism and proximity to Whiteness into this conversation and showing how it not only affects the relationship Black men have with Black women, but also the complex relationship they have with themselves. It was very clear from the text that Dabiri spent a great amount of time taking the basis of her own experience with Black hair culture and applying research to open the gateway for a well-rounded discussion. <br /><br />There was one issue that I had with the book and it's the fact sometimes it felt as Dabiri had the habit of getting off topic. She would go off on a tangent and then be forced to attempt to bring it full circle back to the discussion about hair. I watched her doing a virtual talk on Youtube and she does discuss the fact that while this book is about Black hair culture there was more that she wanted to include. While I do feel as though the information was just as important it felt like I was reading two different novels at certain points in the book. <br /><br />Overall, this was a great non-fiction pick for the month. I really think that if there are people who want to more about Black hair culture than I would definitely recommend picking it up.

Intelligent, thoughtful and thought-provoking, I found this a truly riveting read. It’s an exploration of black women’s (mainly) hair and for me it was jaw-dropping and eye-opening (to mix metaphors) at the same time. I never realised that hair could be such a complex, multi-layered and political subject. Because as the book states, black hair is never “just hair”, and this brilliantly and convincingly argued account demonstrates this with clarity, meticulous research and personal reflection and experience in an engaging and entertaining style. Highly recommended and I am just so glad I read it.

<b> As a young child, I spent long hours on the floor wedged between the strong legs of strangers, my head cradled in their lap. These early childhood memories are vague in detail but strong in atmosphere.</b> <br /><br />Emma Dabiri left no stones unturned with regards to the history of Black Hair culture and how it continues to affect us today. It is clear she did her research and lived the experiences that she writes so knowledgeably about. I learned so much reading this book. While the grounding topic was hair, this lead to discussions around "wokeness" cultural appropriation, the Black Power movement along with dating. So much is covered in this book, and covered so well. An absolute must read! <br /><br />I need to get my hands on a physical copy so I cam highlight every page!

4.25*<br /><br />A little text'booky at times, but the historical intricacies tied up (no pun intended) in hair is honestly fascinating while also upsetting and infuriating at how belittled and looked down upon the beautiful hairstyles continue to be.<br /><br />Dabiri touches on so many topics that my mind is buzzing with the need to do my own deep dives &amp; research more if I can, not least the somewhat hidden role the Irish played in slavery, the Orisha beliefs (I don't think mythology is the right word), the Oyo Empire and mathematical hegemony not understood or willfully ignored - which now that my eyes have been opened seems so obvious ?‍♀️<br />I cannot wait for her next release, which I think I have been lucky enough to be first in the hold line on OverDrive at my library?<br /><br />I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by the author herself and can highly recommend it. Really enjoy her turn of phrase and cheeky asides, please don't skip this eye opening educational and approachable read.<br /><br />PS - I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, especially considering the topics this tackles...but come on! She's a beaut &amp; I am weak ??

4.5-5 stars.<br /><br />“I remember being told that I was “lucky I was pretty,” which meant I could “almost get away with being black.”<br /><br />What a powerful statement this is. I remember being told things very similar to this being raised in the Deep South of Mississippi. <br /><br />This book was so good as it broke down the history of black hair, injustices that black women have faced, and the feeling of our hair being a bit “taboo” to others that were different than us. Emma Dabiri takes us through her personal historical journey, and offers amazing insight into the way “racism is coded in society’s perception of black hair, and sadly how often it’s used as an Avenue for discrimination.”<br /><br />“Dabiri takes us from precolonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, and into today’s Natural Hair Movement” exploring all aspects. <br /><br />Growing up and seeing labels on hair products such as, “defiant, wild, unruly, unmanageable, coarse” started sending a negative message about my hair at a young age. My mom started relaxers on my hair at age 12 to make my hair more “manageable.” I can remember people making comments about my smooth, swinging, silky, white like hair favorably. I got all the time “what are you?” All this because my coily/curly hair started being straightened. Then you start getting the double processing of light color or highlights because well then it looks even more white like. No one ever talks about the breakage, damage and the many tears I shed about this. <br /><br />“For girls and women, femininity is intricately bound up in hair.”<br /><br />Dabiri even talks about colorism in black communities. This is so real. I saw too many times just as a kid and teen the differences as to how you were treated because of how light or dark your skin was. Such a sadness, but it’s just real. <br /><br />I could go on and on, but there were just so many aspects to this book that I devoured. Growing up, these were the books I desperately needed to help me better accept who I was as a black child/woman. <br /><br />This is why I’m so passionate about helping others that choose to go back to their hair’s natural curly/coily/kinky state, and teach them how to care for it. Deep conditioning and the right products can make what used to be labeled as “coarse, dry, unmanageable hair into soft, moisturized, shiny and HEALTHY hair. That is what we all want—healthy hair.

KNOWLEDGE!!<br /><br />What a fantastic book that is so eye-opening and captivating, and so, so well put together. The way Emma Dabiri has managed to write a book that is themed around hair -specifically hair of a black woman - and connect it to so many issues today such as racism of old, systematic racism now, European fetishization of black bodies, hair and culture while black woman are punished.<br /><br />I honestly know so much more than I did before - not only about what hair truly means for a black person but how it signifies a bigger community, and a wealth of women in family and friendship - and how this was taken away from the black woman when she was forced into slavery. How people were made to feel ashamed of their hair - how the ideal hair for a woman with natural 'kinky', tight curly hair is still this European ideal of soft silky hair. How that all comes back to when Europeans initially colonized parts of African and brought their weird ideas of what hair was suppose to be, what beauty was suppose to be, what gender actually meant and how they even forced the European idea of time on African communities who used to measure time in a completely different way than we do now.<br /><br />Natural black hair can even be connected to science and mathematics in the most amazing ways - and I'm saying this as someone who hated maths in school and still freezes up if I'm expected to do any kind of calculation in my head.<br /><br />Hair in this book is so much more than something to brush (or not brush) every day. It's a whole history. I can't recommend this book enough!<br /><br /><i>"Through African hairstyles, we can observe beauty standards and aesthetics, spiritual devotion, values and ethics, and even, quite literally, maps from slavery to freedom."</i><br /><br />

I was not expecting this to be both a cultural history of a beauty object standard (e.g. hair) and a history of ideas! This book wove in various African philosophical traditions around time, community, work, and so many other things in contrast to how European culture views those things, and then synthesizes those contrasts into a specific example of hair. This was both an intellectually stimulating and personally reflective read for me viz a viz my own relationship to beauty standards as well as ways that I have upheld European beauty standards for people with hair textures that do not easily comport to those standards

A fascinating and powerful read, <i>Don't Touch My Hair</i> looks at the history, culture, and politics which surround Black hair, and the ways in which white people have stigmatised (and continue to stigmatise) Afro-textured hair. It's a book about why Black hair matters. <br /><br />Emma Dabiri—born to a white Irish woman and an ethnically Yoruba Nigerian man, and raised mostly in Ireland—engages with both parts of her heritage, demonstrating the stunning fractal complexity of the indigenous Yoruba hairstyles known as <i>irun didi</i> and <i>irun kiko</i> and the casually brutal racism of her upbringing in '90s inner city Dublin. There's more than enough in either topic to fill a book, but Dabiri also tackles issues of cultural appropriation, colonialism, Eurocentric beauty standards, indigenous African mathematical traditions, and analysis of cultural power. There's a lot going on here, in other words, and I could see this sparking a lot of good discussion in an undergraduate classroom or a book group. <br /><br />There are times when Dabiri's use of academic terms/concepts sits uneasily alongside her deployment of netspeak (using "lol" in print always looks asinine to me), and I wished she'd defined and unpacked some of the terms she'd used more. ("Western" in <i>Don't Touch My Hair</i> sometimes means "white" and sometimes means "European" and sometimes means "Anglophone northwestern Europe and North America" and sometimes it means a much more diffuse set of ideologies and aesthetics linked to Protestantism and capitalism. To say that western views of time are more linear and predicated on privileging notions of "change"/"progress" than African ones may be true in the aggregate in the twenty-first century, or in comparison to say many Native American systems of time. But that's not universally true. Dabiri's Irish; she surely knows why we talk about an athbhliain rather than a nuabhliain. The specificities of power and context matter.) <br /><br />However, none of that ultimately dilutes the power of a book which is so resonant and so clear in its call for a shift in the terms of the dominant conversations. High recommended.

<i>"Don't touch my crown<br />They say the vision I've found<br />Don't touch what's there<br />When it's the feelings I wear." </i><br /><br />I'll always remember the first time someone put their hands on my hair and said it looked like black cotton candy. It was my first summer here, I was just shy of 20 and all alone in a foreign country. So, a bunch of us were in group study and this 'person' just puts his hand in my high puff for a good couple of seconds just feeling it and all I could do was just sit there in that stuffy lecture hall smile and say THANKS when really I was boiling inside because "How the dareth you touch my hair and say it looks like bloody COTTON!!!" <br /><br />Anyways I'm far from that smiley 20 year old, New York has raised me well. Now, if you try that move on me I will karate chop off your hand. Cheers. <br /><br />Now personally, I have gone through the most with my hair. My relationship with Atemba (My hair) is complex. I can be term it as a love-hate relationship . On some days, I will love on her and she can decide to show love back. On other days, she'll be like girl NO! but she comes correct.. (well sometimes)<br /><br />I've not always understood that my hair is perfect as it is; growing up my mother used to do my hair cornrows, bantu knots, fro babies name it. But like most 4C type hair, mine is really coarse and abhors heat which is something that our mothers never really got. (Hello heat damage!) So I had it relaxed just before going away to a boarding school for my secondary education because I thought and honestly believed that is how beautiful hair should look. <br /><br />As a young adult, I slowly began to understand that my hair does not define me. I learnt that I do not need to conform to euro centric standards of beauty and that I do not have to hide my hair if that is not what I want to do. <br /><b>My hair is mine! It is beautiful!! It does not look like bloody cotton candy!! I can do with it as I please.. and so can you black queen </b><br /><br /><i>"You can shave it off<br />Like an African beauty<br />Or get in on lock<br />Like Bob Marley<br />You can rock it straight<br />Like Oprah Winfrey<br />If its not what’s on your head<br />Its what’s underneath and say HEY…." </i><br /><br />Dabiri talked about the aspect of hair as non binary and I appreciated the concept. Just because some choose to wear their hair natural doesn't make those that don't any less. We can not attempt binarize (is this even a word) our relationship with our hair because it is complex. <br /><br />So overall I am happy to have read a book that details something that I'm very passionate about!<br />I really enjoyed this book. I speed read through it as it was easily relatable. I will definitely be coming back to it as it also alludes to aspects of internalized racism that I would like to understand her perspective of ...

In Don’t Touch My Hair, Emma Dabiri, an Irish-Nigeraian television presenter and teaching fellow at SOAS University, takes readers on a journey exploring the history of black hair from pre-colonial Africa to today’s Natural Hair Movement.<br />Dabiri considers black hairstyles, their meanings, cultural origins and significance. However, what I hadn’t anticipated was the extent to which she considers our hair in relation to mathematics, philosophy, politics and economics, and I particularly appreciated the discussion around capitalism in relation to black hair.<br />The reality is that discrimination based on hair texture persists, especially when it comes to black hair worn in its natural state and, as black people, black women in particular, we’re often at the receiving end of some truly questionable comments and behaviours (hence the book’s title). Dabiri highlights many of these issues in a way that is intellectual yet conversational and I’d recommend this book to both those completely unaware of these issues and those who have personal experience of them.<br />Ultimately, Don’t Touch My Hair is an excellent combination of in-depth research, personal experience and so much passion and I’d highly recommend it.