Not a hair out of place
DIONNE TAYLOR applauds a history of black hair that deftly weaves in African metaphysics, the modern beauty industry, black power, patriarchy and the natural hair movement
Why and how can hair be political? “It’s only hair” is a statement often repeated to black women and girls. Yet delve into Emma Dabiri’s Don’t Touch My Hair, and it quickly becomes clear that black hair has been – and remains – embroiled in an ambiguous array of stigmatisation, exploitation and appropriation.
This inspiring text moves between memoir and history to look at black hair and its associated identity politics. The identities of many people located in black diasporic communities – who can trace movements from the African continent to the Americas, Caribbean, Europe and the UK – are a source of contention, particularly around legacies of enslavement and colonialism. Hair, as a part of one’s identity, is located in a context of racism, sexism, colourism and several other ‘isms’. This means that, inevitably, “hair is significant for those in west African diaspora cultures”.
Dabiri comprehensively traces hair traditions and practices from the African continent – specifically Nigerian Yoruba culture, Ghana and Sierra Leone – where haircare and maintenance has strong links with family, community and rite-of-passage rituals for women and girls. In these cultures, hair provides a sense of pride and connection to ancestry and the spirituality that is embedded in many west African cultures.
Contrast that with Pretoria, South Africa, where pupils at a prestigious girls’ high school were disciplined for not looking ‘neat’ when wearing their natural kinky afros. Their experience echoes that of women in the Americas brought to court for wanting to style their hair in dreadlocks and braids – styles deemed ‘unprofessional’. Throughout history, black hair has been policed, coerced and managed – or, in simpler terms, straightened – to conform to European conventions of beauty and to mirror white hair types. If it’s curly, for instance, these curls should be loose and free-flowing, not tight, kinky or frizzy. Black hair types have been seen as shameful and inferior, whereas white hair types are ‘respectful’ and ‘civilised’. In her new book, Dabiri aims to refute this rhetoric, offering
Throughout history, black hair has been policed, coerced and managed – or in simpler terms, straightened – to conform to European conventions of beauty
new ways of viewing (but not touching!) black hair types.
Dabiri adeptly weaves her own personal experiences as a mixed-race Irish-Nigerian woman into the text. She recalls encounters both in Ireland and Atlanta, Georgia, where she spent her formative years, in which hair and skin tone were both detrimental and advantageous to her.
Moving from the 1920s Harlem renaissance and the black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s via African metaphysics, the beauty industry and, more recently, the natural hair movement, Dabiri ably demonstrates that hair is never ‘just hair’. It can and does remain political; it is about patriarchy, neoliberalism and capitalism. However, it is also fe, a Ghanaian Ashanti Twi word for something beautiful.