Don't Touch My Hair Book Review

With recent discussions surrounding black hair and black empowerment, I took the time to read the highly acclaimed book “Don’t Touch My hair” by Emma Dabiri. Loving and accepting my natural kinky hair is something I personally struggled with during my childhood and too many black woman also face this challenge, including Emma. My hair always had to be tamed, fixed, put away or relaxed, something Emma also experienced thousands of miles away. We weren’t wrong to hate our hair… society taught us to. At a point I started to question why? 4 years ago I decided to start spending my time decolonizing, and “Don’t Touch My Hair” became a part of my decolonizing process.

In this book Emma Dabiri, takes you on her hair journey as a mixed race black woman, who is expected to have been born with loose bouncy curls but came out with what is believed to be a curse... tight coils. From her time in Atlanta to her native Ireland in not one of these spaces was Emma considered to have 'good hair'. 'Good hair' that Emma describes as making her feel inadequate, good hair that made me also feel inadequate. Emma's hair journey took a drastic turn from wishing for good hair and doing all that she can to tame her kinky coils to examining why she hated her hair and growing to accept it. In this book Emma intelligently examines the journey of those who came before us and their descendants. Emma discovers that hair plays a major role in the identity of blackness and perhaps blackness has less to do with our skin than previously thought. From pre-colonial West Africa to the proudly black afro in the civil rights movement and texturism in the natural hair movement, this book is the book that keeps on giving.

This book examines why our relationship with our natural hair is so troubled and proves why our hair is not and never will be, just hair. Emma provides you with tons of interesting black history through the lens of black hair, history I personally would not have even thought to ask. At the same time she discusses pop culture and yes this means the appropriating Kardashian-Jenner Clan and their “Bo-Derek” braids get a special shout out too. With every chapter I learned something I had never learned before. I found myself going back and reading highlighted notes to my friends, because honestly some parts had me shook. This book gave me a sense of pride in who I am and gave me knowledge I likely wouldn’t have found elsewhere. Though cleverly titled “Don’t Touch My Hair”  this book doesn’t just stop at hair, you get much more than you bargained for. Two words to describe this book is soul food, this book is food for the soul and I am not talking about mac & cheese and pork intestines. If you are trying to be woke or if you are woke, this book will have you woke woke and it is a definite must read! 

Don’t forget to take the time to find and support local black owned businesses. Not only can this book be found on Amazon it can also be found at Adifferentbooklist.com, a black owned business in Toronto.