BBC World Histories - 08.2019 - 09.2019

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same styles that will cause black children to be excluded from

schools or black employees to be told their hair is inappropriate

for work. Discriminating against black people on the grounds

of their hair has happened with such frequency that, earlier this

year, such discrimination was recognised and declared illegal

in New York City.

The irony here is that there’s a disparity between the

treatment of white people, who choose these hairstyles, and

of black people, who actually need to use them because of the

way in which they maintain their hair.

And, again, the historical context is important: the

relationship between Europe and Africa, and the descendants

of Africans, over the past 500 years has been largely based on

a process of extraction of resources for the benefit of western

economies and cultures. So this kind of facsimile of ‘black-

ness’ that celebrities create or appropriate – which often

makes them seem like edgy, hugely successful performers

but for which black people are demonised – is part of that

process of extraction.

So although some people often want to dismiss claims

of cultural appropriation as frivolous and silly and shallow,

or say: ‘Oh, this book is just about hair, and hair’s really

superficial’, those arguments betray an ignorance of the

wider historical picture.

You write that “everything you’ve been taught about

Africa is a lie”, and that it’s a story designed to justify

the continent’s continuing exploita-

tion. How does the story of hair fit

within that, and how would you like

this book to change people’s impression

of its significance?

More than just changing people’s

attitudes towards the significance of

hair, I want them to reassess the ways

they think about things such as cultural

appropriation, precolonial African

societies, and present-day African

society and culture.

The quotation that you referenced in your question is

taken from the final chapter of my book, in which I look

at the relationship between braided hair and fractal mathe-

matics, which was used in urban planning in Africa (for

example, in the vast walled compound of Benin City) as

well as in hairstyles such as the braided pattern known in

Yoruba as ipako elede.

The African continent has a lively mathematical history

that we never really hear about, because it doesn’t fit the estab-

lished narrative of African primitivism. We hear stereotypes

of black people excelling at physical activities – in athletics,

for instance, or sports more generally – but we don’t really hear

about their successes in what are seen as intellectual or cerebral

traditions. So I want to encourage a deeper understanding of

African history, of which hair is just a part.

Are there recent, positive cultural images of black hair that

you would like to highlight?

It’s not even necessarily about positive representations – it’s

about any representations at all. The kind of textured hair that

I have was something that had to be hidden or transformed,

and you were never going to see a main protagonist on the

big screen with that type of hair. So, as well as celebrating it,

we need to just normalise it and present it simply as ordinary

hair that grows from ordinary people’s heads.

And we are, increasingly, seeing that portrayed across

various media. The 2018 Marvel [superhero] film Black

Panther was one of the most significant

moments in this story, but even on

television series such as [US comedy-

drama] Atlanta, it’s now quite ordinary

to see some of the rituals of black

hairdressing or hairstyling.

So we are now seeing women

tying headscarves, opening their

twists in the morning, or taking off

their wigs – historical rituals that

you just wouldn’t have seen before,

made normal.

Emma Dabiri

is a social historian,

writer and broadcaster,

and a teaching fellow at

SOAS University of London.

Her new book is Don’t Touch

My Hair (Allen Lane, 2019)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Actors Lupita Nyong’o

and Letitia Wright in

Black Panther. The 2018

superhero film was widely

praised for featuring

characters with

unstraightened hair

reflecting traditional

African styles

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