No me toques el pelo

smoothed. stigmatized. "Tame". Celebrated. Erased. managed. Appropriate. Always misunderstood. Black hair is never "just hair." This book is about why black hair is important and how it can be seen as a model for decolonization. Through a series of informed and wry essays, Emma Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, Black Power, and on to the current natural hair movement, cultural appropriation, and beyond. We see it all, from hair capitalists like Madam C.J. Walker in the early 20th century to the rise of Shea Moisture today, from women's solidarity and friendship to the "time of the blacks," forgotten African academics and the dubious origin of Kim Kardashian's braids. The scope of black hair styling spans from pop culture to cosmology, from prehistory to (Afro)futurism. Uncovering sophisticated indigenous mathematical systems in black hairstyles, along with styles that served as secret intelligence networks that led enslaved Africans to freedom, Don't Touch My Hair shows that far from just hair, black hairstyle culture can understood as an allegory of black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.