Emma Dabiri
@EmmaDabiri
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“If James Connolly & Audre Lorde had a love child” bestselling author & broadcaster. Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies. Columnist @guardian C. Ed @elleuk
London
Joined July 2012
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I really think we need replace “people who look like me” politics with “people who are structurally positioned like me”. “Looks like me” alone obscures way too much about class, as well as access to opportunities and resources.
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Irish dancing but make it
@theestallion
Can’t quite express how much I love this 💚
#morganelizabeth
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To see a young black Irish man with a Yoruba name speaking in Irish about the Black Panthers and the revolutionary power of solidarity and coalition is ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE EVER SEEN 😍 follow
@Taiwo_Oifigiuil
🖤
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There are many individuals who might be perceived as belonging to “oppressed minorities” in the Global North, who are in-fact members of the rapacious, extractive elite classes of the Global South countries they come from.
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Townley Grammar School has “abandoned “racist” hairstyle-related punishments, allowing girls to dye their hair a riot of colours from silver to purple.” “After reading...Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri” Mr Deehan the head teacher “had an epiphany”
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Some of you legit don’t realise that Ireland is NOT a part of Britain
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Growing up and literally NEVER hearing any other black people who sounded like me, this is too joyous 🤣
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Race discourse in Ireland really needs to move beyond black people having to convince people racism actually exists & the media asking us to recount every single fucking racist exchange we've ever had (take my word for it, its uncountable). Lets talk about what happens next...
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Really sick of hearing descriptions of black people who ‘broke barriers’, like the ‘barriers’ are just some naturally occurring phenomena out there in the world, rather than carefully constructed tools of white supremacy.
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I don’t know who needs to hear this but the revolution will not be “diversity in advertising campaigns”
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We’re being manipulated to think migrants are a threat in order to justify coming out of the ECHR - but this would leave us ALL vulnerable and without protection. And while the targeting and scapegoating STARTS with the most vulnerable it doesn’t end there!!!
#bbcqt
Emma Dabiri on Suella Braverman
🗣️‘ We need to be extremely vigilant , we’re being manipulated to think migrants are a threat.
Coming out of the ECHR. It’s starts with the most vulnerable. Then they would erode ALL our rights, unless you are part of the ruling class” 👏🏼
#BBCQT
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Barbara Beese and son Darcus Beese marching in support of the Bengali community Bethnal Green in the 1970s
#SmallAxe
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People will make assumptions about your motivations based on their own lack of integrity
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The circularity in the fact that the Irish famine -a result of British colonialism- forced Bidens ancestors to flee to US where now centuries later their descendant is President with the authority to thwart Britain’s Brexit ambitions over continued disregard for Ireland’s fate.
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I’m so bone achingly bored by racism. I really wanted my first Guardian column to be about something I love rather then something I hate. But then this happened, so here we are
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In early June I was approached by
@OrrCollins
to write a piece of
@IrishTimesMag
. I had another suggestion; I would guest edit a special edition centring black writers; an opportunity to broaden the range of perspectives we hear from, not just for this issue but going forward
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Listen carefully, Anne Marie Kelly lol. “African” is quite general, I’m Yoruba specifically! I’m also Irish. Ethnically I’m both ! I feel so lucky to have two such rich cultural heritages that I belong to ☺️💚💚💚
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What the
#RaceReport
has done is reduce the whole country to playing the ‘It’s Racist’ ‘It’s not Racist’ game, keeping everyone locked in nongenerative oppositional exchange, making it almost impossible to address what needs to change! It’s a distraction technique par excellence
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I wrote about representation politics, celebrities, the Labour movement, “Influencer - Activists” and the Black Radical Tradition for
@guardian
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Sis you are absolutely BLOWING UP on Irish Twitter. We LOVE you 💚 (and for Black Irish people such as myself I can’t tell you how especially inspiring you are) 🇮🇪👸🏾😘
I know I shouldn’t even pay attention to the ignorant people in my mentions, but i’m only human and this stuff gets to me so I felt the need to just write this down and get my frustration out
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I just heard another
#MeghanMarkle
“isn’t black enough” to experience racism take and I thought a lot of people don’t seem to understand how racism works? Thomas Jefferson’s children were 7/8s white, their father was the President of the United States, & they were STILL ENSLAVED
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this same smirk, had it trained upon me. Thank you Marlon for articulating exactly what it means.
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#RishiSunak
All “POC” are not the same + it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding not only of this, but also of history + reality,to interpret todays events as some sort of win 4 “representation”, using language + frameworks appropriated from black American experience
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Great craic on my
#HIGNFY
debut tonight, hosted by the luminous
@VictoriaCoren
, joined by fellow guest the brilliant
@joshwiddicombe
, and of course, the iconic Ian & Paul. Tune in
@BBCOne
9pm !
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A note on Dublin statues. Reposted from Jan 2019: “It’s not everyday (ever) that I encounter a statue with hair like my own. How fitting that it’s Phil Lynott & in my own hometown. Makes a nice change from honouring slave traders & colonialists. U.K. really needs to do better!”
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We need a truthful reckoning with colonial history & how categories “black” & “white” invented in 17th c English colonies, enshrined the concept of ‘white superiority’ that underpins racism today. This is the missing context in convos regarding Archie’s ‘skin tone’
#MeghanMarkle
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The main issue with
#ComicRelief
exists beyond the problematic white saviour trope. Rather it’s the fact it entirely obscures the role the west plays is CREATING & PERPETUATING poverty in Africa. The west is not some philanthropic benefactor, its the cause of most of the problems
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Ta-da! Delighted to share the cover for
#WhatWhitePeopleCanDoNext
. WWPCDN is full of surprises and I think this cover alludes to that so beautifully. I love it so much 💜
Preorder:
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Just overheard some posh English woman going on about “stupid Irish people” (obviously assuming there was no-one Irish around). I turned around and said that was pretty uncool. She nearly died when she heard my accent 😂
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Going forward, let’s maintain this social distancing energy when it comes to touching black folks hair
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One reason why class analysis is vital to understanding systems of oppression
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Let me correct that for ye a chara. My mothers side have been “Irish” going back millennia before the term would have even existed. My paternal grandfather came to Dublin from Nigeria in 1950s to study law at Trinity before returning home, my dad then came over in the 1970s ☘️✌🏽
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Do you demand ‘empathy’ for your ‘lived experience’ while remaining entirely without empathy for any other lived experience (no matter how extreme or painful) that differs to your own ?
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Absolutely love these new Irish stamps featuring
#ThinLizzy
front man
#PhilLynott
#BlackIrishHistory
#BlackHistoryMonth
🖤
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“Mr Deehan relaxed all appearance rules at his school after reading a book called Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri, an academic who is calling for black children’s hair to be protected in law”. Big ups to
@DesmondDeehan
🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽
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#Whiteprivilege
is absolutely not the most effective lens to apply to inner city Dubliners involved the
#dublinriots
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A few times I’ve been home over the last few years I’ve noticed the over policing of black events but I’m in shock and horror that a 27 year old black man has been shot and killed by the police in Ireland ?! Like wtf?! How many people are shot and killed by the police in Ireland?
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Im sorry but the phrase
#whiteprivilege
hardly created adverse material conditions of “WWC”. Let’s start w/ Enclosures Acts of 1700s. These allowed wealthy farmers to buy up large sections of land that smaller farmers relied on for centuries to graze their cattle collectively
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We’re going to have to talk about BOUNDARIES. Just because you have access to someone via email or social media doesn’t mean they owe you time, energy or explanations. I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but people really need to reflect & pause in relation to expectations
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As an Irish person living in the U.K. this obsession with the Royal Family and
#MeghanMarkle
whether “for” or “against” is quite remarkable to me
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Big News 🎉 Beyond excited to announce publication of my first book Don’t Touch My Hair
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Absolutely obsessed with this via
@pamelora
- this is the standard of Twitter ‘debate’ which is one of the (many) reasons I won’t argue with people on this app !
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What a sad day, but true to form the racism that was birthed here centuries ago & has remained a cornerstone of British identity, has been mobilised once more to do the work it was invented to do; cause the majority to act against their own interests for the benefit of the elite!
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Woke up to hear Don’t Touch My Hair is in the Irish Times Top 10 non-fiction charts ! Proud to be part of this turning point in Ireland’s history 💚
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Whiteness is a colonial construct. It’s invented by the English in the colonial Caribbean and the English Americas. One of the questions that I pose in the book is: who were white people before they were racialised as white?
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“I am the friend of liberty in every clime, class and colour. My sympathy with distress is not confined within the narrow bounds of my own green island. No - it extends itself to every corner of the earth”.
Frederick Douglass quoting Daniel O’ Connell
#solidarity
🇵🇸
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#Bridgerton
does a fantastic job of whitewashing history and obscuring the truth that much of the ‘impressive’ wealth of that period was generated by slavery in the Caribbean
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The actor with an HONORARY qualification trying to pull academic rank on Dr. with a PhD. The levels of hubristic delusion...
Binary thinking of the least enlightening kind,doctor
Best wishes, Professor Cleese. LL.D ( St Andrews )
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Bookshops are re-opening ! Probably never been more excited about a Monday before 📚🥳 🎉🤸🏾♀️
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Next time somebody frames a question to me as “Is it racist”? I’m simply refusing to answer. I’m not playing that game & going round in circles. Race was invented to promote the myth of white superiority. This historical context needs to be starting point of convo about racism
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Colonised people, working people, minorities, fighting each other rather than forming coalitions to work together to create mass movements that could truly change the world will never not be the biggest own goal !
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So in 1969 the Black Panthers had people reading 10 books relating to Black liberation and socialism before joining the party. In 2019 social media is branding reading these same books as “elitist”. And this is progress?
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That’s right me re-learning my mother tongue is me stealing YOUR language ? You literally couldn’t make this up. Actual lol 🫶🏽
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It contrasts dramatically with the Londoncentric narrative of UK blackness but Liverpool actually has the oldest black population in the UK with some Liverpudlians able to trace their black ancestry back ten generations
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I don’t know who needs to hear this today but Irish cities and towns aren’t just regional parts of the U.K.
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Not me being interrupted and hustled off LBC just as I’m getting into the fact that race was invented to keep exploited people of all ethnicities uniting against English landlords 🤣
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Where are the white feminist commentators extolling the
#feminist
milestone that is
#blackpanther
? The movie nails female representation in a way that’s not seemed possible until now in the history of
#Hollywood
yet...crickets...
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Irish bestsellers this week ! I do hope all the teachers who relentlessly undermined & discouraged me hear the news! This ones for youuuuu ☺️
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I find Yoruba philosophy deeply inspiring, expansive & humane. “The sky is wide enough for all to fly without colliding”. What an antidote for our troubled times 🤍🕊
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And as a representative of British Imperialism ✌🏽
Meghan Markle‘s first-ever visit to South Africa is meaningful on many levels. ❤️ "I am here as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color, and as your sister."
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Big News! Following on from the viral success of my resource What ‘White People’ Can Do Next,
#WWPCDN
the book will be published March 4th 2021. Preorder here
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My US debut has had a snazzy makeover! Introducing TWISTED: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture. Proofs just in, out May 2020 from
@HarperPerennial
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Not gonna pretend it’s not unfortunate circumstances but I’m actually enjoying all the Irish wit on display in the clapbacks at the racists 😂
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Ruth Negga and I discuss WEB Du Bois, Audre Lorde, Malcom X Fredrick Douglass and Daniel O’Connell - real girls talk 😉
#blackirishlives
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There will never be another
#SineadOConnor
! In this world of cowardice and conformity, of cut + paste thinking, ideas, behaviour, and beauty, she was uniquely singular and now she’s gone, and I feel bereft 💔
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I said EUROCENTRIC standards! Not “eccentric” standards ! What does that even mean??
“You wouldn’t say that a child’s skin was too dark...”
@EmmaDabiri
tells
#BBCBreakfast
that afro-textured hair should be legally protected after a girl took legal action when she was repeatedly sent home from school.
More:
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I find it odd when people reduce my race down to “what I identify as” rather than understand that I’m positioned by patterns of racialisation that I have little control over
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It’s really not complicated, yet people seem so confused by the fact that you can have parents from two different parts of the world 🤷🏽♀️
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Are you one of the people who insists that if you were alive in 19th century you wouldn’t have used slave produced products, while clutching a smart phone that requires coltan from the Congo, dressed in clothes made by sweat shop labourers ?
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.
@UrswickSchool
I would love to send you a copy of Don’t Touch My Hair as you demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the characteristics of Afro textured hair & a subsequent disregard of its significance
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I’ve just confirmed that I’ll be reading the audio version of Don’t Touch My Hair. I’m so excited by the thought that everybody who listens to this book about black hair will be treated to the dulcet tones of a Dublin accent 👊🏽☘️
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As white female influencers use various methods to transform their faces and bodies so they look “mixed-race” on Instagram, Emma Dabiri looks at the cultural history of this racist practice.
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Like other colonial inheritances that we are eager to dispense with, our inherited notions of black inferiority are ones we should enthusiastically consign to the dustbin of history.
#blackirishlives
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Y’all surprised at Royal family’s fear about Archies complexion?!I guess most people don’t have experience of being black in white families, but this type of thing is pretty standard & ofc is going to be turbo charged in the highest echelons of British establishment
#MeghanMarkle
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A more pertinent question here might be to ask why Britain’s biggest soul singers are all white ?
#culturalappropriation
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It feels sort of distasteful reading you saying it’s a minor issue. Just because it’s outside your sphere of knowledge doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I left home as a teenager primarily because of the racism I experienced, same for many others. I’ve written extensively about it.
@feline_charm
@erskinechilders
Racism in Ireland is a minor issue; however witchhunts exaggerate such issues. Your tweet above is an invitation to join a witchhunt. If there is racism in Ireland then, its likeliest source is the witchhunters, themselves. I decline your invitation to join in it for that reason.
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The fact gardai fatally shot a 27 year old mentally ill black man & the unconscionable justifications from the public, at the close of 2020 the year
#BLM
went global, should indicate that much of current mainstream ‘anti racist’ framework does little more then preach to converted
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It can also be easily manipulated to promote fictive kinships, and distract from less “visible” -but perhaps more aligned- commonalities of interest.
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“Within the binary thinking that underpins intersecting oppressions, blue-eyed, blond, thin White women could not be considered beautiful without the Other—Black women with African features of dark skin, broad noses, full lips & kinky hair”
@Knightcartoons
#RacistTroupes101
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Change is in the air & on our streets !
A crowd has climbed onto the statue of colonial King Léopold II in
#Brussels
chanting “murderer” and waving the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo where his atrocities took place.
#DRC
🇨🇩
#BlackLivesMatter
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Please remember that nearly everything we are "taught" about Africa emerges first from the need to justify slavery and latterly from the ongoing need to justify the continuing theft of its resources✌🏽
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The British literally moved there + invented the nation
#Nigeria
in order to extract its resources. It’s called
#colonialism
look it up
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Trigger warning for racists but really being mixed is such a blessing! I love being Irish and Nigerian. Having heritage in two such wonderful cultures ☘️🇳🇬💚
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Also what is this assumption that all “non-white” people are from economically marginalised backgrounds ? Like there’s no “non-white” elites in the world and there’s never been any powerful empires that aren’t white European ???
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Being in the U.K. & watching friends resume ordinary life in parts of the world actually capable of responding to the pandemic puts a new spin on who is really the ‘third world country’
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The obsession with
#representation
, the failure to connect the dots between capitalist exploitation & racial injustice, as well as the absence of internationalism & lack solidarity with other oppressed people, sets much of today’s
#activism
in contrast to that of our forebears
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Delighted to have joined
@TheHughLane
as a new board member. An immense privilege to be working with such an important cultural institution.
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