Shayla Lawson & Emma Dabiri

Shayla Lawson is major. You don’t know who she is. Yet. But that’s okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring role in the major narrative. Whether she’s taking on workplace microaggressions or upending racist stereotypes about her home state of Kentucky, she looks for the side of the story that isn’t always told, the places where the voices of black girls haven’t been heard. The essays in Lawson’s This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope (Harper Perennial) ask questions like: Why are black women invisible to AI? What is “black girl magic”? Or: Am I one viral tweet away from becoming Twitter famous? And: How much magic does it take to land a Tinder date? Timely, enlightening, and wickedly sharp, This Is Major places black women at the center — no longer silenced, no longer the minority.

From Guardian contributor and prominent BBC race correspondent Emma Dabiri comes Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture (Harper Perennial), a timely and resonant essay collection exploring the ways in which black hair has been appropriated and stigmatized throughout history, with ruminations on body politics, race, pop culture, and Dabiri’s own journey to loving her hair. Through the lens of hair texture, Dabiri leads us on a historical and cultural investigation of the global history of racism — and her own personal journey of self-love and finally, acceptance. Deeply researched and powerfully resonant, Twisted proves that far from being only hair, black hairstyling culture can be understood as an allegory for black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.

Register for the Zoom event  /  Buy the Book  /  Buy the Book