You Can't Touch My Hair (And Other Things I Still Have to Explain) by Phoebe Robinson

To say that I am a fan of Phoebe Robinson is a gi-nor-mous understatement. Listening to 2 Dope Queens is one of my very facorite things to do. And redo. And I wish I still had a bus commute so I could do it morrreee. Ditto Soooo Many White Guys. (If these are things you don't know, GO FIND THEM NOW. Like, why are you still reading this? Go listen to some podcasts, yo!)

There are way too many highlights to capture them all, so I'll just generically slap some quotes up. But I'll also say that the first 30 pages of this book made me laugh out loud (something I rarely do), made me cry (another thing I seldom do), and made me think about things I've thought about before in a whole new way.

"Blackness is not a monolith. ...But some people don't want to believe that, because if varying degrees of blackness become normalized, then that means society has to rethink how they treat black people. In other words, if you allow black people to be as complicated and multidimensional as white people, then it's hard to view them as the Other with all the messy pejorative, stereotypical, and shallow ideas that have been assigned to that Otherness."

"i got into comedy partially because I was not hot. The other part was that I realized I could make people laugh with slick ans narky comments, but honestly, the not-hot factor played a huge role. I was always the girl that made all the boys laugh, and while that never got me any boyfriends, it got me male attention, which I was happy-ish to settle for while they all traipsed off with the better-looking, cool girls...It made me a better, more interesting person because I developed other skills to attract people, and one of those skills is my sense of humor and personality."

Perhaps the part that made me laugh the most most most is when Robinson makes a list of demands for Future Female President.

"3. OK, this is probably the most import request on this list, so if you can only do one thing, I beg of you that it's this: When you get sworn into office, yell, 'I'm a feminist,' and then throw your fist in the air like you're Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club.
   ...3A. I get that this may seem super aggressive and that politicians are not supposed to ruffle feather, but this would be the ultimate gesture to let women know you have their backs. Now, FFP, if you're Hilary Clinton, you're probably like, 'Can't people tell I'm a feminist because I wear Talbots pantsuits on the regs?' 1. Please don't say 'regs.' So not your stulye, and 2. No, because, your wardrobe screams 'very fancy judge at a chili cook-off in Minnesota' more than it does 'feminist,'so we need you to actually drop the F-bomb into the microphone. And when you do , so many crazy old white dudes are going to freak out that it'll seem like someone just told them there are only seven tickets remaining on StubHub for a Steely Dan concert."

on being one of two black girls in a predominantly white school: "There was always a tinge of loneliness that colored my high school experience. I didn't have a mirror, a soundboard, someone who knew the same things I did because we were from the same cultural tribe."

Robinson also tackles the history of black hair throughout pop culture, schooling me on Angela Davis, Res, and Erika Badu. She also hits many high notes of women on film that didn't lead with the pretty, but with their strength (see CJ Cregg, Felicity Porter, Denise Huxtable, Maxine Shaw...).