For this year's Cúirt International Festival of Literature, which runs from 21st - 25th April, we're delighted to host a series of Cúirt conversations here on RTÉ Culture - Emma Dabiri talks about her new book What White People Can Do Next with Blindboy Boatclub above.
A work of history, sociology, philosophy and social commentary, Don't Touch My Hair explored in fascinating detail an aspect of anti-Black discrimination so commonplace as to be almost invisibilised. Emma Dabiri's second book, What White People Can Do Next, is a challenge to all of us taking the first tentative steps of standing up against a society that still struggles to move past narratives of Irish national exceptionalism. Though our history is one of colonial oppression, the Irish state – from immigration policy, to direct provision, to the housing crisis – seems all too ready to step into those colonialist shoes. Dabiri’s book calls for more than gestures, thoughts and prayers, demanding education and substantial, sustainable action. This conversation with one of Ireland’s sharpest, wittiest and most rigorous writers, will be essential viewing.
