Segun Gele: Master of Nigeria's gravity-defying headgear (dap @ Yok)

Nigerian, Segun Gele, earns a living as a master headwrapper. Great story.

But I am even more impressed by the fact that brother Segun earns a living whilst hanging out with gorgeous black women all day.  Hmmm.

Do your thang, Segun. Do your thang.  GI

By Misty Showalter, CNN

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- Segun Gele, or to use his full name Hakeem Oluwasegun Olaleye, is a man making a name for himself in a woman's world.

The Houston-based businessman has made an artform out of tying a gele -- the gravity-defying headwraps worn by Nigerian women.

To meet him is to understand how he became a celebrity in a field only a few years in the making. He's not only a vivacious self-promoter; he's also clearly thrilled to find himself making money doing something that comes so naturally to him.

Watching Segun Gele whip the material into graceful folds and arcs in less than five minutes, you know he is the master.

Geles come in different fabrics such as damask, brocade and "aso-oke" (hand-woven fabrics popular for Yoruba special occasions in Nigeria). The most popular fabric among Nigerian women is a metallic fabric made from jacquard.

They have been worn by Nigerian women for generations, but in recent years has become the ultimate fashion accessory for important parties and events in the U.S., something that Segun Gele partially credits himself for.

He says when he moved to Houston, Texas in 2003 from Nigeria, many Nigerian women had stopped wearing their gele because it was just too difficult to tie by themselves. To Segun Gele, this was a great tragedy.

"I mean, you would not find a woman wearing a good headwrap," Segun Gele said. "They would rather wear pantsuits to a Nigerian party. They would rather wear their jeans to a Nigerian party. And when they had the headwrap made, it was just okay."

He first noticed he could turn his skills into a promising business when he offered to tie a woman's head wrap at a friend's wedding.

Within minutes, he had whipped the two-yard fabric into a headturning, vertiginous shape that left other women at the party impressed. Before long a queue had formed and he started charging $7 a piece to tie gele at the wedding, Segun said.

Over time his rates grew to $10, then $15, and now he rarely ties wraps at parties but reserves his services for weddings or other special occasions.


Read more @ CNN Markeplace Africa


tags: economics, black hair, Nigeria, beauty


image credit: CNN

The DR Congo at 50- "I would like to become white" (Dap @ Jemima)

My dream is to become a nurse, or if not, go to Europe. I'd like to marry a white man and become white myself. I couldn't be completely white, that's not possible, but cream is good for whitening the skin.

So would it be a mistake for African Americans to read this as internalized self-hate? Or should we assume that something entirely different and specific to Congo is going on? Below, I push against two opposing positions:

1) that Africans (i.e. black people) get the same message everywhere or that

2) the traditional black North American analysis (internalized "self-hate") is outmoded. 

Context certainly matters. But the flip side is that we can try so hard to be sophisticated in our analysis that we can miss the obvious. I have seen about half of west Africa and I have talked about race with Africans all over the continent for about 13 years. Every nation in Africa that I know of has individuals who struggle with internalized self-hate (in many instances the white Jesus complex is a primary culprit).

Yes we can go on for hours about complexity and nuance. In fact just yesterday I came across a quote from a DRC villager who has a very astute critique of Europeans (p.14) Perhaps we could do the city-village thing and hypothesize that urban people are more colonized than village folks. We can raise issues about translation and what not. Indeed, we can dance around this issue all day and night. But I don't think its off the mark to conclude that this young sister who talks about bleaching her beautiful black skin, becoming white and marrying a white man is struggling with a colonized mentality.

Would it be better to consider that this Congolese sister desires a better life as opposed to wanting pale skin?

Certainly. But we have been raising these same questions in the US for centuries. When someone desires a better life by bleaching or marrying white or passing it suggests that the individual or group in question is suffered from internalized self-hate. That was Biko's (1970s) analysis. And before him Malcolm X (1960s). And before him Marcus Garvey (1920s). And before him David Walker (1829, p.11). Internalized self-hate and the desire for a better life are not mutually exclusive. The desire to seek a better station in life by bleaching your skin or marrying white people are outcomes of racism/white supremacy. You don't have to understand racism to be a victim of racism.

However, there is a danger in imposing African American assumptions on DRC realities. Clearly, internalized self-hate in DRC is not quite the same as internalized self-hate in Compton or Chicago. But I happen to think that internalized self-hate is a good baseline from which to think more comprehensively about the universal impact of white supremacy in specific places. So, again, my argument is that self-hate and the desire for a better life are not mutually exclusive. An externally imposed (i.e. imposed by white people) inferiority complex is the baseline from which we may raise a host of issues both local and translocal. The mistake, therefore, is not drawing upon older models or black North American models. Rather, the mistake would be to stop asking questions beyond the (correct) assumption of self-loathing.

View more @BBC News - In pictures: The DR Congo at 50

tags: congo, race, post-colonial, aesthetics, beauty, mental slavery

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Skinny vs. Fat : An African Woman on the Politics of Feminine Beauty « WEHNAM

What do you see, my sister?

Common phrases for Skinny and Fat Women

1.Bonka Fish (in Creole: Skinny woman whose features resemble that of a dry fish)

2. Duwawu ( In Hausa: A woman with big buttocks)

3. Duguwa ( In Hausa: “A tall skinny woman with no living particulars”)

4. Giwa ( In Hausa: an elephant)

5. Ta Ciko ( In Hausa: the woman has filled out)

6. Flat ( In Creole: Skinny, “chest-less” babe)

When you turn on the television in the West the face of a Skinny chick is what you see. However, most African men love, I mean love, Fat babes ( When African men use the word fat, they mean curvy and voluminous– big breasts and ass– like the shape of a soft drink bottle or an hour glass). Growing up in rural Northern Nigeria, I frequently witnessed the execution of this unwritten constitution. Every man and woman was aware of its power. A woman was considered beautiful if she carried extra weight around the chest, and, most importantly, her ass. The complexion should be very dark, the hair needed to be braided at least once a week, and let us not forget it is a must for her to know how to husband her husband’s home and those eight children she birthed from her ample hips.

As a young child, given this is the imagery that I was constantly reminded of, I fell in love with fat women. I remembered when some of my late yayah kaka’s (elder sister’s) friends were saluted by some men on the street with names such as Giwa (elephant- in Hausa) or “Complete” (meaning the babe got correct living particulars in the right places). As the African legend Fela Kuti puts, “ yass is a wonderful thing.’ That is to say a woman’s big ass is a wonderful thing. I liked the way fat women attracted positive reception when they graced the sight of humankind, the respect they got whenever they exhale words in the midst of both sexes and the self-pride and self-worth that wrapped around their being. Hence, I was convinced that when I grew up I would be the ideal fat bush woman!

Read more @ WEHNAM

tags: gender, aesthetics, beauty, sierra leone, hausa, nigeria