What is melanin? In the most basic sense, it is a natural brown to black skin pigment in the skin, hair, and eye irises of people and animals (melanin can also be found in plants as chlorophyll). However, outside of this definition, there’s not much else the average person could tell you about it. In Dr. Llaila Afrika’s book, Melanin: What Makes Black People Black!, he discusses four important topics about melanin: 1) How to take care of and maintain melanin, 2) The differences between Black people & other races of people, 3) How the foods and substances ingested can cause abnormal emotional patterns and thoughts, and 4) “How melanin is being destroyed.”
Dr. Afrika’s book is not a long, tiring read and could be finished in one sitting if desired. In just under 70 pages, Dr. Afrika does a beautiful job going over the 4 above topics. Although the book isn’t a long read, you may want to have a dictionary handy for any of the scientific words used throughout the book that you might not be familiar with.
Any if not all underlying questions you may have about what else melanin is or what it can do can be found in this book. Things like melanin being able to resist temperatures over 1000 degrees, the hair of those with melanin act as antenna and pick up information from the sun, why melanin appears as black/brown, its effect on spirituality and the pineal gland, how to measure melanin and many more things were answered within this book.
If you weren’t able to find the answers you were looking for about melanin while reading this book, you at least have a better understanding of the subject which will help you with targeted research to find the answers you are looking for.
