My grandmother's hands

racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies

by Resmaa Menakem

Paperback, 300 pages

English language

Published Sept. 19, 2017 by Central Recovery Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-942094-47-0
OCLC Number:: 988170547

(5 reviews)

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Menakem argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans—our police.

My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

Paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy—how …

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

Paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy—how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system. Offers a step-by-step healing process based on the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods, in addition to incisive social commentary.

1 edition

VEMPHaHa reviewed My grandmother's hands by Resmaa Menakem

Review of "My grandmother's hands" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

When I got to the puppy paragraph (if you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about), the author recommended you put the book down for half an hour or so. I put it down for 5 months. The description and reasoning behind it rely on a theory I developed on my own as a result of abuse: if you watch a steel beam fall on a child's head, you have trauma, even though it wasn't your head crushed. Still. I hated the manipulation of this paragraph. The same way movies use cutie-cutie animals and kids and innocents to draw you in then--bam! They hurt them.

Why am I focusing on this paragraph? Because I don't understand the creation of additional cellular trauma in the service of explaining the retention of cellular trauma. So, yes, I agree with the author's premise that we retain and pass down generational trauma. And I find his suggested steps for interrupting the "lizard brain" reaction to racial situations spot on. Plus, his vision of white people creating a new culture totally meshes with my view of how my home state needs to 100% revise its original story. Hence, the 4 star review.

But if he truly believes in retained trauma—his core premise—how could he be a participant in creating more? That willingness, near the end of the book, shook my confidence in the author. So, no vouching here. Just a book review. Other than that, you're on your own.