My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Sensitive and probing, the book My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies is a call to action for society to recognize that racism is a physiological response to society's racially prejudiced actions, and the effects of the trauma of this response on White bodies, Black bodies, and police bodies. Our instincts to fight or flee reside within our bodies, and when any trauma is inflicted, the biopsychosocial response kicks in. Author Resmaa Menakem takes an innovative approach in addressing the damage caused by racism in America. To many people, racism is about the head and intellect. But Menakem posits that White supremacy is internalized deep into our bodies as well. His approach is about healing the body as well as the mind. He states, “White body supremacy does not live in our thinking brains. It lives and breathes in our bodies” (p. 5).

Menakem focuses on racial trauma, with a “body-centered” physiological paradigm. It is his belief that racism will be present until society and its members change their views of the generational trauma caused by White body supremacy. Not only African Americans are affected by this behavior; White Americans and police officers are impacted by this trauma as well. Menakem's alternative view introduces strategies for how we can grow beyond this attitude of racial injustice so deeply entrenched in all aspects of our society, to reach a state of healing.

Speaking from his wisdom and from interactions with his grandmother, the author delves into the complex effects of racism and White privilege. He write that “race is a myth—something made up in the 17th century” (p. 67). Concepts of whiteness and racial superiority now are viewed as facts of life, like birth, death, and gravity (p. 68). What an insightful approach to an issue that has plagued our nation before, during, and after slavery. The goal is for readers to experience the book, by consciously removing unhealthy reflexive responses to traumatic intergenerational racial experiences and emotions and by using mind and body exercises and techniques to overcome the stress associated with these responses.

Have we achieved racial justice and equality within our nation? Menakem posits this answer as a resounding no. As a nation we must perceive the current definition of White body supremacy as not rational, and our understanding of White body supremacy should be that of internalized deep trauma in our bodies that can create an uncontrolled physiological response to racism and all its manifestations. To address the issue of White body supremacy effectively requires a deeper understanding of the emotions, feelings, thoughts, and physiological responses we as individuals have daily to overt and covert racist behaviors.

The book further explains how trauma from White body supremacy is passed down through families of both dominant and minority races via culture, and through the generationally transmitted responses to the trauma. Menakem gives the reader a true understanding of how the trauma of White body supremacy brings about other factors (violence, poverty, oppression) that are influential to those who have been marginalized. Because of those experienced traumas, marginalized individuals (Menakem's Black bodies), along with their counterparts (White bodies) experience fear of each other's race.

The trauma of White body supremacy is also influential in law enforcement (Menakem's Police bodies). Individuals engaged in law enforcement experience the trauma of White body supremacy through fear. Fear takes over the individual's cognitive behavior, which leads to irrational decision making. The irrational decision causes trauma for the marginalized group (Black body), as well as law enforcement (Police body) as a group and as individuals.

The trauma our ancestors have worked through is influential in our lives today; throughout the book Menakem uses the reader's body as a teaching tool to help readers understand how to experience those ancestral traumas as what he terms a conscious clean pain.

As a nation we must perceive the current definition of White body supremacy as not rational, and our understanding of White body supremacy should be of internalized deep trauma in our bodies that can create an uncontrolled physiological response to racism.

To White readers and law enforcement, Menakem offers stern advice to get started now with the healing process. He offers counsel to African Americans by highlighting and validating the value of the African American experience related to White body supremacy. This is an extremely thought-provoking book that offers a new paradigm and an innovative approach to healing America's long-standing racial wounds and trauma.