Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

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

14 reviews

xfallenxnightx's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Colonisation, Slavery, Racial slurs, and Racism

galaxys's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

This book is not abolitionist. It routinely talks to police as an audience and as a black person those parts are hard to get through- skip them! Not worth it. The trauma stuff was cool and why I read the book- I feel like I’ve been looking for checklists, non cbt based exercises, and more understanding of trauma 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Police brutality

hmbrokaw's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

Plenty to ponder

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Police brutality

artemisskyla's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Racism, Police brutality, and Mental illness

katharina90's review against another edition

slow-paced

1.5

I completely agree with the foundational argument of this book. White supremacy lives in our bodies, not just our minds. Trauma, incl. racial trauma, is carried in our bodies and passed down through the generations. It affects and harms all bodies, incl. white ones. 

As a result, healing trauma has to include working with the body. Don't rely on only rationally processing trauma (talk therapy). Learn to recognize how trauma shows up in your body and how to regulate your nervous system. 

If you process your trauma and protect others from it, e.g., your children, you can pass down resilience instead of trauma. 

After the author laid out the above early on, the book started to resonate less and less. Mostly I just found it repetitive but it also contained some very weird takes and offputting statements, incl. fatphobic and police apologist/reformist nonsense. 

We can't self-care our way out of systemically violent and racist policing. Officers who meditate, get massages and take bubble baths will not magically stop being agents of white supremacy and state violence. And referring to the murders of unarmed Black adults and children as "errors" is really not it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Gun violence, Murder, Police brutality, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Fatphobia

kelsee28's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Police brutality, Racism, and Gun violence

samudyatha's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Police brutality

fierymoon's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality and Racism

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.25

First, I want to thank audiobooks for helping me finish a book I just could not bring myself to read the physical version of 🙌

Second, this book made me realize how much I absolutely just do not pay any attention to my body and how it reacts to things. Because of that and because of my other attention issues, the body exercises in this book were so weird and difficult for me. I just couldn't do them or take them seriously, even when I was really genuinely trying. It's like yoga, I'd always overthink it or ruin the mindfulness in one way or another. I'm sorry, but I just don't think I'll ever be able to literally see my ancestors and don't really have any desire to wash anyone's feet.

So! If you're like me, you might struggle too with that part of this book, but I'm sure many others will get a lot of value from these bits, so read this book! It's at least worth it for the discussions on how our bodies remember and react to trauma, generational body trauma, white body supremacy, white body fragility, and creating healing cultures. I also want to keep this book to refer back to some of the strategies for grounding and settling your body because I feel like those could be really useful for my socially anxious and non-confrontational self. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Police brutality, Torture, Death, Violence, and Slavery

hankatcol's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Mental illness, Animal death, Police brutality, Racism, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis