Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

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

5 reviews

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.

Content Warnings