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Reviews tagging 'Racism'
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
14 reviews
hmbrokaw's review
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Plenty to ponder
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Police brutality
artemisskyla's review
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.
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
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Gun violence, Murder, Police brutality, and Violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Fatphobia
kelsee28's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Police brutality, Racism, and Gun violence
koreanlinda's review
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
My hopes for this book was high after listening to an interview with Resmaa Menakem. In fact, I believe the trauma lives in our bodies and we need to heal it in order to make bigger changes, let alone any change. Disappointingly the merit of the book stops at this lesson. Here I will list the major reasons why I was disappointed by this book and why I recommend other books related to body-centered healing and racial justice. Please note that I skipped the chapters that are specifically written for certain groups of people (15-17, 20-22).
- The book takes the format of self-help guide and rarely shares research findings to back up author’s claims.
- Same ideas are repeated within a chapter and across multiple chapters. In addition, each chapter has a-page-long summary of its content.
- The author pictures the racial issues in the United States with three representative bodies of people: Black, White, and Blue (police force). This explicit frame and the language the author uses constantly and brutally erase Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latin Americans, and other people of color in this country. For example, "Whether your body is Black, white, or otherwise, ..." (p.289)
- The identity of target audience is confusing. For example, over pages 294-295, in different paragraphs, the author starts sentences with different audience groups: “We African Americans …,” “We Americans …,” We non-white Americans …”
- Author supports the existence of US police and advocates for maintaining it. He believes that this government entity can be successfully reformed by healing its individual workers. This takes the focus away from structural racism and makes it seem like racism is derived from individual trauma. Along that line, the author describes the racial oppression in the US as a “conflict” between groups. (p.295)
- Author claims that White Americans have been taking out their untreated trauma from medieval Europe onto Black Americans. He goes in details of the violent history of European countries; however, he does not explain the violence that Africans experienced before they were taken to the United States. In fact, body-on-body violence has taken place all around the world throughout human history. Residual trauma in European colonizers and their descendants in the US is not enough to explain the biggest and longest-lasting chattle slavery in the world.
- As one of ways to take care of one’s body, Author suggests losing weight. “If you’re heavy, losing even a few pounds may dramatically improve your health.” (p.162) What is most damaging to big bodies in the US is fat-shaming culture and fatal discrimination, not a few extra pounds.
There are definitely good places in this book such as the concept of clean pain and dirty pain. The idea is quite similar to Buddhist teaching of accepting the life as a whole including suffering. There are books out there that do a better job of educating readers on these topics without erasing whole bunch of Americans and supporting US police. Here are three that I would like to recommend:
- No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hahn
- The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
- We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba.
Review by Linda (she/they) in March 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Fatphobia
samudyatha's review
challenging
emotional
informative
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Police brutality
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Police brutality, Torture, Death, Violence, and Slavery
hankatcol's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Mental illness, Animal death, Police brutality, Racism, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis
lucy12345's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Police brutality, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Violence, and Colonisation
Moderate: Child abuse, Slavery, Murder, and Gaslighting
Minor: Body shaming and Gaslighting