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

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Menakem: [ laughs] So what happened was, I asked one question. I said, “How many people in here believe in diversity?” Everybody shot their hands up. Boom. Everybody. I said, “Answer this one next question.” And I said, “Don’t bring your hands down. Answer this question. Diverse from what?” My Grandmother’s Hands will change the direction of the movement for racial justice.”— Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility If you know mindfulness practices, some of the practices here will be familiar if not quite the same. The strategies for settling the body are definitely some I will be working with.

An important concept is how trauma can spread between bodies, termed “blowing” trauma through another person, using varying degrees of abuse, control and violence. This phenomenon often occurs as a result of triggers, in a spontaneous manner, which are considered unintended, and thus may be rationalized after the act. This spread can occur in families as well as among strangers. And one of the things that I talk to people about is that there is this nerve that comes out of the brain stem, and it’s called the wandering nerve. And it hits in the face, it hits in the pharynx, it hits in the chest, it hits in the gut — it wanders the whole body. And it, I believe, is one of the things why we have “gut” reactions, because most of that nerve actually ends up in the gut. And when we’re stressed, that gut constricts or opens. And so one of the things that happens is that if I’m with you long enough, like if me and you become friends, over time I will start to hear things in your throat because the vagal nerve is either open or constricted. Menakem: Well, I don’t say “bodies of color” anymore, because what I’m trying to do is, I’m trying to reclaim the idea that I’m actually a human.

Menakem: I think what it means to be human is to realize that we’re ever-emerging and that that — that we are not machines. We are not flesh machines. We are not robots. We come from and are part of Creation, and that that cannot just be something we talk about when we go to a yoga retreat — that it has to be a lived, emergent ethos and that — one of my ancestors, Dr. King, talked about how when people who love peace have to organize as well as people who love war. And for me, what that means is that it’s about work. It’s about action. It’s about doing. It’s about pausing. It’s about allowing — the reason why we want to heal the trauma of racialization is that it thwarts the emergence. So let’s not do that. Let’s condition and create cultures that will allow that emergence to reign supreme so that the intrinsic value can supersede the structural value.

Menakem also challenges the myth of white body fragility and pain sensitivity that too often distracts attention from the problem of racism and elicits cautious caregiving from other white enablers and BIPOC bodies that have been conditioned to sooth and comfort white bodies. I also noticed stereotypical ideas about weight and overweight people. I did not appreciate that and I do not think it was necessary at all. Menakem: That’s it. All of your intelligence, all of the smart things you’ve done — this is one of the things that happens with me when I come off the stage and I’m doing like, a book signing. One of the first things that happens is that white people will invariably come up to me and start rolling out their racial resume: “Well, you know, I marched with such-and-such. And you know, I did this, and you know, I did that.” I've spent my entire life trying to feel comfortable in my body, and I'm still getting there. Fiction books about trauma often get under my skin (in the best possible way)and can be like a balm when couched with depictions of love and healthy relationships. What Menakem offers here that works so well in conjunction with that literature is a reminder that we are bodies as well as minds, *even when we read.* And in most situations, we are bodies first.

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. Menakem Introduces a model he refers to as "somatic abolitionism," which focuses on feeling and healing the embodied trauma of racial injustice. These can bebuilt, day by day, throughreps. These communal life and invitational reps willtemper andcondition your body, your mind, and your soul to hold the charge of race Menakem: “I don’t have rage.” Watch. Notice that one of your ancestors may show up, not as an image, but as a sense.

Throughout Part I of the book, the author leads readers through a series of body grounding and settling practices, which include awareness of our environment, guiding us through fears and hopes that arise. This is of immense help to all of us: to notice when we are open or constricted and what causes these reactions, what it activates, and where any discomfort or pain is located. The practices should be repeated several times. Menakem: Because when you say “diversity,” that means you start someplace first, and then you diversify from it. undoing white-body supremacy is first and foremost a somatic endeavor. the cognitive/thinking parts will flow second (because the lizard brain, the part tied to our vegus nerve, is both faster than cognition AND the vegus nerve can override cognition). His few chapters that provide breathing and grounding exercises are helpful, but 1) I cannot divorce the rest of his harmful perspective from these suggestions and 2) you can find information on those breathing and grounding exercises elsewhere without subjecting yourself to pro-cop and policing rhetoric.

The healing that results on an individual and group level can be taken into the community, for each of the groups that receive focus in the book, as well applying to the greater community.