My Grandmother’s Hands

My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem

In the very excellent book, My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem, he refers to people like Malcolm X and James Baldwin as having settled bodies and focused minds. The book is about racialized trauma and he uses the terms white body supremacy, white bodies, black bodies, and police bodies.

It is a fascinating study and insight into historical trauma and how that lives in our bodies.

He refers to clean pain and dirty pain. Dirty pain is that which is pushed down, not able to be seen, and thus not able to be metabolized. Clean pain is seen, understood, and worked with in order to heal and release.

Something that struck a chord with me is his discussion of how we blow our own trauma through other people’s bodies if we do not heal it in our own. He touches on centuries of white body inflicted trauma on white bodies in Europe before colonization of the Americas. He talks about white inflicted trauma on black bodies during slavery and to the present day.

He talks about intergenerational trauma and about intergenerational resilience.

Throughout the whole book, he presents a clear picture of trauma and how it works in our bodies. He also covers exercises and practices to heal the trauma in our own body. He has a…