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

“A key factor in the perpetuation of white-body supremacy is many people’s refusal to experience clean pain around the myth of race. Instead, usually out of fear, they choose the dirty pain of silence and avoidance and, invariably, prolong the pain.”

Race is a social construct that was invented in the 17^th century to help reinforce existing power structures. Institutions, beliefs, and narratives were created in support of, and around, this construct. Debunking the myth of race demands facing the ugly truth that formalizing a culture of white-body supremacy served practical functions for wealthy white landowners, soothing the dissonance between more powerful and less powerful white people, allowing white people to blow centuries of trauma through Black bodies, and helping colonize the minds of all people. Avoiding this truth is less painful than owning up to it, which explains why many Americans choose dirty pain over clean pain.

“There’s a way out of this mess, and it requires each of us to begin with our own body. You and your body are important parts of the solution. You will not just read this book; you will experience it in your body. Your body—all of our bodies—are where changing the status quo must begin.”

Menakem’s area of expertise is body-centered trauma therapy. This differs from talk therapy, which focuses on the mind. Menakem argues that trauma resides primarily in the body. Thus, healing racial trauma must begin with the body. Slavery traumatized generations of Black people. Similarly, Europe’s brutal history led to widespread trauma among white people. All bodies must heal to effect substantive change in the world.

“All of this suggests that one of the best things each of us can do—not only for ourselves, but also for our children and grandchildren—is to metabolize our pain and heal our trauma. When we heal and make more room for growth in our nervous systems, we have a better chance of spreading our emotional health to our descendants, via healthy DNA expression. In contrast, when we don’t address our trauma, we may pass it on to future generations, along with some of our fear, constriction, and dirty pain.”

The concept of intergenerational trauma is central to Menakem’s book. Menakem holds that trauma can be passed down through generations, contributing to stress disorders, learning disabilities, depression, and anxiety. It is also linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other physical ailments. Because trauma is inherited, healing it is critical to protecting future generations. Healing individuals and communities will be a slow, difficult process; however, the health and well-being of future Americans depend on it.

“The trauma that now lives in the bodies of so many African Americans did not begin when those bodies first encountered white ones. This trauma can be traced back much further, through generation upon generation of white bodies, to medieval Europe.”

Recognizing the role of white trauma in creating and perpetuating white-body supremacy is among the most important contributions of Menakem’s book. Menakem argues that unresolved intergenerational trauma is key to understanding racism in the US. Most studies of Black trauma begin in 1619, when the first Africans arrived in America. Menakem starts much earlier, pointing to the brutality of medieval Europeans to explain why white Americans blew their trauma through Black bodies.

“Race is a myth.”

Before the late 1600s, people were identified by their nationality or tribe. But during the colonial era, the social construct of race began to be propagated by white bodies to exercise control over non-white bodies. Institutions, structures, narratives, and practices support the myth. Race is believed to be unchangeable, but definitions of whiteness have shifted with time: Laws, regulations, and policies officially designated immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and Italy as non-white. The invention of race, then, not only required dominating non-white bodies but also othering some white bodies and not others.

“For well over 300 years, the Black body in America has been systematically brutalized, mutilated, murdered, abused, controlled, raped, objectified, and demonized by guns, whips, chains, and manacles; by shootings, lynchings, and rape; by laws, policies, social norms, and codes of behavior; and by images and concepts. For centuries, trauma upon trauma compounded.”

Menakem’s book is clear, direct, and free of euphemisms. He tackles difficult topics head-on. His writing style is of a piece with his argument that clean pain is the only path to healing racial trauma. As a form of avoidance, sugar-coating the brutalization and murder of Black people exemplifies dirty pain, which simply prolongs trauma.

“The deadliest manifestation of white fragility is its reflexive confusion of fear with danger and comfort with safety. When a white body feels frightened by the presence of a Black one—whether or not an actual threat exists—it may lash out at the Black body in what it senses as necessary self-protection.”

White fragility is a pernicious myth that presents white bodies as vulnerable, especially to Black people. It maintains that Black bodies are invulnerable, frightening, and impervious to pain. Further, it holds that the role of Black bodies is to care for, soothe, and protect white ones. The myths surrounding Black and white bodies have resulted in reflexive violence against Black people.

“What happens when a police officer’s body interprets the mere presence of a Black body—or the presence of a Black body and an object that could possibly be a gun—as a high-stress situation?”

White police bodies have reflexive reactions to Black bodies. The myth of the fragile white body and its counterpart—the invulnerable Black body—is especially destructive in policing contexts. Police brutality against Black people is pervasive in the US and often ends in needless deaths. Body practice exercises can help settle police officers during their encounters with Black people. Settled police bodies are less apt to shoot reflexively. The aim of body practice is not to encourage police officers to reflexively trust Black bodies, but rather, to settle their bodies and notice any reflexive distrust.

“We will not end white-body supremacy–or any form of human evil–by trying to tear it to pieces. Instead, we can offer people better ways to belong and better things to belong to.”

White-body supremacy engenders a powerful sense of belonging in white people, which makes them feel safe and gives life value and meaning. Laws and regulations will not end white-body supremacy. Promoting cultural change through new practices, narratives, and structures is the only path forward: A new white culture must call out, reject, and undermine white-body supremacy.

“Few skills are more essential than the ability to settle your body.”

Settling the body involves remaining calm, alert, and fully present regardless of the circumstances. A settled body allows a person to harmonize and connect with others. It also helps settle other bodies. Large groups of unsettled bodies are apt to riot. By contrast, settled bodies have the potential for tremendous good. A settled body is the foundation for good health, healing, helping others, and change.

“Clean pain is about choosing integrity over fear. It is about letting go of what is familiar but harmful, finding the best parts of yourself, and making a leap—with no guarantee of safety or praise.”

Menakem encourages readers to choose clean pain despite their fear of confronting pain–fear of the unknown. Healing trauma requires recognizing, accepting, and metabolizing pain by facing difficult things rather than reflexively fleeing or avoiding them. Walking through pain, experiencing it, and then moving through it are essential for healing and growth.

“All adults need to learn how to soothe and anchor themselves, rather than expect or demand that others soothe them. And all adults need to heal and grow up.”

White fragility is the myth that white bodies are vulnerable and require Black bodies for comfort and protection—a myth that infantilizes white people. Menakem instructs readers to grow up several times throughout his book. Growing up means accepting responsibility for one’s thoughts, actions, and healing, as unhealed bodies perpetuate trauma.

“It’s important to begin with the following observations: Trauma is never a personal failure, nor the result of someone’s weakness, nor a limitation, nor a defect. It is a normal reaction to abnormal conditions and circumstances.”

Trauma is commonly presented as a weakness or personal failure, but Menakem reminds readers that trauma is a normal bodily reaction. In a section that specifically addresses white readers, Menakem lays bare difficult truths about white-body supremacy, white privilege, and the participation of all white bodies in these racist structures. Prefacing the discussion with a reassuring statement lowers the reader’s defenses, making them less likely to constrict and more open to receiving information.

“You have the power to stop intergenerational and historical trauma in its tracks, and to keep it from spreading from your body into others. Above all, you have the power to heal. But first you have to choose to heal.”

Healing is of prime importance. Trauma is not a destiny. Individuals can choose to heal their trauma. Trauma is passed down intergenerationally. Helping future generations, then, begins with choosing to heal.

“American policing has many of its historical roots in slavery.”

The history of American policing is deeply relevant to discussions of contemporary racial trauma. American police forces originated in slave patrols, formed to assist wealthy landowners in capturing and punishing escaped slaves. As Menakem notes, some elements of slave patrols remain entrenched in American police forces to this day.

“Activism is a form of healing.”

Activism achieves collecting healing because it asks people to come together to change the world for the better. At its best, it is an expression of regard, compassion, and love. Activism can take many forms, but Menakem stresses body-centered activism. This form of social action begins with settled bodies that are open to metabolizing clean pain. Settled bodies can settle other bodies, while unsettled bodies can lead to chaos.

“Change culture and you change lives. You can also change the course of history.”

White-body supremacy is a culture. As such, it fosters a strong sense of belonging. White-body supremacy cannot be dismantled with laws and regulations. The only way to end white-body supremacy is to offer people an alternative culture that calls out, rejects, and undermines racism. Creating culture is not a quick or easy process. However, the US has undergone profound cultural changes in the past, proving that culture is far from fixed.

“White fragility is a lie, a dodge, a myth, and a form of denial. White Americans can create culture that confronts and dismantles white-body supremacy. Any suggestion that they are unable to rise to this challenge is a lie. White Americans are anything but helpless or fragile; they are (of course) precisely as capable as other human beings. But they need to refuse to dodge the responsibility of confronting white-body supremacy—or the responsibility of growing up.”

Using strong, clear language, Menakem challenges readers to reject the myth of white fragility. He urges white readers to take responsibility for replacing the culture of white-body supremacy with a new, anti-racist culture. White-body supremacy continues to exist because people refuse to grow up and metabolize their trauma. Instead, they indulge in avoidance, denial, and victim blaming–all forms of dirty pain.

“A disdain for history sets us adrift, and makes us victims of ignorance and denial. History lives in and through our bodies right now, and in every moment.”

My Grandmother’s Hands posits that trauma gets passed down from generation to generation and that the roots of American trauma go back centuries. History, then, is central to the book. Many white Americans prefer to focus on the present and future, rather than on the past. This form of avoidance hinders healing and perpetuates trauma.

“To all my white countrymen, I say this: Not only is it not my business to lead you out of white-body supremacy, but I would do you a profound disservice by trying to do so.”

White people should not look to Black people to lead them out of white-body supremacy. Doing so would reinforce the myth of white fragility and helplessness in racialized contexts. Menakem encourages white people to grow up and stand on their own two feet. He urges them to develop, uplift, and follow their own leaders to do the work of ending racism.

“To every member of the law enforcement profession, I propose this opportunity and challenge: You can be a genuine hero.”

In an unvarnished account of police culture in the US, Menakem calls out police brutality and systematic white-body supremacy in American law enforcement agencies. Though his discussion is filled with hard truths, it is never discouraging. He asks law enforcement officials to be agents for change by embracing community policing.

“There is so much more to be done—with yourself, with other individuals, with your community, and out in the world.”

Finishing the book does not mean readers are finished healing and growing up. These are lifelong processes. The book is not a grand solution, nor is it a magic bullet for ending racism. Readers must take care of themselves and their respective communities. Only after this initial healing has occurred can different communities come together in mutual respect, love, and trust.

“This is a conflict that white Americans must heal in themselves, for themselves, and among themselves.”

The current climate of divisiveness in the US is not primarily political or social. According to Menakem, the conflict is more elemental: It is about the very essence of whiteness. White people must take responsibility for healing their own trauma. Non-white Americans can support this healing, but the process cannot be outsourced.