My Grandmother’s Hands — A Classic

Resma Menakem’s: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies — is simply a classic — a Must Read!

One can, perhaps, disagree with his splitting of American people in one way — having a third category besides “white” and “Black” with “Blue” (police, security and similar) — but he makes a forceful case for how we all are dealing or not dealing with our traumas — a most important perspective.

If you have a white body, there will be times when it will reflexively constrict in order to protect you from some of the truths you’ll encounter. This constriction wil be followed by a thought such as “I’m not like that; I’m a good person,” or “White-body supremacy has nothing to do with me,” or “This isn’t about me because I don’t belong to a racist organization.”

When this occurs, just notice what you’re experiencing without doing anything about it. (p. xiii)

Perhaps the most damaging, yet least visible, assault on Black hearts is an ongoing lack of human regard. Here are some ways in which white Americans routinely fail to show regard to Black human beings:

* Not listening or paying attention to someone, or outright ignoring them, as if Black bodies were invisible.

* Interrupting or talking over Black people.

* Nat taking someone seriously (for example, saying, “You don’t really mean that,” or “you don’t really think that,” or “You really don’t feeling that way,”…