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

Chapter 19 focuses on creating a culture that disavows white-body supremacy. Culture is multifaceted. It includes shared rituals, symbols, uniforms, displays, language, stories, rules of admonishing, and many other elements. A shared culture is deeply soothing, especially to traumatized bodies. It makes people feel like they belong. However, most social activism emphasizes strategy over culture. Menakem argues that shifting the emphasis to culture can produce changes that strategy alone cannot.

White-body supremacy is part of American culture, so creating a culture that calls out, rejects, and undermines white supremacy is the only way to bring about lasting change. This process will be long and difficult; however, profound cultural changes are interwoven in US history: For example, effective birth control and the invention of computers led to major changes in American culture.

Separate changes must take place in Black, white, and police cultures. These parallel processes may take decades. Only afterward should the three groups consider working together. Essential aspects of creating culture include:

1. Uplifting elders to guide younger generations;

2. Creating and telling new stories, such as tales of resilience and compassion;

3. Supporting leaders to guide and serve as role models;

4. Repeating changes until they become the norm;

5. Practicing self-care and collective wellness;

6. Learning to settle the body; and

7. A willingness to accept and metabolize clean pain to promote healing.

To create a path to cultural healing, Menakem recommends amplifying the voices of Black leaders, artists, writers, activists, and others who address racial trauma. Their experiences of metabolizing clean pain can help others do the same. Learning, teaching, and doing away with traumatic retention are also important, as is understanding intergenerational trauma and African history and culture. The better people understand their past and pain, the easier it will be for them to heal.

Naming children after Black role models, creating unique names for children, and encouraging people to rename themselves are powerful acts of reclamation that promote healing. Similarly, teaching body awareness and somatic healing in schools can create more resilient, focused, and mature adults. Healing is a disruptive process that demands perseverance. Encouraging elders to take leadership roles and learning to regard others are other key aspects of healing.

Chapter 21 envisions a new white culture not based on white-body supremacy. To achieve this, white, Black, and police bodies must acknowledge the trauma of white-body supremacy, move through clean pain, and grow up. White Americans must chart this course for themselves, with guidance from white leaders. Rather than a blueprint for change, Menakem offers suggestions and observations, which include acknowledging the links between the past, present, and future; pledging to work alongside Black people to affect change; creating new symbols and icons; and establishing rules of belonging and admonishment.

Building a new culture is a daunting task, but examples abound in American society, notably, in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. Guidance and leaders are helpful, but the onus for change lies with individuals. Setbacks, frustrations, and failures will occur. Persistence is key. Menakem suggests naming white children after Black leaders, teaching them to respect and appreciate their namesakes, and using their names as a point of departure to discuss history. Influential white people can also choose to name buildings, streets, and landmarks after admirable Black figures. Immigrant and religious organizations present other avenues for change, as do progressive groups dedicated to social justice. Efforts to end white-body supremacy should not focus on depriving white people of anything, but on extending white rights, privileges, and opportunities to people of all colors.

Chapter 22 focuses on ridding police culture of white-body supremacy. Menakem envisions law enforcement organizations that command widespread respect, appreciation, and gratitude. Right now, police officers are not admired or respected in many communities of color. Rather, they are viewed with fear and suspicion. These attitudes are the outcome of biased practices that target, maim, and kill Black people.

Community policing presents an opportunity for change. This model of policing is not a philosophy, but a set of ongoing actions that involve making officers part of the communities they serve. Decentralizing power is key to this model: Community members must look out for each other and their environments. Similarly, police officers must view themselves as community advocates who interact with residents, volunteer in the community, meet with community leaders, play with children, contribute to community projects, attend worship services in the community, and present as approachable and friendly. Officers must also reject dogmatism, recognize inequity, and continue to prevent and combat crime. Law enforcement leaders can contribute by creating genuine community policing models, abolishing quotas, demilitarizing their organizations, retraining their officers, rejecting procedures that elevate whiteness, recruiting from within communities, and tracking the performance of subordinates. Partnering with community organizations to promote civil liberties and reduce the number of police killings is also central to community policing.

One of Menakem’s grandmothers took in her sister’s two young children and raised them as her own when their birth mother was hospitalized for schizophrenia. The other did the same thing with her daughter’s four children after their mother became addicted to cocaine. Menakem discusses the impact of his grandmothers’ selfless acts: “Both of my grandmothers recognized the need for someone to step in and fulfill a parental role […] They drew on their own resilience and stepped forward. This helped create room for growth in the bodies and nervous systems of their grandchildren” (288). The influence of Menakem’s grandmothers became more apparent over time: “I didn’t realize it until I was in my early fifties, but both of my grandmothers also helped to create greater room and resilience in my body and nervous system. Their actions taught me to willingly shoulder responsibility” (288).

Change begins with individuals, but it also involves working within communities, and with society more broadly. Menakem’s book is a beginning, not a comprehensive solution. He invites readers to step into something much bigger.

Black, white, and police bodies must care for themselves and each other. They must help each other mend and mature. All bodies must participate in creating new cultures without white-body supremacy. These new cultures must be body-centered. They require settled bodies willing to metabolize clean pain. The process will be long and difficult, so the time to begin is now. Healing demands contending with the hate associated with racial trauma, and keeping the body settled during the process is of paramount importance. With time and effort, people will learn to engage with their bodies and with the world with love and trust. Respect and the willingness to help are the foundation for change.

Chapter 24 revisits key points from the preceding chapters. European settlers to America brought with them millennia of intergenerational and historical trauma, which continues to live in the bodies of most Americans. Instead of healing from their trauma, white people created the concept of race and white-body supremacy, in turn embedding their trauma into the bodies of African slaves and their descendants. Much of American culture is built around this trauma, but society has reached a moment of reckoning and the opportunity for change is at hand. It is time to either heal the hearts and bodies of people of all colors or continue on the current path of destruction. White Americans are at the heart of the conflict and must heal themselves. People of color can support white healing, but they cannot do the work for whites. Black people can, however, endeavor to recognize, accept, and metabolize their own trauma. With time and effort, healing, safety, and trust are possible.