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

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies is a 2017 nonfiction book by Resmaa Menakem, an American therapist specializing in body-centered trauma therapy. A New York Times best seller, the book examines the impact of racism on Black, white, and police bodies in the United States of America, positing that historic, familial, and personal trauma is stored deep inside the nervous system. The title of the book gestures to its thesis, namely, that trauma resides in the body and is passed down from one generation to another. The subtitle spells out Menakem’s main goal: to provide readers with tools to heal from the trauma of white supremacy.

This guide refers to the 2017 edition published by the Central Recovery Press.

Plot Summary

My Grandmother’s Hands comprises four introductory sections, followed by three parts and concluding matter. Part 1, “Unarmed and Dismembered,” explains how white supremacy is systematically, but unwittingly, embedded in the bodies of Americans before birth. The passing down of racial trauma from one generation to the next created a legacy of suffering in all Americans, regardless of color. Menakem coins the term white-body supremacy to describe his body-centered understanding of racial trauma. He provides a concise history of trauma in Europe, focusing on methods of corporeal punishment in the Middle Ages, to explain that trauma in America predates slavery. Part 1 ends with a call for personal accountability. Menakem urges readers to take responsibility for healing. Without it, white-body supremacy will continue to harm Americans of all races.

Part 2, “Remembering Ourselves,” offers readers dozens of body-centered activities to help mend from the trauma of white-body supremacy. These activities also create opportunities for growth in the nervous system. This part’s opening chapters address all readers, while later ones focus on the bodies of specific groups, namely, Blacks, whites, and the police. The chapters for Black readers grew out of Menakem’s Soul Medic and Cultural Somatics workshops. Those for white readers draw on similar workshops Menakem co-led with white allies, facilitators, conflict resolvers, and healing practitioners. The chapters for law enforcement officials are based on Menakem’s work with police officers on trauma, self-care, and white-body supremacy.

In Part 3, “Mending Our Collective Body,” Menakem posits that everyone can be a healer. He provides tools to take individual healing, knowledge, and awareness into the community by offering simple, structured activities that help release the trauma of white-body supremacy. The primary goal of this chapter is to enable individuals, families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and society more broadly to heal. Menakem first offers strategies that anyone can apply, followed by tools aimed at Black, white, and police bodies. He ends his book with brief discussions of the killing of Americans by law enforcement officers and the imperative for societal change.