My Grandmother's Hands

My Grandmother's Hands Plot Summary

Introduction

Trauma is not merely a mental condition—it lives in our bodies. Racialized trauma specifically has been embedded in American bodies for centuries, affecting not only those who directly experience racial discrimination, but all Americans through our shared history and collective unconscious. This somatic understanding provides a revolutionary framework for addressing racial wounds that conventional approaches have failed to heal. The pathway to healing America's racial trauma requires us to recognize how these wounds manifest physically, not just intellectually. Traditional diversity training, racial dialogue, and cognitive approaches often fall short because they don't address where racial trauma truly resides—in our nervous systems, our muscles, our visceral reactions. By exploring how white-body supremacy has shaped the bodily experiences of Black Americans, white Americans, and law enforcement officers differently, we can begin to understand why racial reconciliation efforts have historically struggled to create lasting change. This somatic perspective offers a fundamentally different approach to healing, one that begins with settling our bodies and creating space for growth rather than merely changing our thoughts.

Chapter 1: Trauma Lives in the Body, Not Just the Mind

For the past three decades, America has attempted to address racial injustice primarily through reasoning, principles, and ideas—using dialogue, forums, education, and mental training. Yet despite these well-intentioned efforts, the destruction of Black bodies continues, often at the hands of law enforcement. This disconnect exists because white-body supremacy doesn't live in our thinking brains—it lives and breathes in our bodies. Our bodies possess a form of knowledge that differs fundamentally from our cognitive brains. This knowledge manifests as felt sensations of constriction or expansion, pain or ease, energy or numbness. Often, these bodily sensations store wordless stories about what is safe and what is dangerous. The body is where we fear, hope, and react; where we constrict and release; and where we reflexively fight, flee, or freeze. Recent advances in psychobiology reveal that our deepest emotions involve the activation of our bodily structures, particularly what the author calls our "soul nerve"—the vagus nerve that connects the brainstem, pharynx, heart, lungs, stomach, gut, and spine. Trauma is not primarily an emotional response but a bodily one—a spontaneous protective mechanism used by the body to stop or prevent further damage. When something happens that is too much, too fast, or too soon, it overwhelms the body, potentially creating trauma. This trauma then gets stuck in the body until addressed. Importantly, trauma responses are unique to each person and influenced by their physical, mental, emotional, and social makeup. This body-centered understanding explains why conventional approaches to racial healing have been ineffective. When a white body encounters a Black body, centuries of embedded trauma can trigger an automatic, non-cognitive response in the lizard brain—the part that only understands survival and protection. These responses bypass the rational brain entirely. No amount of diversity training or cognitive education can override these deeply embodied reactions. The trauma of white-body supremacy affects everyone. For many African Americans, it manifests as an array of physical and psychological conditions—high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, chronic inflammation, hypervigilance, and more. But trauma also lives in white bodies and in the bodies of law enforcement professionals, albeit in different forms. Understanding these differentiated experiences is crucial to healing our collective wounds.

Chapter 2: White-Body Supremacy: A Historical and Somatic Timeline

White-body supremacy did not originate with the enslavement of Africans in America. Its roots stretch back to medieval Europe, where white bodies traumatized other white bodies for centuries. The English who colonized America had experienced or witnessed extreme brutality—public torture, burning at the stake, and mutilation were common practices. Many fled to the New World as refugees from imprisonment, torture, and starvation. When European colonists arrived in America, they brought not only their resilience but also their unhealed trauma. Initially, laborers were imported from both Africa and European countries as bondsmen or indentured servants who would gain freedom after fulfilling their contracts. These white and Black workers lived together on plantations, and in several early worker revolts, they rose up together against the plantation owners. In response, powerful white landowners developed a divide-and-conquer strategy in the late 1600s. They gave white workers small parcels of land and quasi-leadership positions overseeing Black bodies, while forbidding Blacks from owning land. This deliberate strategy shifted the power divide from landowners versus workers to white people versus Black people. The concept of "whiteness" itself was legally codified, beginning in Virginia around 1691. This historical process transformed what had been white-on-white trauma into white-on-Black trauma. Powerful white bodies needed to soothe the dissonance among white bodies, so they created a racial hierarchy that positioned whiteness as the standard against which all other human beings would be compared. This pattern repeated with later waves of immigration—Italians, Irish, Eastern European Jews, and other European immigrant groups were initially considered non-white, but within a generation or two, each was socialized and accepted into the false community of whiteness. Over time, this racialized structure became embedded in every American institution—science, history, economics, governance, courts, policing, education, employment, housing, and medicine. The historical timeline can be divided into distinct somatic eras: The Middle/Dark Ages, the Native American Decimation and European Colony Era, the Enslavement Era, the Jim Crow Era, and the current Neo-Crow Era, which began in the 1980s with the War on Drugs and the mass incarceration of Black bodies. Throughout these eras, the trauma of white-body supremacy has been passed down through generations—both through socialization and, as recent genetic research suggests, through our DNA. This intergenerational transmission of trauma, or "soul wound," occurs through families, through unsafe or abusive systems and institutions, and through the biochemistry of the human egg, sperm, and womb.

Chapter 3: The Three Bodies: Black, White, and Blue

White-body supremacy has created distinct yet interconnected trauma responses in three types of bodies in America: the Black body, the white body, and the police body (regardless of race). Understanding how these bodies view each other illuminates why racial tensions persist despite decades of reconciliation efforts. The white body typically sees itself as fragile and vulnerable, looking to police bodies for protection. It views Black bodies as simultaneously dangerous and needing to be controlled, yet also as potential sources of service and comfort. This paradoxical view has historical roots in plantation dynamics, where enslaved Africans were both feared and relied upon for labor and care. When a white body feels frightened by a Black body—whether or not an actual threat exists—it may reflexively lash out in perceived self-defense. The Black body experiences the white body as privileged, controlling, and dangerous. Its relationship with police bodies is complex—sometimes seeing them as protectors, sometimes as threats, and often as an occupying force when they congregate in large numbers. This perception is reinforced by everyday experiences: being followed in stores, receiving less attention from service providers, being pulled over while driving, and facing microaggressions in countless interactions. The police body, regardless of its own racial identity, tends to view Black bodies as dangerous, disruptive, and impervious to pain. Over recent decades, policing in many communities has shifted from "protect, serve, and keep the peace" to "control, arrest, and shoot." This militarization creates chronic stress for officers, whose bodies need to operate under contradictory demands—being calm and settled 90 percent of the time, yet ready to activate instantly like soldiers. These perceptions are not conscious choices or rational beliefs. They are embodied sensations and reflexive responses generated by the lizard brain, which constantly categorizes other bodies as either safe or dangerous. For many white bodies and police bodies, unfamiliar Black bodies automatically register as threats, triggering fight, flee, or freeze responses. When these officers' bodies sense danger—real or imagined—they may respond with disproportionate force, later explaining, "I feared for my life." These bodily reactions have deadly consequences. When Officer Timothy Loehmann shot twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, when Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Philando Castile, and when other officers have killed unarmed Black Americans, these were not rational decisions but trauma responses—bodies reacting to perceived threats at lightning speed. The tragedy is compounded when these officers are then not held accountable because "I was scared to death" becomes an accepted legal defense for taking a life.

Chapter 4: The Five Anchors: Moving Through Clean Pain

Healing trauma requires recognizing, accepting, and moving through pain—what the author calls "clean pain." By walking into this pain, experiencing it fully, and moving through it, we metabolize it and put an end to its grip on our bodies. Clean pain is about choosing integrity over fear, letting go of what is familiar but harmful, and making a leap with no guarantee of safety. This healing happens in the body, not in the head. The alternative is dirty pain—the pain of avoidance, blame, and denial. When people respond from their most wounded parts, they only create more dirty pain, both for themselves and for others. White-body supremacy itself can be understood as a form of dirty pain, an attempt to soothe centuries-old trauma by blowing it through the bodies of others rather than healing it. Moving through clean pain involves five steps, which the author calls "the five anchors": The first anchor requires soothing yourself to quiet your mind, calm your heart, and settle your body. This might involve shutting up for a few seconds, sitting down, mentally telling yourself to "stay calm," or finding an internal resource that feels safe or pleasurable. The key is to slow down the body's automatic trauma responses. The second anchor involves simply noticing the sensations, vibrations, and emotions in your body instead of reacting to them. Pay attention to body sensations—your back against a chair, your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the wind on your face. As thoughts and emotions arise, don't run off with them; instead, bring yourself back to your body and its sensations. The third anchor requires accepting discomfort—and noticing when it changes—instead of trying to flee from it. When you feel the urge to tamp down or push away discomfort, keep your attention focused directly on it. Stay with it and notice when it changes, because if you don't flee, it eventually will change. The fourth anchor involves staying present and in your body as you move through the unfolding experience, with all its ambiguity and uncertainty, responding from the best parts of yourself. Don't try to predict what will happen next or manipulate others' responses. Act from your deepest integrity as events unfold. The fifth anchor requires safely discharging any energy that remains after a conflict or difficult situation. Just as animals in the wild instinctively shake off excess energy after danger passes, humans need to release the built-up tension in their bodies through exercise, dancing, physical labor, or following the body's natural impulses to move. Practicing these five anchors helps create more room in the nervous system for flow and coherence. It builds capacity for growth and enables genuine healing. The process differs for each person and each situation, but the foundation remains the same: staying in the body, slowing down, and moving through clean pain rather than avoiding it through dirty pain.

Chapter 5: Building New Cultures Beyond White-Body Supremacy

Healing from white-body supremacy requires not only individual body work but also the creation of new cultures that support collective healing. Culture is how our bodies retain and reenact history—through the foods we eat, the stories we tell, the images that move us, and how we see the world. When culture competes with strategy, culture wins every time, which explains why even the most brilliant anti-racism strategies have failed to dislodge white-body supremacy. To create lasting change, each group—Black Americans, white Americans, and law enforcement professionals—must first develop their own healing cultures before attempting to work together on a large scale. This separation is necessary because currently, these groups routinely trigger trauma in each other's bodies. Only after each community learns to settle its own bodies and practice the five anchors can they effectively come together. For African Americans, cultural healing involves raising up leaders who have addressed their own racialized trauma; learning about traumatic retentions (harmful patterns passed down through generations); teaching about African history and cultures beyond the trauma of enslavement; invoking the power of naming and renaming; and practicing body awareness and somatic healing with children from an early age. For white Americans, healing requires acknowledging the ancient trauma in their bodies; separating whiteness from supremacy; creating a culture of accountability rather than guilt or denial; extending white-skin privilege to others rather than hoarding it; and developing elders, rituals, symbols, and practices that support growth beyond white-body supremacy. White Americans must build culture that helps them tolerate discomfort, move through clean pain, and grow up. For law enforcement professionals, cultural healing involves transforming from soldiers to genuine community members; measuring success by neighborhood improvement and citizen satisfaction rather than arrest quotas; practicing self-care and stress management; training in psychological first aid and trauma recognition; and reimagining their role as protectors who are part of the communities they serve rather than occupiers patrolling enemy territory. Culture building takes time and consistency. It requires elders, rituals, symbols, stories, mentoring, codes of behavior, and a shared vibrational language. Most importantly, it creates a sense of belonging—something humans deeply crave in their bodies. We can never belong to a strategy or a movement, but we can belong to a culture. While this cultural transformation may take years or even generations, it offers the only sustainable path forward. The alternative—continuing to live within the traumatized culture of white-body supremacy—guarantees more suffering for everyone, regardless of skin color. Building new cultures means creating more room in our collective nervous system for growth, flow, and possibility.

Chapter 6: Body-Centered Practices for Individual and Collective Healing

Healing begins with practices that help settle the body and create more room in the nervous system. The soul nerve—what neuroscientists call the vagus nerve—is central to this process. This complex organ connects most of the body's vital systems and is where we experience emotions like fear, grief, dread, compassion, and hope. When the soul nerve functions well, the body feels relaxed, open, and in sync with other bodies. Simple, ancient practices can help regulate the soul nerve. These include humming, belly breathing, buzzing like a bee, slow rocking, rubbing the belly, chanting, singing, and focused breathing. These activities are not merely relaxation techniques but ways to develop a relationship with the body, recognize its signals, and learn to settle it intentionally during difficult moments. Beyond individual practices, collective healing requires body-centered activism—bringing settled bodies together for social change. Before any protest, march, or demonstration, activists should take time to settle their bodies using grounding techniques. Event organizers can incorporate group humming, synchronized belly rubbing, or foot washing to help harmonize bodies and create a calm, focused presence that encourages other bodies to settle as well. For African Americans specifically, collective healing practices include group drumming, rhythmic clapping, communal cooking, mindful hugging, wailing circles during times of grief, and creating reprieve spaces where people can take shelter from the ravages of white-body supremacy. These practices have helped Black Americans survive and remain resilient for generations. For white Americans, healing involves noticing what happens in their bodies when they encounter unfamiliar Black bodies, practicing settling those automatic reactions, and taking small everyday actions to share white privilege with others. Simple steps might include choosing Black service providers when options are equal, sitting next to Black bodies on public transportation, or calling out microaggressions when witnessed. For police officers, healing practices include regular exercise, meditation, massage, nature time, and creating growth routines that support physical and mental wellbeing. Departments can support this by offering exercise classes, stress management training, psychological first aid instruction, and scheduled recovery time after traumatic incidents. All these practices help create more settled, resilient bodies that can stay present during difficulty rather than defaulting to fight, flee, or freeze responses. They enable individuals to move through clean pain rather than perpetuating dirty pain. When practiced consistently and passed down through generations, they can transform racialized trauma into possibilities for growth. The ultimate goal is not merely individual healing but collective transformation—creating communities and cultures where bodies of all colors can feel safe, connected, and whole. While this transformation begins with the body, it extends outward to relationships, communities, and eventually, to the entire society. The path forward requires accepting and metabolizing clean pain, staying in our bodies, and responding from the best parts of ourselves.

Summary

At its core, the path to healing America's racial wounds requires a fundamental shift in understanding: trauma lives not in our thinking minds but in our physical bodies. This somatic perspective illuminates why decades of well-intentioned dialogue, diversity training, and cognitive approaches have failed to create lasting change. The body—with its nervous system, reflexive responses, and generational memory—is where racial trauma must be addressed. The journey toward healing demands that we all learn to settle our bodies, move through clean pain rather than perpetuating dirty pain, and create cultures that support collective transformation. This is not a quick fix but a generational project that requires Black Americans, white Americans, and law enforcement professionals to first heal within their own communities before attempting to work together. By recognizing how trauma has shaped our bodily responses to one another, by practicing the five anchors that help us stay present during difficulty, and by building cultures beyond white-body supremacy, we can create more room in our collective nervous system for growth, connection, and genuine reconciliation. The work begins not with strategies or policies, but with our bodies—yours and mine.

About Author

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Resmaa Menakem

Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, is a leading voice in today’s conversation on racialized trauma. He created Cultural Somatics, which utilizes the body and resilience as mechanisms for growth. As a therapist, trauma specialist, and the founder of Justice Leadership Solutions, a leadership consulting firm, Resmaa dedicates his expertise to coaching leaders through civil unrest, organizational change, and community building. He is the author of the national bestseller My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies and the forthcoming The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our National Upheaval and Racial Reckoning.

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