My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

by Resmaa Menakem

But if the fetus’s mom experiences trauma, or if her earlier trauma causes a variety of stress hormones to regularly get released into her body, her baby may begin life outside the womb with less of a sense of safety, resilience, and coherence.

People who have experienced four or more “adverse events” as children are twice as likely to develop heart disease than people who have experienced none. They are also twice as likely to develop autoimmune diseases, four and a half times as likely to be depressed, ten times as likely to be intravenous drug users, and twelve times as likely to be suicidal. As children, they are thirty-three times as likely to have learning and behavior problems in school.

I often tell people that resilience is not a thing or an attribute, but a flow. It moves through the body, and between multiple bodies when they are harmonized.

When one settled body encounters another, there can be a deeper settling of both bodies. But when one unsettled body encounters another, the unsettledness tends to compound in both bodies. In families and large groups, this effect can multiply exponentially.

For America to outgrow the bondage of white-body supremacy, white Americans need to imagine themselves in Black bodies and experience what those bodies had to endure. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their own white ancestors.

As Quinn Norton observes, “Whiteness is one of the biggest and most long-running scams ever perpetrated.” It’s a classic example of what therapists call gaslighting:

There is only one way through this stalemate. White Americans must accept, explore, and mend their centuries-old trauma around the oppression and victimization of white bodies by other, more powerful white bodies.

Trauma is anything the body perceives as too much, too fast, or too soon. Whenever trauma is involved, the first step in mending any relationship—or any emotional dysregulation—involves working through that trauma. And in order for someone to do that trauma work, he or she must first learn to slow down, observe his or her body, and allow it to settle.

A settled body helps the other bodies it encounters to settle as well. This is why a calm, settled presence matters so much whenever we’re around other bodies—in a partnership, a family, a brotherhood, or a community. —

“Health is not simply the absence of illness. Real health is the will to overcome every form of adversity and use even the worst of circumstances as a springboard for new growth and development. Simply put, the essence of health is the constant renewal and rejuvenation of life.” DAISAKU IKEDA

My grandmother was a strong and loving woman. But her body was frequently nervous. She often had a sense that something terrible was about to happen. It was an ancient, inherited sensation that rarely left her—a traumatic retention. She would soothe that sense of impending disaster in a variety of ways. When she was in the kitchen, she would hum—not a steady tone, but entire melodies. Her humming was never soft and intimate, but loud and firm, as if she were humming for an audience. As a small child, if I knew the song she was humming, sometimes I would hum along with her, and my body would experience safety and settledness. She also frequently comforted herself by rocking, both forward and backward and from side to side. When I would watch her rock, it never looked nervous or neurotic. Instead, it felt like a sacred ritual, imbued with meaning and purpose. Sometimes she would hum as she rocked.

Here is what makes white-body supremacy so pervasive and so intractable: Beneath all the exclusion and constriction and trauma, white-body supremacy offers the white body a sense of belonging. It provides a false sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, of being a part of something intrinsically valuable.

African American bodies also feel a sense of belonging, of course. Ours, however, has its roots in necessity and an actual shared history.

Gather together a large group of unsettled bodies—or assemble a group of bodies and then unsettle them—and you get a mob or a riot. But bring a large group of settled bodies together and you have a potential movement—and a potential force for tremendous good in the world. A calm, settled body is the foundation for health, for healing, for helping others, and for changing the world.

Over time, I learned to access a settledness that is always and already present. I usually call it the Infinite Source, but it doesn’t require a name, or an explanation, or a belief.

If you are a white progressive, you benefit as much from the structural inequities of white-body supremacy as a white conservative or a white supremacist.

“There’s a perception that whiteness is working for white people. It’s not . . . White people must join the world in fighting the pernicious ideas that created their category.” QUINN NORTON

When a cultural norm is inhuman and evil, it’s our obligation as human beings to do our best to put a stop to it.

I’m not blaming you for this, or asking you to feel guilty or ashamed about it. But you do need to be aware of what those privileges are and how they function. You need to not take those privileges for granted as your birthright. You were granted those privileges, but you did not earn them. Great harm was done to other human beings to secure those privileges for you, and for others with white skin. The presence of these privileges in your life—and of white-body supremacy in general—is not benign. It’s your responsibility to not merely enjoy those privileges, but to share them with others—and, ultimately, with everyone.

Have the group hum or buzz together, sing together, om together, rock back and forth together, or rub your own bellies at the same time. Feed your bodies together. Make some of these planning gatherings into potluck meals. Better still, precede them with meals that attendees cook and eat together.

As part of your planning, create an incident command system (ICS)—a set of protocols and relationships that determines, in advance, who is in charge of what in the event of a crisis or emergency.

Your ICS does not have to be complicated, but it does need to be crystal clear—and well understood by all event organizers, planners, leaders, and speakers.

At its best, activism is a form of healing. Activism is not just about what we do; it is also about who we are and how we show up in the world. It is about learning and expressing regard, compassion, and love—for ourselves and for our fellow human beings.

The creation, telling, and passing on of new stories is crucial. The stories should be narratives of resilience, compassion, achievement, and transformation.