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

by Resmaa Menakem

It’s easy to see how white-body supremacy has created soul wounds for many millions of African American bodies over the past three centuries. It’s less obvious what the inflicting of that trauma has done to white bodies. When I lead workshops on trauma for people in service professions, I often show them a clip from 12 Years a Slave, the film based on the memoir of Solomon Northrup, a free African American from upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into enslavement in 1853. In the clip, we see slave trader Theophilus Freeman (played by Paul Giamatti) coldly check the health, strength, and muscle tone of his human merchandise. As buyers come by to make purchases, Freeman orders one young African man to run and jump in place for a potential customer. Freeman tells the customer, “You see how fit the boy is. Like ripe fruit. He will grow into a fine beast.” In the same scene, Eliza, a young Black mother, pleads with Freeman to have mercy and not separate her from her daughter. William Ford, a white customer and plantation owner, is moved by her pleas. He asks Freeman, “For God’s sake, are you not sentimental in the least?” Freeman ignores them both, breaks up the family, and says to Ford, “My sentimentality stretches the length of a coin.” Also in that scene, Freeman commands Northrup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) to stand and approach him. When Northrup doesn’t respond, Freeman slaps him hard—and loudly—across the face. The clip ends here. At that point I turn to my audi...