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

by Resmaa Menakem

—BODY PRACTICE— As before, find a quiet, comfortable place where you can be alone. Allow five to ten minutes for each of the following four activities. Feel free to do them on separate occasions, all at once, or in any combination. 1. Think back to an incident in which you felt you were the target of a micro-aggression. The incident does not need to involve race (or people of more than one race). Any mild, passive-aggressive move qualifies as a micro-aggression. Replay this incident in your mind from beginning to end. When and how did the event turn ugly (if it did)? When and how did you recognize it as a micro-aggression? Now replay the event again. This time, focus on your body and its reactions. At what point does it tell you that something is wrong? How does it let you know this? When, where, and how does it experience pain or discomfort? Where, when, and how does it feel good? Constrict? Move or activate? Release? 2. Recall an incident in which you committed a micro-aggression against someone else, either deliberately or unconsciously. Again, it does not need to involve race. Any mild passive-aggressiveness counts as a micro-aggression. Replay the incident in your mind from beginning to end. What did you say, do, and observe? What did the other person (or people) say and do? At what point did you plan the micro-aggression, or realize that you had already committed one? Now relive the entire incident again, paying close attention to your body. When, where, and how do...