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

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts by Resmaa Menakem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"A calm, settled body is the foundation for health, for healing, for helping others, and for changing the world."

I’ve been reading this book s-l-o-w-l-y because the author wants the reader to stop and actually do the practices. There is a lot here about dealing with racialized trauma, not only for individuals but within communities. Specific practices are for black people, and others for white people. There are several chapters about rethinking how police are trained to deal with trauma as well.

If you know mindfulness practices, some of the practices here will be familiar if not quite the same. The strategies for settling the body are definitely some I will be working with.

He ends the book with a challenge for transforming communities and everyday activism. I read this in Hoopla but need to buy it as it isn’t possible to absorb it all the first time.

View all my reviews