Featured articles from 2021
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem (from January 2021)
In this book trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem takes a turn from the standard approach to learning about and dismantlingwhite supremacy and racism. Throughout his book, Menakem provides body practices for the reader to mindfully confront their trauma. The author describes how every person is living with racial trauma, no matter their skin color. He gives an account of an experiment that was done on rats to prove trauma isn’t just lived by a person and forgotten about forever, but passed on through several generations until it’s dealt with and healed from. His book provides many strategies anyone can adopt to begin healing. The thing that stuck out to me the most as I worked through this book was how aware I became of my own unhealthy reflexive responses when faced with stories or facts involving race and white supremacy. This book has helped me begin to recognize and heal from my racial trauma and my ancestor’s racial trauma. Menakem designed this book to be read through and practiced within a group, which I also recommend. This kind of healing can’t be done on your own, so grab a friend and start learning how to heal from race-related trauma and discover a new direction in the movement for racial justice.
~Cassandra Barney
Corvallis SURJ 