My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Part 1, Chapters 1-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-17

Part 3, Chapters 18-24

Conclusion

Background

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction Summary: “Do Not Cross This Line without Authorization”

Content Warning: This study guide and its source material contain discussions of racism, police violence, and violence against minors.

Introduction Summary: “Do Not Cross This Line without Authorization”

Menakem argues that white supremacy exists primarily in the body, not in the cognitive brain. To do away with white supremacy, Americans must confront these elemental forces. All white people benefit from white supremacy, regardless of their beliefs. Menakem coins the term white-body supremacy to articulate this concept. Social and political action will not end white-body supremacy. Healing trauma is the only path forward. Menakem cautions readers who blame Black people for racial tensions not to read his book.

Introduction Summary: “Watch Your Body”

This short section prepares readers for the body practice exercises that lie ahead. Menakem cautions white readers that their bodies may reflexively constrict as they confront difficult truths about white-body supremacy. Black readers may experience shock followed by a rush of energy in the form of joy, anger, or clarity. Law enforcement officials may experience both sets of sensations. Menakem instructs readers to take note of their bodily reactions, experience them fully, and then let them go.

Introduction Summary: “Acknowledging Our Ancestors”

Bodies only exist in the present. However, Menakem traces two streams of trauma from the past to the present. One is European trauma from the Middle Ages, which passed to the Americas via colonists. The second is the trauma colonists instilled in Africans who were enslaved and forcibly imported to North America. These enslaved people passed down their trauma to generations of their descendants. An earlier path of trauma in the Americas spread from European colonists to the bodies of Indigenous people and their offspring. Menakem respects and acknowledges the trauma of Indigenous people. However, their trauma is not the focus of his book.

Introduction Summary: “Our Bodies, Our Country”

Menakem wrote My Grandmother’s Hands in 2017, in the period following President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. Tensions were high. Unrest was spreading across the country. Menakem argues that the main conflict in the US is not primarily political or social, but visceral. It is a conflict about white people’s character. There are two possible outcomes to the conflict: Either America will grow up and renounce white-body supremacy, or white-body supremacy will continue to dominate American culture. Menakem’s book offers insights, skills, and tools to make the first scenario a reality.

Menakem defines white supremacy as the idea of not just white superiority, but also white centrality. White supremacy makes white bodies the standard, so Black bodies are seen as deviating from this norm. This form of white supremacy—which Menakem terms “white-body supremacy”—is a far cry from neo-Nazism, but it is no less harmful because it cannot be avoided: It functions, often invisibly, in American institutions and everyday interactions. White bodies are unconsciously and reflexively racist, which means racism is part of the body. Thus, doing away with it must begin with the body.

Introduction Analysis

Menakem addresses two types of readers: Those who are surprised to learn that white supremacy still exists in the 21st century, and those who are not surprised but do not know how to end it. Although these categories are not explicitly racial, it stands to reason that the first is largely white, as Black people and other minorities regularly experience inequality and de facto segregation.

Menakem boldly asserts that white supremacy is ubiquitous, not just expressed by those who are overtly racist, like neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan. This stance reflects his thesis that white supremacy does not primarily exist in the cognitive part of the brain but in the body. To lend support to this argument, Menakem cites Robin DiAngelo’s influential book, What Does It Mean to Be White (2012). Menakem is particularly interested in DiAngelo’s definition of white supremacy, which presents whiteness as the norm, and racial minorities as deviating from this norm. As Menakem observes, this definition captures the pervasiveness of white supremacy in America:

This everyday form of white-body supremacy is in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the culture we share. We literally cannot avoid it. It is part of the operating system and organizing structure of American culture. It’s always functioning in the background, often invisibly, in our institutions, our relationships, and our interactions (xix).

In addition to drawing on the work of other writers to support his claims, Menakem uses existing scholarship as a point of departure to formulate new arguments and insights. For example, he coins the term “white-body supremacy” to convey that all white people benefit from America’s racist structures, regardless of their beliefs: “white supremacy would be better termed white-body supremacy, because every white-skinned body, no matter who inhabits it—and no matter what they think, believe, do, or say—automatically benefits from it” (ix). Menakem recognizes that his words might trigger some readers and warns readers who blame Black people for racial unrest to put down his book.