I purchased My Grandmother’s Hands in April after a touching conversation with a fellow somatic practitioner and wise woman of color. I had been grappling with a perceived imbalance of diversity within the healing/self-help communities of which I was a part, and wanted to better understand how I may be contributing to the dynamic. I left our conversation with a clearer view of my own bias, triggers, and edges…all of which I would come to know more deeply through sensation, breath, energy, etc. as I explored the step-by-step practices offered by Minneapolis based therapist, Resmaa Menakem.
“My Grandmother’s Hands is a CALL TO ACTION for all of us to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body.”
image: Joao Silas
Many of us who practice conscious dance or somatics have had direct experiences of the healing that is possible when we move in and through the body. While open and honest dialogue can expand awareness and point us in directions where growth may be needed, modern neuroscience states that the body must be engaged for core issue(s) to be tended and mended.
In My Grandmother’s Hands, for example, Resmaa asks folks to notice what happens in the body when words like “racism” or “white-body supremacy” are mentioned. Do you freeze or constrict? Get defensive or dismissive? Maybe you notice an impulse to get up and move, or stay still and hide. What happens with your breath…your jaw…your hands?
Since beginning to facilitate conscious dance in 2012, I’ve met many people who want more “Presence”, but few who are willing to gather the necessary resources to hold the full spectrum of our humanity, and navigate the edges of vulnerability. Most folks have a low tolerance for staying present and will more often turn toward rationalization or intellectualization than the sensations and emotions that are below the surface.
Embodiment is often called a practice AND a path. It invites us to continually grow our thresholds, hold our discomfort lovingly, and accept that transformation happens through both our grief and our joy. When we invite the work of racial trauma into the conversation levels of vulnerability and discomfort can increase so much that folks may constrict and freeze without even noticing. This is why My Grandmother’s Hands is so pertinent for these times. The practices build our fortitude. Expand our awareness. And through it’s somatic (body-based) perspective, can help us stay and listen one moment longer.
I hope you will join me in learning to dismantle systems of oppression within ourselves, and reclaim communal healing spaces and principles of cultural somatics to heal the collective body.
May we be humble on this path of healing.
May we keep learning and listening.
May we awaken to where we are complicit to the structures of oppression.
May compassion guide us at the edge.
May we keep practicing, with a willingness to make mistakes along the way.
May we have the courage to keep our hearts AND minds open.
::Updated list of resources June 2020::
Resources
Anti-Racism Resources: Compilation of Books, podcasts, articles, films, organizations. Compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein, May 2020.
Additional Articles
When Healing Means Finding Your Role in the (R)evolution: Article by Itzbeth Menjivar, May 2020
Who Gets to be Afraid in America?: by Ibram X. Kendi, May 2020
The Intersectionality Wars: Article by Jane Coaston, May 2019
For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies: Article by Courtney Ariel, August 2017
Additional Books
Beloved: by Toni Morrison, 1987
Between the World and Me: by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015
Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People: by Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji, 2016
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: by Angela Davis, 2016
Men We Reaped: by Jesmyn Ward, 2014
Mindful of Race: by Ruth King, 2018
They Can’t Kill Us: by Wesley Lowery, 2016
Your Silence will not Protect You: by Audry Lorde, 2000
Podcasts
Whiteness: Seeing White: Podcast, 2nd season by Scene on Radio, 2018
Let’s Talk About Whiteness: Podcast by On Being, 2017
Videos
Black Feminism and the Movement for Black Lives
How Studying Privilege Systems can Strengthen Compassion