Michelle: Most of us think of racism as a problem of bad ideas or hateful beliefs. But what if the real battleground isn't in our heads, but in our nervous systems? What if it's an inheritance we carry in our very cells? Mark: Whoa, that's a heavy way to start. You're saying racism is less like a philosophy and more like a physical condition? Like a virus we pass down? Michelle: Exactly. And that's the radical idea at the heart of the book we're diving into today: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem. Mark: I’ve heard this book mentioned everywhere. It’s one of those titles that seems to have really struck a nerve. Michelle: It absolutely has. It became a New York Times bestseller and is highly acclaimed, partly because Menakem isn't just an academic. He's a seasoned trauma therapist. This is a man who has worked with everyone from soldiers in Afghanistan and their families to the Minneapolis Police Department. He's seen trauma up close in some of the most intense environments imaginable. Mark: Okay, so he's coming at this from the trenches, not an ivory tower. That changes things. And that title, My Grandmother's Hands... it's so specific, so physical. What's the story there? Michelle: It's the perfect entry point, because it grounds this entire, complex theory in one unforgettable, physical image. It’s the story that starts it all.

Michelle: Menakem tells this story from his childhood. He’s a young boy, and he’s sitting with his grandmother. He notices her hands are different from his—they're stout, with thick pads of calloused skin. He asks her why. Mark: Yeah, what did she say? Michelle: She explains that her hands are like that because she started picking cotton when she was just four years old. She describes how the sharp burrs on the cotton plant would rip her skin, making her hands torn and bloody. But over time, day after day, year after year, her hands just grew thicker, tougher, more calloused to endure the pain. Mark: Wow. At four years old. That's... that's history literally written on her body. It’s not a story in a book; it's in her skin. Michelle: Precisely. And that's Menakem's central point. He argues that racialized trauma isn't an abstract concept. It's a physical, visceral experience that gets stored in our bodies. He says we all have this "lizard brain"—the most primitive part of our brain, responsible for survival. It’s what makes us fight, flee, or freeze when we perceive a threat. Mark: So it's like that feeling when you jump at a loud noise before you even know what it is? That's the lizard brain taking over? Michelle: Exactly. It's faster than thought. And Menakem’s argument is that for centuries, our bodies have been conditioned to react to race on that same primal, lizard-brain level. For Black bodies, this means carrying the trauma of constant threat. For white bodies, it manifests as something he calls "white-body supremacy." Mark: Okay, hold on. What exactly does he mean by 'white-body supremacy'? Is that different from just saying 'white supremacy'? Michelle: It's a crucial distinction. He's not talking about people in white hoods. He's talking about a deeply ingrained, often unconscious, physical reflex in white bodies that assumes whiteness is the human standard. It's a visceral response that operates below conscious belief. He gives this chillingly ordinary example. Mark: I'm ready. Michelle: His wife, Maria, is at a Wal-Mart. After she checks out, an employee stops her to check her receipt against her items. Standard procedure. But then Maria sits down to have a drink and just watches. Over the next few minutes, she sees the same employee stop and check the receipts of all eight Black customers who walk by. But the employee completely ignores every single non-Black customer. Mark: And when she was confronted, I bet the employee said she wasn't racist. Michelle: That's the kicker. The manager confronts her, and the employee is aghast. She insists she wasn't deliberately targeting anyone, that she was just checking people "randomly." And Maria, the author's wife, believed her. The employee was sincere. Her body, her lizard brain, had just been conditioned to see Black bodies as more of a potential threat, requiring more scrutiny. It was an automatic, physical response. Mark: That is so much more insidious than overt hatred. It's a cultural operating system running in the background of our bodies. It’s automatic. Where does that deep, bodily programming even come from?

Michelle: This is where the book gets really provocative. Menakem argues that this programming has a much longer history than we think. He makes this bold claim: "What white bodies did to Black bodies, they did to other white bodies first." Mark: Wait, what? He's saying the brutality of slavery and Jim Crow started with white-on-white violence? Michelle: He traces it back to medieval and early modern Europe. For about five hundred years, he says, Europe was a continental torture chamber. Public punishment was a form of mass entertainment. People were flogged, branded, racked, and dismembered in town squares. He describes drawing and quartering in gruesome detail—where a person was hanged, cut down while still alive, castrated, beheaded, and their body chopped into four pieces to be displayed around the city. Mark: Good lord. That's... unimaginable brutality. Michelle: And it was normal. It was culture. Menakem's theory is that generations of white people endured and witnessed this unimaginable trauma. When European colonists came to America, they brought that unhealed, white-on-white trauma with them. And then, in the late 17th century, they did something ingenious and terrible. They invented "whiteness." Mark: Invented it? How do you invent whiteness? Michelle: He argues it was a technology of trauma management. In early colonial America, poor white indentured servants and enslaved Black people often worked together, lived together, and even revolted together against the wealthy landowners. This terrified the ruling class. So they created a divide. They gave poor whites small privileges, a little bit of land, and a new identity—"white." This new identity bonded them with the wealthy landowners and taught them to see their interests as separate from Black people. It gave them a way to offload their own centuries of trauma onto Black and Indigenous bodies. Mark: Okay, that's a massive historical claim. It's fascinating, but is this a historical fact or more of a psychological theory? I know from the book's reception that some critics have questioned the scientific rigor here, especially around the idea of trauma being passed down genetically. Michelle: That's a fair point, and Menakem doesn't present himself as a geneticist. He's using it as a psychological and cultural framework. He’s explaining the function of racism as a way to manage unresolved pain. The idea is that this historical trauma created a cultural inheritance, a set of reflexive behaviors and fears that are passed down not just through stories, but through the way parents hold their children, the tension in their bodies, the warnings they give. It becomes a physical legacy. Mark: So it’s less about a specific "trauma gene" and more about how culture and behavior physically transmit trauma from one generation's nervous system to the next. Michelle: Exactly. It's a soul wound passed down body to body, generation to generation. Mark: Alright, so we have this deep, historical trauma living in our bodies. It feels overwhelming. Does the book offer any way out, or are we just stuck with it?

Michelle: This is where the book becomes incredibly hopeful and practical. Menakem says we are absolutely not stuck. But the way out isn't through more thinking, more debating, or more guilt. The way out is through the body. He introduces this concept of "clean pain" versus "dirty pain." Mark: Clean pain and dirty pain. What's the difference? Michelle: Dirty pain is the pain of avoidance, blame, and denial. It’s when we lash out, run away, or get stuck in shame. It doesn't lead to growth; it just creates more trauma for ourselves and others. Clean pain is the pain we choose to move through. It’s the discomfort of facing the truth, of staying present with difficult sensations, and of growing. It hurts, but it mends. Mark: And how do we move through that clean pain? Michelle: Through the body's own healing mechanisms. He focuses on what he calls the "soul nerve," which is his term for the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is this massive nerve that wanders from our brain down through our heart, lungs, and gut. It’s the command center of our parasympathetic nervous system—the "rest and digest" system. It’s what tells our body, "You are safe. You can settle." Mark: So healing is about learning to activate this soul nerve? Michelle: Precisely. And the methods are shockingly simple. He suggests ancient, primal practices. One is humming. Mark: Humming? That's it? It sounds almost too simple to work on something so massive. Michelle: I know, right? But think about it. The vibration of humming physically stimulates the vagus nerve, sending a signal of calm throughout your body. It's something people have done instinctively for millennia. He tells a story about his grandmother, the same one with the calloused hands. When she was anxious, she would hum. Loudly and firmly. It was her body's way of soothing its own trauma. Mark: That's incredible. It connects everything back to her. What are some other practices? Michelle: Rocking, chanting, and deep belly breathing. Anything rhythmic and slow. He suggests a simple exercise: put one hand on your belly and one on your chest. Breathe in slowly, feeling your belly expand first, then your chest. Then breathe out even more slowly. Doing this for just a few minutes can completely shift your nervous system out of a state of high alert. Mark: So it's about giving your body new experiences. Instead of the reflexive experience of fear or constriction, you're intentionally creating an experience of safety and settling. Michelle: You've got it. You're building your body's capacity to handle stress and discomfort without defaulting to the lizard brain's fight-or-flight response. You're creating more room in your nervous system for something other than trauma.

Mark: So the big takeaway here isn't just that racism is bad, but that it's a physical condition we've all inherited, in different ways. And the path to healing isn't about winning an argument or proving you're a good person, but about doing the physical work to settle our own bodies first. Michelle: That’s the heart of it. It’s a call to stop intellectualizing and start feeling. To stop fighting the symptoms and start healing the source, which lives inside each of us. Menakem ends with this incredibly powerful and hopeful idea. He says, "Trauma is not destiny." Mark: I like that. It doesn't deny the pain, but it refuses to be defined by it. Michelle: Exactly. Menakem's work suggests that while history is in our bodies, the future is in our hands—literally. The work of mending begins with those small, physical acts of settling and soothing. Mark: This is a book that really makes you feel things. It’s challenging but also deeply compassionate. We'd love to hear how these ideas resonate with you. Join the conversation on our social channels and let us know what you think. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.