Why white social workers needs to reading My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem (Part 2)
Why White Social Workers Should be Reading My Grandmother’s Hands
Part 2 of a 4 part series:
I wrote an earlier blog post in September about why white social workers should be reading My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem. I had mentioned that there would be a few parts to this series about my feedback since finishing the book in September. Leadership is one piece that social workers need to provide to our clients, coworkers and other staff members we work with on a daily basis. While many of use might not think of ourselves as leaders, we are in many ways modeling and displaying some very real leadership qualities and values we want to see for our clients, ourselves and the larger communities we serve. A part of leadership is a need to understand history. We cannot expect to provide leadership and real change if we do not understand where we are coming from.
This leads me to my next thought on this book and the historical nature of white body trauma. Resmaa Menakem makes a very clear and strong point that trauma has been a long historical fact for white bodies. Long before the enslavement of people started in 1619 in the United States and elsewhere in the world, white bodies were inflicting incredible trauma to each other’s through the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, wars, and other events stretching back a millennium or more in history. This historical trauma has continued to move down through the generations of white people as well as spill out into their interactions with others cultures, peoples and societies. As social workers, we are now learning that trauma stays in the body. It stays with us for generations unless we work really hard to process this trauma so that it no longer impacts our day to day functioning.
So what does this trauma often look like for many white bodies?
Trauma is such an individual experience and can show up in so many ways but often trauma is an experience of something happening to a person that is so overwhelming to a person that it can become stuck and unable to move through their system. It often triggers the fight/flight/freeze/fawn system for people and we react in many different ways based on many different factors such as personality, prior trauma experience, supports, family history, and resiliency factors; just to name a few.
Let’s face it, trauma is scary and it feels very fearful. Whether we show up in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn way; we are scared. When we act from a place of fear (and much of trauma is doing this), we can act in very harmful, hurtful and other damaging ways towards others and ourselves. Much of the hate, derision, spite and vitriol we see on the news, in Facebook or CNN is really about fear and trauma.
When we can see people operating from fear and hurt verses hate, it can change the ways we see people. Most of us have an experience what is feels like to be in fear and act in ways we might not want to be seen. This reframe can help us feel connected to the large humanity. This happens when we can see ourselves and our experiences in other people. As humans, we have experiences of fear and hurt. We have experiences of losing our minds and being full of rage towards others but later feeling tremendous amounts of shame for our actions and words. This is an experience of being human even when we don't want to admit it.
While the experiences above is in no way an excuse for our actions, it is a way to better understand others. A lack of understanding creates distance and disconnection with others. When we can come from a place of understanding, we can build some capacity to reach out to better understand another person’s experience. I am not advocating that we agree with the actions, I am advocating we accept where they are at in the current moment. When we can come from understanding and seeing them as a human who is hurting, we can provide a bit of empathy towards the person. This can be a way to show up for other we do not agree with that is respecting their humanity.
Those who hate and hurt are people who are often hating and hurting themselves.
Further ostracizing them and excluding them from our larger communities is not the way to help white bodies with their trauma. Trauma does not go away because we want it to but it can be transformed through relationships we create with those we don't like or agree with their view of the world.
I would love to hear your comments!
