Trauma decontextualised in a people can look like culture’ – Resmaa Menakem on how racism affects the body

White supremacy sits in the body. This is the central tenet that Resmaa Menakem’s years of trauma therapy, body centred-psychotherapy and violence prevention speaks to. His New York Times bestselling book, My Grandmother’s Hands, comes out in paperback in the UK this month and guides us through how structural racism lodges itself in the body, to get in touch with its effects and unlock individual and communal healing. To those of us who have coped with oppression by disconnecting from our bodies, Resmaa’s prompts are both instructive and jarring. It’s not just a manual for feeling your feelings, it’s an excavation of the soul.