Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism and Communal Consultation

I attended a powerful, two-day foundations course co-facilitated by Resmaa Menaken, author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and Pathways to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. In the course we focused on acknowledging, holding, and responding to the somatic responses that we experience while constantly living, working, teaching, and being students in a highly racialized society. While, in part, we discussed the histories and constructions of race, racial trauma, and anti-blackness, we returned to somatic awareness with the knowledge that cognition alone is not a salve, that the work of deeply healing racial trauma takes time and presence, and that the trauma and work to heal it is collective. We deepened our understanding of the restorative tools Menaken offers in My Grandmother’s Hands. Most importantly, and in line with the proposal of the book, we practiced the tools.