Resmaa Menakem

press release:

A Room of One's Own Bookstore is proud to welcome Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. In this groundbreaking work, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of body-centered psychology. He argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans--our police. 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, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, has appeared on both the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence, and has served as director of counseling services for the Tubman Family Alliance; as behavioral health director for African American Family Services; as domestic violence counselor for Wilder Foundation; and as trauma consultant for the Minneapolis Public Schools. As a certified Military Family Life Consultant, he managed the wellness and counseling services on fifty-three US military bases during the war in Afghanistan. Resmaa studied and trained at Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, as well as with Dr. David Schnarch, and Bessel van der Kolk, MD (author of the bestselling The Body Keeps the Score). He currently teaches workshops on psychological first aid and leads programs on healing from white supremacy for both African American and European-American audiences.

Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in healing of trauma, conflict in relationships, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on both the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence, and for ten years he cohosted a radio show with US Congressman Keith Ellison on KMOJFM in Minneapolis. He also hosted his own show, “Resmaa in the Morning,” on KMOJ.