Hello,
Who We Are:
We, the Native Women & Friends Book Club of the Twin Cities, are a group of Women who love to read and love to share our insights and feelings about good books. If you like to share intelligent (but not stuffy) conversation about what you read, while having fun, sharing a snack and making new friends please join us! Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, bio/autobiography — good books. Books you have thought about reading and books that challenge what you ordinarily read. To sign up for our book club send: full name and email to nwbcmpls@gmail.com.
When we meet:
We meet the last Sunday of every month. We will meet at 11am on Zoom and at 2pm in-person on May 22nd. In May we are meeting one week earlier due to Memorial Weekend.
What we are reading this month:
Our reading selected for May is My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts by Resmaa Menakem. A short summary of this book can be found at the bottom of this email.
Our Meeting details are:
We will meet at 11am on Zoom and at 2pm in-person on May 22nd. The Zoom connection links will be sent to members the Friday before our meetup. Please email Allicia to join our book club and get the email notifications.
Not a Speed Reader? NO PROBLEM!:
We encourage all who can attend even if you didn’t completely finish reading the book when our discussion time comes. We don’t judge, but want to encourage you to participate as much as you can!
Book Summary of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts by Resmaa Menakem:
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.
This book paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy—how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system. It offers a step-by-step solution—a healing process—in addition to incisive social commentary.
Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence. Menakem has studied with bestselling authors Dr. David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). He also trained at Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.
~Happy Reading~
Allicia Waukau-Butler
nwbcmpls@gmail.com
(612) 816-3348