The Body Remembers
In 2017, author and psychotherapist, Resmaa Menakem, coined the phrase “white body supremacy,” a trauma response resulting from the intergenerational transmission of oppressive race-based biases and fears held in the body. This construct is grounded in the belief that the reflexive responses sustained by racism, especially in Black bodies, are often unconscious and manifest at a physiological level. Menakem argues that cognitive processes alone cannot transform or eradicate these deeply embedded patterns, but rather, they must be addressed THROUGH the body, ultimately healing historical and racialized trauma:
The body is where we live. It’s where we fear, hope, and react. It’s where we constrict and relax. And what the body most cares about are safety and survival…It is also where we do most of our healing, including our emotional and psychological healing…it is where we experience resilience and a sense of flow.¹
The Body Remembers centers the domestic archive—not as static history but as a living, breathing site of knowledge. It asks: What do we carry? What have we forgotten? And what might we recover when we tell our stories on our own terms?
(1) Menakem, Resmaa My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press, 2017. https://d-pdf.com/book/4541/read [9 November 2022]
Words by Quentin Sledge
