Racialized Trauma is Solvable

children to stockpile food. Those who survive violent wars or enslavement. They may pass on lessons consciously or subconsciously to their kids. Trauma in a person over time can look like personality. Trauma in a family over time can look like family traits, and trauma any people over time can look like culture. Resume Menicum is a trauma therapist based in Minneapolis. The killings of George Floyd and many other black Americans at the hands of police have intensified the focused and urgency

of Menicum's work. When a black body is murdered on TV or we see that type of stuff, the impact of it is not just personal. We're dealing with the historical energy that has gone unresolved, the intergenerational energy that has gone unresolved. Menicum expects that racialized trauma will continue, but he believes that hard work by people of all races can bring meaningful change. My name is Resume Menicum, and I believe that racialized trauma is solvd. My cost

An apple Bomb spoke with Menachem. Here's their conversation. So Resma, to begin with, could you define trauma for us? What do you mean when you use that word? Basically, anything that happens that's too much, too fast, happens too soon, or happens too long without any reprieve or limited reprieve is trauma? And how is that different from other types of pain or depression or is it the same thing?

Are these things all related? They're related. But the most important piece for me with regard to trauma itself is the stuck quality in the ideas or the stuckness in behavior. There's a stuck quality that over time begins to look like standard and begins to look like normality, Like you can have bad things happen to you and not get stuck right. Trauma is about the stuckness of it. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how this became

your area of focus. Two things. So I was in I did two years in Afghanistan doing a trauma work in Afghanistan, and during that time, all of the trauma that I experienced and saw I had to override in order to give service to those people, to those military contractors and all of those people that was on those

fifty three military basis, I had to give service. So when they were dealing with suicide, when they were dealing with thinking about suicide, when the Taliban would come, would would breach the compound, all of that different type of stuff I had to work with. I in order to survive that, I had to override my own pieces. And so when I came back here in twenty thirteen, it wasn't until then that I noticed that my own trauma

pieces started to unthought and started to come about. And so that's when the story of my grandmother came back. So when I was young, my grandmother, Grandma Addie, she would lay on the couch and when she would lay on the couch, she would then put her feet across our thighs and she would watch TV or put her legs across our thighs and her hand would be on her hips, and I would always rub her hands and just be rubbing her hands and rub her hands while

she was watching TV. And at one point I was comparing her hands to my hands, and what I noticed, and my grandmother was a thin woman. She was a thin woman, but she had these big, thick hands, like the thumbs had all of this patting on it on the front, in the palm there was just patting on the back of her hands. And she had these thick digit fingers that looked different than the way her body was constructed. And so at one point I was looking at her and I said to her, I said, Grandma,

why are your hands like that? White the hands while your hands so fat like that? And my grandmother, without missing a beat, goes, oh, boy, that's from picking cotton. She looked at me and she said, boy, you've ever seen cotton a cotton plant? I said, no, ma'am. She said, cotton plant has got these birds in it. And she said,

my daddy was a sharecropper. So, and this is the tone that she's using now, right, she's going my daddy had My daddy was a sharecropper, and so at four years old, we had to walk up and down the rows and pick that cotton. When you reach your hands into cotton, it rips up your hands. Those birds rip your hands up until callous's begin to develop. And so my hands blared for a long time until Callous's started

to develop. And so I was just looking at her and she said, yeah, that's why, and then she stopped right there and she turned and started watching TV. I

did not remember that story. It totally left me. And the reason why it came back is that the connections between trauma, my own trauma, her what she was going through, my own issues with suicide, and in overwhelming all of that different type of stuff, all of that came together to help me begin to kind of think about this idea around racialized trauma, how it shows up in a body, what it does in terms of embodiment, what are the

protective mechanisms. So that's how I came to this piece, and that's why I'm so passionate about it, because people can move through it, they can metabolize that energy. But it doesn't come from just education, It doesn't come from just doing nice thing. It comes from going through it. So that so that energy can be used as fuel for your freedom as opposed to feel that incinerates you.

And does trauma always manifest itself through physical symptoms? Most often trauma has an embodied physical component that we don't many times relate to the trauma that we've been exposed to. And I believe through interrogation and through excavation, I believe you begin to see how the physical pieces show up. But at the beginning most of us don't equate physicalness with trauma. But in terms of my work, I do. So, what are some examples of physical reactions to pass trauma

that you found? A classic one is not sleeping, having a bracing quality and energy that in which you have a sense that the next shoe is getting ready to drop, especially when we're talking like when I'm talking about in terms of racialized trauma, many people have neck pains or back pains, things that show up in their hips or things that show up in there so as in the body. I've done a lot of work on the post Soviet world, including in Ukraine and in Russia. I worked on a

book about the Gulag. I worked about a book on the Ukrainian famine. And these are also places where people have long legacies of memories of physical violence or parents who've experienced physical violence. Is the kind of racialized trauma you're talking about different from that? Or is it? Or are we talking about the same phenomenon just you know,

playing itself out and differently in different cultures. So yes, when we're talking about the Second World War, when we're talking about googlas, when we're talking about those things, that is a trauma manifestation that is absolutely traumatizing, and with particular to America, with particular to colonial trauma that I'm talking about my underlying pieces that we live in a structure by which the white body is the supreme standard by which all bodies humanity shall be measured and both

structurally and philosophically, And what happens is because of that organizing structure, what happens is that any body that isn't housed in a white body is structurally deviant from that standard. That in and of itself is traumatizing. That's why I'm talking about the racialized trauma, so we can get at the racial pieces and the underpinnings of those racial pieces

as a way to trauma. So, yes, there are some of the same effects, some of the same effects in terms of intergenerational passtowns, some of the same effects in terms of historical passtown in terms of persistent institutional pass downs, and then our own personal traumas. So yes, all of those things get organized around it. But I'm talking about it in a particular way as it relates to race. But are you suggesting this is something that has particularly

to do with the American experience. So black Americans descended from enslaved Americans or is this the ord or is it more prevalent. I think it's more prevalent because if you look at if you look at the islands in Jamaica and South America, is that that's just where the boat stopped, where some of the enslaved people got off. Some of those white body supremacy pieces, the organizing structures of those also took place in those places, right England, Portugal, Spain,

Belgium and France. Those five superpowers created a sense of who was human and who was not, and used pigmentation as a shorthand for who was human and who was not. So all you had to do is look at somebody and you could tell whether or not they were savages, or whether or not they were fully human and that ethos has been woven through every place that the colonization went. What worries me about what you're describing is if it's something that affects everybody, and if it's inescapable in a

certain sense, how can it be solved? Are we talking about group therapy? What advice are you offering to overcome this long legacy? It's not inescapable. So the solvable pieces of this, for me, really is about beginning to have us begin to pay attention to what's to what's showing up, and not just overrided or act like it's not a

big deal. Actually beginning to say this is something that is an issue in terms of racialized trauma, that the ways that we have been organized show up as it means to protect us, and we must begin to develop communal ways, cultural ways of getting at those pieces, beginning at the vibratory aspects of it, the behavior and the urges of it. We have to begin to do that. That's what makes it solvable, and so communities of people

have to begin to do this work. Could you maybe walk us through some of the things that you're suggesting people could begin with, I mean, what are the exercises, whether individual or communal, that could be carried out. One of the things that happens when I'm working with bodies who who are experience in racialized trauma. One of the things that I do is I begin to talk to them about moving their neck in a way that allows them to look behind them and find windows and find doors.

Because the pass down has been what I call a traumatic retention, and the traumatic retention is that I learned things about how to navigate in the world from what my caregivers lean into and recoiled from. And so when I notice the bracing, the kind of vibratory bracing in their bodies, my nervous system also picks up on that and it becomes decontextualized. In each successive generation. Time decontextualizes trauma. Time itself decontextualizes trauma, and so trauma and a person

over time can look like personality. Trauma and a family over time can look like family traits, and trauma and a people over time can look like culture. So having people begin to look around, or if they come from a people that have been traumatized, begin to have them look behind them, look for exits, look for safe places where they can leave, because for many of our bodies we have not had that, and so orienting is one

of the first things I begin to do. Second thing I begin to do a self incommunal grounding, beginning to have people have some sense, no matter how small, develop some sense discernment in the body that they are present, now that they are in this space and in this time, so very small little things like noticing their butt on a hard surface, noticing their feet inside their shoes, and

communities can begin to do this with each other. The third one is self in communal movement, beginning to move congruently and incongruently together to have some sense of communal alignment. And then the fourth thing is self in communal touch and verbalizing and wailing. Those are the things that I used to begin to help people move through these pieces. In my work with people who've either experienced traumatic famine or incarceration unfair incarceration in Soviet camps, as well as

their children. One of the things that they often have said or have simply practiced in their lives is to join something positive. In other words, not to deny that it happened, but to throw themselves into a positive project, whether it's you know, after the war we all got together and we rebuilt Kiev, or we constructed the Ukrainian independence movement in the nineteen nineties, and the experience of doing something positive for their fellow sufferers sometimes or for

their for their compatriots, that was all. Often the way to get over the trauma is that something that interests you, that kind of as I said, a positive political or social or communal project. Well, two pieces to them. The examples that you used are all examples of the trauma actually stopping. There was a there was a stop point, something, there was some type of intervention, and the trauma stopped. When I'm talking about indigenous people here in America and

I'm talking about Black Americans, the trauma is persistent. It hasn't stopped. And so that's one key difference. The other key difference is that the idea of getting over the trauma is not the same as metabolizing the trauma. And let me say this, in the movement of doing something, you can begin to metabolize it. But I'm not I'm not suggesting that there is a getting over this. I am suggesting that the energy that exists with regard to trauma when it shows up, is designed to protect us,

to help us to survive. The problem is is that when we've gone through a prolonged period of time with trauma, that thing that we've been using in order to survive it doesn't just dissipate. You have to begin to metabolize that energy. Otherwise the protective mechanisms that you've developed as survival now become decontextualized and you begin to use that

as a standard. And so that's the difference. Let me shift the focus for a moment to COVID nineteen because I'm wondering if there are things that we should all be thinking about and paying attention to, you know, in our bodies and our minds, using some of your the work that you've done to address the trauma of this time, so that we're less likely to pass it along or

less likely to suffer it in the future. I realize that this isn't as profound or as widespread, as multigenerational as racialized trauma, but it is something that you know, there are a lot of people suffering out there. Is there is there something we should be aware of now? Absolutely, there's a lot like like, even though this isn't intergenerational. One of the things that we know that mass amounts of death can cause a global stress on human beings,

and we've all we all know it. Like being locked in a house and not being able to move like you're like you're used to, can create a weightedness to us. Right A lot of my work now is how to is helping people begin to orient online with each other, not for you don't have to do it for long periods of time, but to see another face and to hear another laugh or to share stories, even if it's

not in person for right now can be helpful. Even though it's not the best, it is something to have somebody else see your face and smile and say I'm glad you're here. That is important and I think that can't be short changed as just well it's just zoom. Well, yes, it's just zoom, and we need those types of things. Also, working with trauma survivors has to be some of the that must be one of the hardest things anybody can do.

Do you have advice for both for practitioners but also for all the rest of us about how to be empathetic. You know, predicate this moment you know, without taking on the pain of somebody else but sympathizing with them, helping them through difficult times, what's the best way to do it? That really is a great question because one of the things that happens is that we don't account for what

I call vicarious and secondary trauma. Right many times when we're trying to help somebody who's been traumatized, we don't account for the fact that we can actually be traumatized by watching them go through it. One of the most important things is to check in with your body. Check in with yourself on a regular basis, do I have enough resource in room to be of aid to this other body? And if the answer is no or not quite,

listen to that. So it is really a communal beginning to develop more of a communal sense of how we take care of each other and how we listen to what our bodies are telling us, as opposed to more of an individual sense, and that is we have to override everything that's showing up in order to provide something

for somebody else. And that usually works for a moment, but then over time you start to notice things like anxiety and depression and sleeping stuff and eating stuff and all of those things that are indicators that you are overwhelmed. Do the ways that you think about racialized trauma ever change. I'm thinking about the awful murder of George Floyd. It was so widely experienced across the world. Did that change how you think about your practice or does it shift

how we should be thinking about healing trauma. So the first piece is that the George Floyd trauma for me in terms of my work, is a law, is an extension of a long line of traumas that I've had to deal with here in Minnesota, in particular with regard to Jamar Clark, atlanda castile, all of these types of murders at the hands of the state. When a black body is murdered on TV or we see that type of stuff, the impact of it is not just personal.

We're dealing with the historical energy that has gone unresolved, the intergenerational energy that has gone unresolved with regard to murdering and the slaying of black bodies, the persistent institutional energy when these particular things continue to happen. The thing is is that the outpouring that you see is many

times performative. It is not sustainable because it's that there is no cultural container to hold a living embodied anti racist culture and practice that can get at the structural white body supremacy. So what will happen is that people will have a response either of shock or a response of being mortified, but there is nothing to sustain the change of it as it relates to black and indigenous bodies. And so what you end up having is people going

into shock, and particular white bodies going into shock. And what happens over time is that you start to see online, you start to see the George Floyd pictures and the Brianna Taylor pictures shift back to cats and people taking pictures of their food. Is because there is no sustained

culture around living embodying anti racist culture and practices. And so for me, and with regard to the white community, the white community has to begin to work and deal with that stuff and that energy and create culture to examine and interrogate whiteness and white body supremacy. So in my work, one of the things that I've been doing a lot is helping people begin to grapple with that. This is about a cultural cultivation and evolution, not a

performative action plan. That's what's been showing up since with regard to George Floyd in a series of other murders. That leads me to the final question that we always ask on this program, but it seems particularly pertinent here, which is what advice do you offer listeners and for their family and friends, you know, how can they deep in their understanding of long term trauma and how can they help to heal it? Right. So, my book is one of the first books to kind of try and

bring all of this stuff together. So one of the first things I suggested people do is get my grandmother's hands and then began to study and work with some of the practices and information in the book, began to work with that individually slowly. There's some other books and resources that I'd also like to mention to you, Anne.

One of them is Me and My White Supremacy by layla Aside, White Fragility by Robin D'Angelo, Radical Joy by doctor Joy Lewis, anything from Adrian Marie Brown or Rachel Cargill. And then and then my website, resume dot com has a lot of free content on there, as well as my Instagram. If they go to resume menicum. I do a lot of free videos up there for people to

begin to work with this. People. Nobody wants to talk about race, right, nobody wants to wants to embody what race actually is in the concept of our white body supremacy. Nobody wants to do that. I suggest in the white community that has to start happening now, so this stuff has not passed on to children in the black embodies of culture communities, I think we have to start beginning to talk about the impacts of white body supremacy on us and how it has created in us things that

we have not addressed. So like structural issues around our sense of fraudulence, imposterate and colorism and all of that different type of stuff. Those pieces have to be dealt with in community. Start beginning to work with this stuff. We can no longer avoid it. If January six, if the attack of the American capital taught us nothing, is that this stuff is seething and simmering underneath. It has

not gone anywhere. It is part of the bedrock of America, and if we don't pay attention to it, it will destroy us. Resumemnicem is an author and psychotherapist working in Minneapolis. If you or someone you know is suffering from trauma and in crisis, please seek help. You can call eight hundred two seven three Talk eight hundred two seven three Talk any time, day or night. To learn more about racialized trauma and for additional trauma support resources, please check

out the links in our show notes. Solvable Senior producer is Jocelyn Frank, Research and booking by Lisa Dunn. Catherine Girardo is our managing producer, and our executive producer is Mia Lobell. Solvable is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share a rate and review it. It really helps us get the word out. You can find push and podcasts wherever you listen, including on the iHeartRadio app and Apple podcasts. I'm Jacob Weisber