Week 4 - My Grandmother's Hands Black History Month Book Club
Week 3 of this year’s Book Club!
As you do your reading throughout the week, feel free to leave your thoughts In the comments!
If you’re answering a specific discussion question, please find it in the comments and respond underneath it.
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Reminders
If you read ahead, please keep your discussion comments to the week's readings.
If you get behind on the readings, that is okay!
The exercises in the book are important to do.
Being uncomfortable while reading this book is to be expected!
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Week 4 Reading Breakdown
February 22nd-28th: Chapter 19- End of Book
64 Physical Pages.
2 hours in the audio book.
Week 4 Discussion Questions
Do you agree with the importance of being intentional when choosing names?
What are your thoughts on community policing?
Biggest takeaways from the book?
Favorite quote from this week's reading?
Anything else you'd like to share?
Some of my favorite quotes from this week.
"Change culture and you change lives. You can also change the course of history...The good news is that American history is full of such profound cultural changes. If enough people do the same thing over and over, or if they share something with each other enough times, eventually it becomes culture." -Resmaa Menakem, 2015, p. 246-247
"There's another important reason why white Americans, African Americans, and police need to transform their own cultures first: right now the three cultures simply cannot work together on a large scale...Right now, if we attempted to work together, we would regularly trigger the trauma in each other's bodies...Let me be clear that I'm talking about parallel processes, not isolated ones. Simultaneously, there needs to be collaboration coordination, and cooperation among the three groups - especially when it comes to social activism. It's a classic both/and situation." -Resmaa Menakem, 2015, p. 248-249
"You know how crucial culture is to human life and to the human body. Yet white Americans have not yet created any form of anti-white-supremacy culture. White Americans who seek to undo white-body supremacy have organizations; they have ideas and strategies and goals; they have initiative; and they have energy, conviction, and hope. But they have little sense of community - and no culture to build and support such community. This needs to change. White allies must build culture, because culture trumps almost everything else." -Resmaa Menakem, 2015, p. 263
"For white Americans, then, the most important task in dissolving white-body supremacy involves separating whiteness from supremacy. Over the centuries, American leaders have welded the two concepts together in millions of white minds... This has resulted in large numbers of Americans who are white, racist, and proud to be both; an even larger number who are white, racist, and in reflexive denial about it; and another large number who are white, progressive, and ashamed of their whiteness. All of these are forms of immaturity; a can be trauma responses; and all harm African Americans and white Americans. -Resmaa Menakem, 2015, p. 271
"Community policing is not a philosophy. It is not an idea. It is a set of ongoing actions. It is making your body a part of the community - and then wholeheartedly serving, protecting, and assisting the human beings in that community." -Resmaa Menakem, 2015, p. 277
Thank you for joining this year's Book Club!
If you've gotten behind, feel free to keep reading and leaving comments! I'd love to keep discussing the book with you!
