The best laws and diversity training have not gotten us anywhere near where we want to go. Therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem is working with old wisdom and very new science about our bodies and nervous systems, and all we condense into the word “race.” Krista sat down with him in Minneapolis, where they both live and work, before the pandemic lockdown began. In this heartbreaking moment, after the killing of George Floyd and the history it carries, Resmaa Menakem’s practices offer us the beginning to change at a cellular level.
The most compelling part about this podcast is Menakem’s ingenious transformations of language around a difficult subject. For instance, instead of using the phrase “people of color”, Menakem refers to racial minorities as “people of culture”, moving away from the familiar, yet vague, descriptor and grounding the subjects in their humanity. These subtle rhetorical switches invites both the listener and the speaker to see themselves and their communities anew.
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