Page 10 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1

Regarding law, there are deeply embedded con-
five very important dates tempt of the powerful
to remember: white bodies towards the
less powerful white bod-
In 1667, the Virgin- ies. The less powerful
ia assembly established
that Christianity did not white missed and con-
change the conditions of tinues to be blind to this
Black and Native people most salient point. Pow-
in bondage. erful white people also
created formal structures
In 1680, a few short years and institutions to rein-
after the Bacon rebellion force these notions of su-
the Virginia assembly es- premacy by which poor
tablished that enslaved white bodies benefited
persons shall not raise a
hand to a white person re- from and fully partici-
gardless of station. pated in.

In 1691, laws preventing Black and Native bod-
intermarriage between white and black people were enacted. ies were deliberately presented as straw men for white bodies to
blow their ancient unhealed historical trauma through. What had
In 1705, the Virginia assembly decided that poor whites could been white-on-white (or, usually, powerful-white-on-less-power-
own property but the enslaved could not. ful- white) trauma was transformed, in carefully calculated fash-

ion, into white-on-Red and white-on-Black violent trauma, which
In 1823, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Doc-
trine of Discovery that gave European white nations the absolute was then institutionally enforced.
dominion and ownership over “New World” Native American
lands and created the basis for western expansion. This was ad- Throughout the United States’ history as a nation, white bodies
opted from the 1493 Doctrine of Discovery by Spain that gave have colonized, oppressed, brutalized, and murdered Black and
them the rights to Indigenous lands. Native ones. But well before the United States began, powerful
white bodies colonized, oppressed, brutalized, and murdered oth-
The unhealed class traumatic effects of the dark ages creat- er, less powerful white ones.
ed fertile ground for the poor white body to except the seeds
of white body supremacy as a means to reflexively protect
themselves and their progeny from further powerful white vi- The carnage perpetrated on Black people and Native Peoples in
olence. Powerful white violence and brutality that continues the “New World” began, on the same soil, as an adaptation of
on poor white bodies well into this century but now it is ob- longstanding white-on-white traumatic retention strategies and
scured by reflexive decontextualized privilege and overwhelm. brutal class practices. This brutalization created trauma that has
The creation of white body supremacy didn’t not assuage the yet to be healed among American bodies of all hues today.

Get to know the author

Resmaa Menakem is a therapist, licensed social worker, and police trainer and consultant who spe-

cializes in trauma work, addressing conflict, and body-centered healing. His most recent book is My

Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.