Through the ruptures of the past year and more, we’ve been given so much to learn, and callings to live differently. But how to do that, and where to begin? Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother's Hands, and his original insights into racialized trauma in all kinds of bodies, have offered new ways forward for us all. So we said yes when Resmaa proposed that he join On Being together with Robin DiAngelo. She has been a foremost white voice in our civilizational grappling with whiteness. This conversation is not comfortable, but it is electric and it opens possibility. 

Resmaa Menakem (MSW, LICSW, SEP) teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice, and a senior fellow at The Meadows. His New York Times best-selling book is My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.

Robin DiAngelo has been a consultant, educator, and facilitator for over 20 years and is an Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. She’s the author of the influential book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism. Her new book is Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Robin DiAngelo and Resmaa Menakem — Towards a Framework for Repair." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org. And listen to Resmaa’s first conversation with Krista, ‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence.’