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Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience
2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award - Multicultural
2021 Christianity Today Book Award - Christian Living/Discipleship Award
Publishers Weekly starred review
"People of color have endured traumatic histories and almost daily assaults on our dignity. We have prayed about racism, been in denial, or acted out in anger, but we have not known how to individually or collectively pursue healing from the racial trauma."
As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.
2021 Christianity Today Book Award - Christian Living/Discipleship Award
Publishers Weekly starred review
"People of color have endured traumatic histories and almost daily assaults on our dignity. We have prayed about racism, been in denial, or acted out in anger, but we have not known how to individually or collectively pursue healing from the racial trauma."
As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.
184 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 7, 2020
107 people are currently reading
1140 people want to read
About the author
Sheila Wise Rowe
9 books24 followersSheila Wise Rowe is a truth-teller who writes passionately about matters of faith and emotional healing. She advocates for the dignity, rights, and healing of abuse survivors, those carrying racial trauma and offered training on racial conciliation. She facilitates training and support groups for emerging and establish leaders. Sheila holds a Masters degree in Counseling and has lived in the USA, Paris, France and Johannesburg, South Africa. For over twenty-five years she has been a counselor, educator, writer, spiritual director, and speaker. Sheila is a member of the Community Ethics Committee of Harvard Medical School, a policy-review resource for it's teaching hospitals. She is a member of Entrusted Women, Spiritual Directors of Color Network, and the Redbud Writers Guild and writes essays for several publications including; The Redbud Hyphen. Her award-winning book; Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience released by InterVarsity Press (IVP) on January 2020. Healing Racial Trauma was awarded the 2021 best book in Christian Living/ Discipleship by Christianity Today. Her book, Young, Gifted, and Black was released in February 2022. When Sheila is not writing, speaking, hosting trainings and retreats she creates art, and crafts or searches for treasures in local antique and thrift shops.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
January 9, 2020
Sheila approaches the subject of healing racial trauma with the expertise of a counselor, the art of a storyteller, and all of the faith and power of a woman of God.
I really cannot recommend it enough to everyone. Fellow non POCs, you will learn how to know and love your POC family, friends, church body, and neighbors in a new depth. You will see injustice in many more settings. You will cry out in new ways and know more clearly what true racial justice looks like in the church and the world.
May this book reach and bless all who will hear.
I really cannot recommend it enough to everyone. Fellow non POCs, you will learn how to know and love your POC family, friends, church body, and neighbors in a new depth. You will see injustice in many more settings. You will cry out in new ways and know more clearly what true racial justice looks like in the church and the world.
May this book reach and bless all who will hear.
August 3, 2020
I appreciated the questions and reflection at the end of each chapter but what was most helpful for me was discussing the questions at the end of the book, within a small group of trusted friends. Most of the healing, the ugliness, the truthfulness of what I've buried for years, etc. were exposed mostly during the moments when discussing with friends. I highly recommend this book for personal healing but especially would recommend reading this in a community or small group if possible. It was a gift to be able to lean on others as I made my way through facing the racial trauma in my life.
March 14, 2021
Summary: A counseling psychologist describes the experience of racial trauma in story, drawing upon her own and other clinical experiences, and explores the resources for resilience to face continuing racial struggle.
As a White male, I’ve heard the terminology of racial trauma but have not experienced it in my own person. But I work with Black colleagues who have. One looking up to see a policeman’s gun trained on her for the “crime” of watering a neighbor’s flowers while the neighbor was away. Another and his wife stopped in front of their home after a trip to the grocery store, forced to lay on the pavement while their car was searched, for evidence from a robbery even though they offered to produce a receipt from the grocery confirming their whereabouts when the robbery happened. Their crime? “Fitting the description.” Or Asian-American friends who have faced racial slurs urging them to go “home” when this is the country of their birth and citizenship. Often Blacks and people of color can tell a litany of stories running not only through their lives but the lives of their parents and grandparents. When I see the story of a racial injustice, I may be incensed. When a person of color sees the same story, it opens old wounds and is one more in a series of assaults on their sense of dignity.
Sheila Wise Rowe, a counseling psychologist who grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston helps us understand both from her own experience and those of others the deep wounds of racial trauma, wounds beneath the skin, that many Blacks and people of color struggle with. She begins with types of racism and types of racial trauma. The latter was particularly illuminating as she named:
Historical racial trauma: The trauma shared by a group that has faced in its past a traumatizing event such as the forced removal of First Nation tribes that continues to affect these people in the forms of alcoholism, addiction, and elevated rates of suicide.
Transgenerational racial trauma: The bodily effects of trauma passed from one generation to the next, possibly manifesting in diabetes, heart disease. An axiom of trauma is that “the body remembers” and this idea suggests that trauma is even remembered across generations. It also can mean the passing of trauma in the stories we tell.
Personal racial trauma: The personal experience of abuse for one’s race. Rowe in the book describes the verbal and physical attacks she endured when being bused to white schools.
Physical trauma: Attacks upon one’s body that are racially motivated. One thinks of what John Lewis and so many endured at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Vicarious trauma: The wounds opened when one hears reports of violence against others of one’s race. One thinks of the example of mothers and wives who hear reports of a police involved shooting and think of their own husbands and sons.
Microaggressions: The small, everyday, thoughtless assaults on dignity. “You’re so articulate.” “Can I touch your hair?”
Racial gaslighting: The ways individuals and institutions in power try to recast reality turning an incident of racial injustice into something the victim of injustice must have done wrong and that racism is just something imagined that must be gotten over.
In the chapters that follow Rowe describes the effects of the ongoing experience of racial trauma. She describes the fatigue of racism’s relentlessness, especially pronounced for many Blacks in the summer of 2020 in the cycle of incidents with police, protests, and recriminations. Silence is the swallowing and suppressing of pain, anger, and rage, and the self-destructiveness that occurs when all this is turned inward. Rage is the bitter root that festers until unleashed in destructive acts. Fear is often used to subdue a population, as in lynching. Shame happens when the stories of racial inferiority are internalized and they become the stories that prevent one’s true story from being told. Addiction is a misguided response to relieve the pain of trauma.
Rowe addresses these with stories and charts the beginnings of the way out, starting with lament, that cries out to God, that gathers up the hurt and offers it to God. Lament tells the truth without spiritualizing or sugarcoating. She stresses the Christ-centered nature of the healing work that is needed in walking toward freedom, a work that allows Christ to enter in and walk with. It is both internal and external work. Rowe believes that this can lead to a growth in resilience. Racism isn’t going to disappear overnight. Rather, one must develop the resources in Christ who heals our wounds, who helps us practice self-care as his beloved, and calls us into creative engagement with our unique gifts and voices.
For people of color, this may be (and has been from accounts of colleagues) a book that both names what is often felt without words and offers hope and healing. It is an important book for Whites to read as well. It begins with naming the forms of trauma. Then, Rowe’s descriptions of herself as a little girl being bused invited me to imagine what it was like to be on the bus, the walk the gantlet of hateful crowds to enter her school. The other stories, including Nick, her husband’s, invite the same imagining, not as a substitute for what no one should experience, but as at least a very beginning of understanding viscerally as well as cognitively, something of racial trauma. To learn to just sit with and listen to these experiences may open the door to being an ally in Christ’s healing process.
As a White male, I’ve heard the terminology of racial trauma but have not experienced it in my own person. But I work with Black colleagues who have. One looking up to see a policeman’s gun trained on her for the “crime” of watering a neighbor’s flowers while the neighbor was away. Another and his wife stopped in front of their home after a trip to the grocery store, forced to lay on the pavement while their car was searched, for evidence from a robbery even though they offered to produce a receipt from the grocery confirming their whereabouts when the robbery happened. Their crime? “Fitting the description.” Or Asian-American friends who have faced racial slurs urging them to go “home” when this is the country of their birth and citizenship. Often Blacks and people of color can tell a litany of stories running not only through their lives but the lives of their parents and grandparents. When I see the story of a racial injustice, I may be incensed. When a person of color sees the same story, it opens old wounds and is one more in a series of assaults on their sense of dignity.
Sheila Wise Rowe, a counseling psychologist who grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston helps us understand both from her own experience and those of others the deep wounds of racial trauma, wounds beneath the skin, that many Blacks and people of color struggle with. She begins with types of racism and types of racial trauma. The latter was particularly illuminating as she named:
Historical racial trauma: The trauma shared by a group that has faced in its past a traumatizing event such as the forced removal of First Nation tribes that continues to affect these people in the forms of alcoholism, addiction, and elevated rates of suicide.
Transgenerational racial trauma: The bodily effects of trauma passed from one generation to the next, possibly manifesting in diabetes, heart disease. An axiom of trauma is that “the body remembers” and this idea suggests that trauma is even remembered across generations. It also can mean the passing of trauma in the stories we tell.
Personal racial trauma: The personal experience of abuse for one’s race. Rowe in the book describes the verbal and physical attacks she endured when being bused to white schools.
Physical trauma: Attacks upon one’s body that are racially motivated. One thinks of what John Lewis and so many endured at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Vicarious trauma: The wounds opened when one hears reports of violence against others of one’s race. One thinks of the example of mothers and wives who hear reports of a police involved shooting and think of their own husbands and sons.
Microaggressions: The small, everyday, thoughtless assaults on dignity. “You’re so articulate.” “Can I touch your hair?”
Racial gaslighting: The ways individuals and institutions in power try to recast reality turning an incident of racial injustice into something the victim of injustice must have done wrong and that racism is just something imagined that must be gotten over.
In the chapters that follow Rowe describes the effects of the ongoing experience of racial trauma. She describes the fatigue of racism’s relentlessness, especially pronounced for many Blacks in the summer of 2020 in the cycle of incidents with police, protests, and recriminations. Silence is the swallowing and suppressing of pain, anger, and rage, and the self-destructiveness that occurs when all this is turned inward. Rage is the bitter root that festers until unleashed in destructive acts. Fear is often used to subdue a population, as in lynching. Shame happens when the stories of racial inferiority are internalized and they become the stories that prevent one’s true story from being told. Addiction is a misguided response to relieve the pain of trauma.
Rowe addresses these with stories and charts the beginnings of the way out, starting with lament, that cries out to God, that gathers up the hurt and offers it to God. Lament tells the truth without spiritualizing or sugarcoating. She stresses the Christ-centered nature of the healing work that is needed in walking toward freedom, a work that allows Christ to enter in and walk with. It is both internal and external work. Rowe believes that this can lead to a growth in resilience. Racism isn’t going to disappear overnight. Rather, one must develop the resources in Christ who heals our wounds, who helps us practice self-care as his beloved, and calls us into creative engagement with our unique gifts and voices.
For people of color, this may be (and has been from accounts of colleagues) a book that both names what is often felt without words and offers hope and healing. It is an important book for Whites to read as well. It begins with naming the forms of trauma. Then, Rowe’s descriptions of herself as a little girl being bused invited me to imagine what it was like to be on the bus, the walk the gantlet of hateful crowds to enter her school. The other stories, including Nick, her husband’s, invite the same imagining, not as a substitute for what no one should experience, but as at least a very beginning of understanding viscerally as well as cognitively, something of racial trauma. To learn to just sit with and listen to these experiences may open the door to being an ally in Christ’s healing process.
May 6, 2021
I jumped in to this book because I wanted to hear stories of people traumatized for racial reasons in ways I have never experienced. I also wanted to hear the author's perspective on how to heal from such horrible experiences. What I discovered was a book full of compelling and heartbreaking stories while also learning that the answer to healing from racial trauma is also the same answer for healing from any injustice we experience. It's Jesus. I'm so thankful for Sheila's central focus on Jesus as the author for both justice when it comes to racial issues, forgiveness toward those who hurt us and healing for our hearts in order that we might be free and continue moving forward. I highly recommend you read this book because you will grow in a Jesus-centered way and you will receive great insights and guidance into the challenging aspects of racial divide and reconciliation that permeate our lives.
July 3, 2022
As a white person, Healing Racial Trauma helped me understand and feel the traumatic element that can go with living as an ethnic minority in America (and Britain). I also appreciated that Jesus meets people in their racial trauma in the same way that he meets us in any form of trauma. Sheila Wise Rowe's answer in the gospel is realistic, hopeful and with the long view in mind.
August 5, 2020
Summary: Trauma is real; some of that trauma is based on racism or white supremacy; the hard work of healing is essential, not just for individuals but also for communities and future generations.
Part of being slow to pick up Healing Racial Trauma is my identification of racial trauma primarily with racial minorities. Most of the examples of this book are of racial minorities, but that does not mean that this book is not for those with less melanin. The strong theme throughout the book is that healing is not only for yourself (although it is that as well) but also for your community and future generations. Breaking cycles is tremendously hard, but if we want healthy communities, churches, institutions, and families, we have to do the work of breaking cycles. That means that we have to do the hard work of internal healing, which is related to communal healing.
I have recently joined a Be The Bridge group. Part of the method of the group is to acknowledge history and lament that history. I was asked to do a short presentation on lament. Because I had meant to anyway, I started re-reading Soong-Chan Rah's Prophetic Lament. The opening of Prophetic Lament was helpful, but I was seeking out other resources and saw the chapter on Lament in Healing Racial Trauma. After I finished that chapter, a friend commented about how helpful she found the book as a whole and how she was leading a small group through the book. So I decided to move the book up on my list.
Part of being slow to pick up Healing Racial Trauma is my identification of racial trauma primarily with racial minorities. Most of the examples of this book are of racial minorities, but that does not mean that this book is not for those with less melanin. The strong theme throughout the book is that healing is not only for yourself (although it is that as well) but also for your community and future generations. Breaking cycles is tremendously hard, but if we want healthy communities, churches, institutions, and families, we have to do the work of breaking cycles. That means that we have to do the hard work of internal healing, which is related to communal healing.
The chapters are similar in approach, there are several stories which carry through each section, and the topic is illustrated through actual people. The chapters are Wounds, Fatigue, Silence, Rage, Fear, Lament, Shame, Addiction, Freedom, and Resilience.
When my friend recommended the book, she said that she did not think that many White people understood that minority communities often have more pressures than what is perceived from outside. That is best illustrated by this paragraph from the book:
The research of Dr. Sherman James into health disparities among African Americans identified a coping mechanism used to combat ongoing psychosocial and environmental stress, stigma, and racism. Dr. James reported that when people are “‘really trying to make ends meet going up against very powerful forces of dislocation—their biological systems are going to pay a price,’ he said. ‘That’s the situation African Americans have been in since the beginning,’ he added. ‘Now we’re seeing other groups begin to be exposed to these same forces.’”10 Dr. James named the John Henryism Hypotheses after his patient John Henry Martin, who rose from being a sharecropper to become a wealthy farmer with seventy-five acres of land. Like the mythical John Henry of folklore who died of exhaustion after beating a mechanical steam drill, Dr. James’s patient also paid a hefty price for overworking. His patient was afflicted with hypertension, arthritis, and a severe peptic ulcer, and his physical health continued to decline. Dr. James developed the John Henry scale to identify those who have physically suffered as a result of their constant striving.
Part of the importance of lament is rightly recognizing reality. If we do not acknowledge rightly, we cannot lament, and that lack of lament perpetuates the problems through our silence. As the book says, "Elie Wiesel says, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
The adage, 'hurt people, hurt people' is true. Children and youth that are exposed to violence or are direct victims of violence are more likely to have 'increased depression, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, homelessness, and poor school performance." But estimates are that only 2-15% of any age receive victim assistance, and that percentage tends to be lower among Black victims. I don't want to talk too strongly about trauma only around violence, but that is an area where I think it is possible to see injury without as much controversy.
Personally, the big takeaway for me is that lament and acknowledgment is not just important to recognize that problems or disparities exist, but that they are a step toward action and healing, or as Sheila Rowe says, "Activism is often a byproduct of lament."
April 2, 2021
This review is for the audio version read by the author, which I listened to in one sitting.
The book doesn't pull any punches about the trauma caused by racism. The stories are moving and cover a range of experiences that are often overlooked such as those endured by 1st Nation peoples. The author also does not hold back on the gospel and the power of God to bring healing, forgiveness, and repair. I appreciated that she emphasizes the need for the Word, community, and prayer as vital to this lengthy and often painful process. I was also encouraged personally to not give up and hope in God despite the reluctance that I seem to meet when wanting to discuss racial issues.
As this was the audio version, I want to get a print copy so I can work through this again in more detail
The book doesn't pull any punches about the trauma caused by racism. The stories are moving and cover a range of experiences that are often overlooked such as those endured by 1st Nation peoples. The author also does not hold back on the gospel and the power of God to bring healing, forgiveness, and repair. I appreciated that she emphasizes the need for the Word, community, and prayer as vital to this lengthy and often painful process. I was also encouraged personally to not give up and hope in God despite the reluctance that I seem to meet when wanting to discuss racial issues.
As this was the audio version, I want to get a print copy so I can work through this again in more detail
November 27, 2020
Fantastic, insightful, guy-wrenching...really enjoyed this book. So many things my church has been talking about for healing were also mentioned here: Gratitude journals, listening prayer, scripture meditation. This is a Biblical counseling book on how to heal from racial trauma. I learned more about how reading history and understanding the role my white ancestors played in racial trauma for people of color in this country has affected me. I have trauma just realizing the ugly things that have happened. My heart breaks for those who actually went through and go through these traumatizing experiences themselves. I also learned that my own heart can be bitter towards those who have hurt me or hurt others and this is destroying my own heart. I need to learn not to keep a record of wrongs and forgive as I have been forgiven. That’s much easier said than done but super real for me!
April 3, 2021
This book is hard, and it made me uncomfortable. It also made me sick, and I gasped more than once at some of the stories. I find myself being suspicious to current day racism but very readily speak out against historical systemic and damaging racism. I know this is a problem, and I think that’s why this book challenged me so greatly.
This book is written for POC and how to heal from racial trauma, it was not written for someone like me, but it opened my eyes for some ways I can try and understand, empathize, and support POC of who have been hurt badly by racial trauma.
This book is written for POC and how to heal from racial trauma, it was not written for someone like me, but it opened my eyes for some ways I can try and understand, empathize, and support POC of who have been hurt badly by racial trauma.
June 11, 2024
Contrary to the complaints in some negative reviews, this book is very upfront about being based in Christianity. It is openly targeted at people of color and also remarkably gracious towards white people. It is structured around anecdotes retold by someone educated in trauma recovery who finds Christian faith to be, overall, a source of strength. I do agree with reviewers who note that this is not the book for anyone whose church experience has been a source of trauma (racial or otherwise). Rowe speaks to those seeking healing inside the church. I found this book informative and encouraging.
November 10, 2020
Found myself processing my own trauma while also learning about racial trauma, so the power of this book for me was two-fold!
January 16, 2021
Beautiful, powerful, and uplifting.
April 24, 2023
written and researched with love, care, and compassion
February 21, 2020
I may not be the first audience for this book, but we are changed by the power of stories ...and the stories Rowe offers of herself, her family and other POC are a gift to receive and be changed by.
January 22, 2021
This book is right on the edge of being a 4 star book. I hope why that is true becomes clear below.
Sheila Wise Rowe has been working around healing, specifically healing from issues of trauma for decades. From that wisdom and experience she invites us to explore the specific ways that racial trauma impacts us as individuals in society and offers practical ways to begin that healing journey.
The ambition of this book was actually 5 stars to me. As someone who has spent many hours in counseling as well as healing prayer all the while desiring to see more justice and healing around issues of race and oppression in our country I often felt the false dichotomy between the need for inner healing (by those oppressed as well as the oppressor) and the need to pursue justice. Rowe brings the two together in a way that helps me to integrate these two realities.
She walks through the different ways that our traumas affect us (e.g. anger, addiction, fear, etc.). These effects would surprise no one who has been in counseling, but again that window into how we have experienced racialized trauma is helpful. She offers great reflection questions at the end of every chapter as well.
I do wish that the book was more specific. Sometimes it feels like other books I've read on healing and prayer, but without specifics and with an overlay of race on top. But it left me wanting more. More specifics of models of prayer or counseling.
One specific thing that I would have loved was a clearer articulation of how to walk with others in their healing journey.
Perhaps I am asking too much though, because every individual will have a unique journey of healing. And because of that any solution has to be encompassing enough for those different stories that upholding any specific "model" would be inappropriate.
For creating the connection and starting the conversation for me, I liked the book, and I would recommend it to others. It left me wanting more, but perhaps that is what an ambitious book does.
Sheila Wise Rowe has been working around healing, specifically healing from issues of trauma for decades. From that wisdom and experience she invites us to explore the specific ways that racial trauma impacts us as individuals in society and offers practical ways to begin that healing journey.
The ambition of this book was actually 5 stars to me. As someone who has spent many hours in counseling as well as healing prayer all the while desiring to see more justice and healing around issues of race and oppression in our country I often felt the false dichotomy between the need for inner healing (by those oppressed as well as the oppressor) and the need to pursue justice. Rowe brings the two together in a way that helps me to integrate these two realities.
She walks through the different ways that our traumas affect us (e.g. anger, addiction, fear, etc.). These effects would surprise no one who has been in counseling, but again that window into how we have experienced racialized trauma is helpful. She offers great reflection questions at the end of every chapter as well.
I do wish that the book was more specific. Sometimes it feels like other books I've read on healing and prayer, but without specifics and with an overlay of race on top. But it left me wanting more. More specifics of models of prayer or counseling.
One specific thing that I would have loved was a clearer articulation of how to walk with others in their healing journey.
Perhaps I am asking too much though, because every individual will have a unique journey of healing. And because of that any solution has to be encompassing enough for those different stories that upholding any specific "model" would be inappropriate.
For creating the connection and starting the conversation for me, I liked the book, and I would recommend it to others. It left me wanting more, but perhaps that is what an ambitious book does.
July 6, 2021
Author Sheila Wise Rowe shares stories of fatigue, silence, fear, and lament over racial trauma, and what it means to heal and build resilience. I appreciate the diversity of stories she includes, and find hope in what she has to say about self-care. Please see 5 Books That Give Me Hope.
May 25, 2021
Legitimate stories of racial injustice are so entangled with neo-Marxist critical race theory propaganda, pseudoscience, and a religious veneer as to leave the whole book an unreadable mess. The author engages in tactics such as suggesting that anyone who disagrees with her is a de facto racist.
April 3, 2022
#LitLife2for22 Opposing Perspectives category
Faulty presuppositions which control everything. No historical nuance. No nuance whatsoever, only assertions. Written for an audience of POCs--American--assuming whites could never experience racial trauma. There are two people in the world--POCs and whites. You may think that Japanese people have whiter skin than you as a white person, or that their actions as a country were racist or had racist motivations in WWII for example; but no. No definitions of terms, outside of one, "racism." (It was a fine definition.)
Few biblical texts, mostly egregiously mishandled and misapplied--eisegesis. The Gospel was extremely watered down; in fact, it was not clear, but only vaguely assumed and applied to anyone who has fit her paradigm of racial trauma (anyone non-white) and wants to pray/learn to forgive. Misrepresentation of political parties and overlooking of parties' stances on different issues (insinuates indirectly through broad statements that it is un-racist to be Democratic, ignoring how problematic and disturbing abortion of millions of POC babies is and should be to every Christian; this is an inexcusable omission). Misunderstanding of sin nature. (If you have any addictions as a POC, keep digging; the root will be racial trauma experienced at some point, even if 300 years ago, from whites. Or, because some white people were wicked, therefore that means there is "systemic" injustice in all of them and any country, especially America, that has a majority of white people.)
Cherry-picking: Even her comments in regards to South Africa were diluted with misrepresentations or lack of nuance; I live here as a missionary and speak a tribal language, so my ears perked up whenever she mentioned SA (about five times). Lack of fairness regarding immigration--for example, why did they come to America if it's so unjust? Didn't they choose that? But no personal responsibility for POCs. On the other hand, whites have personal and historical responsibility for the decisions of wicked white people. Self-contradictory at times--POCs (and white allies) should all be activists, never giving up to achieve reparations/payback/justice/reconciliation; however, certain kinds of activism aren't acceptable (not spelled out, this second clause is played at piano volume; the first in forte volume). Faulty epistemology.
I hope it helps someone, like someone who already agrees with her worldview; but it seems to me that in the main, it will only polarize or embitter us more based on color.
Faulty presuppositions which control everything. No historical nuance. No nuance whatsoever, only assertions. Written for an audience of POCs--American--assuming whites could never experience racial trauma. There are two people in the world--POCs and whites. You may think that Japanese people have whiter skin than you as a white person, or that their actions as a country were racist or had racist motivations in WWII for example; but no. No definitions of terms, outside of one, "racism." (It was a fine definition.)
Few biblical texts, mostly egregiously mishandled and misapplied--eisegesis. The Gospel was extremely watered down; in fact, it was not clear, but only vaguely assumed and applied to anyone who has fit her paradigm of racial trauma (anyone non-white) and wants to pray/learn to forgive. Misrepresentation of political parties and overlooking of parties' stances on different issues (insinuates indirectly through broad statements that it is un-racist to be Democratic, ignoring how problematic and disturbing abortion of millions of POC babies is and should be to every Christian; this is an inexcusable omission). Misunderstanding of sin nature. (If you have any addictions as a POC, keep digging; the root will be racial trauma experienced at some point, even if 300 years ago, from whites. Or, because some white people were wicked, therefore that means there is "systemic" injustice in all of them and any country, especially America, that has a majority of white people.)
Cherry-picking: Even her comments in regards to South Africa were diluted with misrepresentations or lack of nuance; I live here as a missionary and speak a tribal language, so my ears perked up whenever she mentioned SA (about five times). Lack of fairness regarding immigration--for example, why did they come to America if it's so unjust? Didn't they choose that? But no personal responsibility for POCs. On the other hand, whites have personal and historical responsibility for the decisions of wicked white people. Self-contradictory at times--POCs (and white allies) should all be activists, never giving up to achieve reparations/payback/justice/reconciliation; however, certain kinds of activism aren't acceptable (not spelled out, this second clause is played at piano volume; the first in forte volume). Faulty epistemology.
I hope it helps someone, like someone who already agrees with her worldview; but it seems to me that in the main, it will only polarize or embitter us more based on color.
September 10, 2020
In the weeks leading up to both the pandemic shutdown and the news of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd’s killings I was part of a team of leaders at our church helping a group of multi-ethnic men and women comes to terms with the ways their lives have been wounded by others. My church context has been dominated by white folks for my whole life as has the work I’ve done helping women seek healing for areas of shame, guilt, wounding, and abuse. I knew I needed more help understanding the particularity of racial trauma as I listened to the stories and experiences (some, via translators) of black and brown women. I will never fully understand, but Sheila Wise Rowe’s important book has become essential to my calling as a wounded healer. I recommend it highly for anyone wishing to give care and support to people of color in their lives, communities, and congregations.
One more note: In case the word “trauma” seems like a narrow description, here’s a list of the chapter titles to give you a sense of the range of symptoms Rowe and her interviewees explore:
Wounds
Fatigue
Silence
Rage
Fear
Lament
Shame
Addiction
Freedom
Resilience
One more note: In case the word “trauma” seems like a narrow description, here’s a list of the chapter titles to give you a sense of the range of symptoms Rowe and her interviewees explore:
Wounds
Fatigue
Silence
Rage
Fear
Lament
Shame
Addiction
Freedom
Resilience
November 23, 2020
As someone with significant religious trauma and not realizing how religious this book was until I started reading, I will grant that my opinion of this book may be swayed by that bias. However I appreciated the author's research, frank discussion of racism and trauma, and integration of her own and other personal narratives. For someone in a Christian context, I can see this being very helpful on the road to antiracism and racial trauma healing.
My largest criticism rests in the chapter on freedom, especially concerning unity and forgiveness. I know the importance of forgiveness in Christian doctrine, but it is not always conducive to trauma healing, especially not if its made to be a cure-all instead of addressing the trauma, allowing the grief process, and requiring the party who has done the damage to do the work of mending the relationship. It may be pertinent to Christian doctrine but it goes against nearly all of the trauma research I have encountered.
Overall, as I said, I can see this being deeply helpful for someone inside Christianity beginning to wrestle with antiracism, racial trauma, and trauma healing, whether that is their own or in their relationship to BIPOC.
My largest criticism rests in the chapter on freedom, especially concerning unity and forgiveness. I know the importance of forgiveness in Christian doctrine, but it is not always conducive to trauma healing, especially not if its made to be a cure-all instead of addressing the trauma, allowing the grief process, and requiring the party who has done the damage to do the work of mending the relationship. It may be pertinent to Christian doctrine but it goes against nearly all of the trauma research I have encountered.
Overall, as I said, I can see this being deeply helpful for someone inside Christianity beginning to wrestle with antiracism, racial trauma, and trauma healing, whether that is their own or in their relationship to BIPOC.
July 24, 2022
This book could carry a trigger warning for people who have suffered racist abuse by their religious institutions. I can see that this might be helpful if you are Christian and are looking to start a healing journey. However, this relies so much on Jesus and God that it doesn't offer enough advice on how to move forward. It's completely uncritical of the history of religion, and it doesn't account for any trauma caused by religion, especially for Black and brown people.
For someone who believes the answer to every question is Jesus, this book might provide comfort. I hope it does provide comfort for some. In fact, I'm glad there is a book out there just for Black people who are unharmed by religion to process their trauma. Some reviews that complain that this book is divisive discounts that people deserve their own healing how they need it. I think if it were more clear up front that it is a religious-only text, that would be helpful. Because it doesn't, I fear that this book might be re-traumatizing for others.
I recommend All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep as a personal and practical blueprint for healing whether you are religious or not.
For someone who believes the answer to every question is Jesus, this book might provide comfort. I hope it does provide comfort for some. In fact, I'm glad there is a book out there just for Black people who are unharmed by religion to process their trauma. Some reviews that complain that this book is divisive discounts that people deserve their own healing how they need it. I think if it were more clear up front that it is a religious-only text, that would be helpful. Because it doesn't, I fear that this book might be re-traumatizing for others.
I recommend All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep as a personal and practical blueprint for healing whether you are religious or not.
January 9, 2020
In the year 2020, the sands are shifting underneath us. Something has to give, but how can we respond differently as we experience a collective call to change our posture towards racism? In Healing Racial Trauma, Sheila Wise Rowe provides exactly the anecdotes (and antidotes) we need for such a time as this. The chapters of Healing Racial Trauma outline common responses to racism: fatigue. Silence. Rage, fear, and shame. Addiction. Wise Rowe also includes other, healthier chapters: lament, freedom, and resilience.
Yet these responses lead to new questions: how do we ground these abstract nouns in reality? What do silence and rage, not to mention lament and resilience, look like in the flesh? Wise Rowe not only weaves Biblical examples in each chapter, but she also draws from stories close to her, including her own, to walk us through healing journeys for people of color from a variety of backgrounds.
As Healing Racial Trauma makes clear, however, we must first contend with the past before we can expect healing. Wise Rose recounts, with vivid vulnerability, the horrifying obstacles that her own Granddaddy James endured: the death of his daughter, her father-in-law, uncle, and his baby grandson in quick succession from tuberculosis due to a lack of hospitals for Black folks in his community. Local White suppliers refusing to sell him stock for his general store. Only receiving 60% of the pay of a White farmer for the same bushel of produce.
I admit a temptation as a White person to squirm while reading Wise Rowe’s vignettes. Yet turning away is exactly what I cannot do; I cannot pretend like things are better than they are. In fact, Healing Racial Trauma offers White people like me a powerful prescription, too. I am called not only to be one of the “compassionate listeners who acknowledge: ‘I see you, and I see your pain,’” but also to be a “presence, rather than a savior, a companion, rather than a leader, a friend, rather than a teacher.”
Healing Racial Trauma is a rich resource for our time, offering concrete ways to pray for healing, a glossary of terms that will become increasingly useful as we learn even how to talk about this topic, as well as a small group structure to put these ideas into practice in our local communities.
As a White person, when I am tempted to think healing for me may look like some sort of condemnation of guilt, I remember the story that Wise Rowe recounts of “Rizpah, a traumatized mother grieved by an act of vengeance” in 2 Samuel 21. This mother “refused to be moved” beside the bodies of her murdered children, children whom King David forbid to be buried. Rizpah lamented and publicly demonstrated her grief. As Wise Rowe explains, “when King David hears of Rizpah’s tenacity in guarding her loved ones, he finally grants her justice.” Only then, after King David relents, does the Lord release blessing on the land.
“I wonder to what degree the church’s refusal to recognize the grief and pain of people of color and refusal to lament has affected our land,” Wise Rowe asks. When the world is increasingly being consumed by wildfires or buried under floodwaters, I wonder the same thing. Our land could sure use some blessing now. How is God calling us to seek it?
Yet these responses lead to new questions: how do we ground these abstract nouns in reality? What do silence and rage, not to mention lament and resilience, look like in the flesh? Wise Rowe not only weaves Biblical examples in each chapter, but she also draws from stories close to her, including her own, to walk us through healing journeys for people of color from a variety of backgrounds.
As Healing Racial Trauma makes clear, however, we must first contend with the past before we can expect healing. Wise Rose recounts, with vivid vulnerability, the horrifying obstacles that her own Granddaddy James endured: the death of his daughter, her father-in-law, uncle, and his baby grandson in quick succession from tuberculosis due to a lack of hospitals for Black folks in his community. Local White suppliers refusing to sell him stock for his general store. Only receiving 60% of the pay of a White farmer for the same bushel of produce.
I admit a temptation as a White person to squirm while reading Wise Rowe’s vignettes. Yet turning away is exactly what I cannot do; I cannot pretend like things are better than they are. In fact, Healing Racial Trauma offers White people like me a powerful prescription, too. I am called not only to be one of the “compassionate listeners who acknowledge: ‘I see you, and I see your pain,’” but also to be a “presence, rather than a savior, a companion, rather than a leader, a friend, rather than a teacher.”
Healing Racial Trauma is a rich resource for our time, offering concrete ways to pray for healing, a glossary of terms that will become increasingly useful as we learn even how to talk about this topic, as well as a small group structure to put these ideas into practice in our local communities.
As a White person, when I am tempted to think healing for me may look like some sort of condemnation of guilt, I remember the story that Wise Rowe recounts of “Rizpah, a traumatized mother grieved by an act of vengeance” in 2 Samuel 21. This mother “refused to be moved” beside the bodies of her murdered children, children whom King David forbid to be buried. Rizpah lamented and publicly demonstrated her grief. As Wise Rowe explains, “when King David hears of Rizpah’s tenacity in guarding her loved ones, he finally grants her justice.” Only then, after King David relents, does the Lord release blessing on the land.
“I wonder to what degree the church’s refusal to recognize the grief and pain of people of color and refusal to lament has affected our land,” Wise Rowe asks. When the world is increasingly being consumed by wildfires or buried under floodwaters, I wonder the same thing. Our land could sure use some blessing now. How is God calling us to seek it?
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June 2, 2020“Racism is like the elephant in the room that we pretend is not there. However, we now see that it’s enormous and we’re tripping over it. How do we get rid of it? If we try to move it alone, it won’t budge. It’s going to take a large number of folks of all races, undergoing a heart change, sharing our stories, and lives, and challenging false narratives. If we all speak up and engage in small and large acts that pursue love, peace, and justice, we can dismantle the systemic structures that promote racism, xenophobia, White supremacy, and privilege.”
– Sheila Wise Rowe
Includes stories of POC who have endured racial trauma and find hope in Jesus. A good opportunity to listen and hear perspectives of how people endure racial trauma on a daily basis, and how that pain manifests emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Challenges the current state of our country, government, communities, and church. Incorporates scriptural truth and provides hope, but it’s going to take deep personal and collective WORK to seek justice.
– Sheila Wise Rowe
Includes stories of POC who have endured racial trauma and find hope in Jesus. A good opportunity to listen and hear perspectives of how people endure racial trauma on a daily basis, and how that pain manifests emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Challenges the current state of our country, government, communities, and church. Incorporates scriptural truth and provides hope, but it’s going to take deep personal and collective WORK to seek justice.
July 9, 2020
Though written mostly for an audience that has experienced racial trauma, the author's message serves as an important learning place for anyone. As an older White woman, the truths and stories of individual's life experiences helped me understand a bit more deeply the large and often hidden burden carried by others.
The book clearly describes ways that racial trauma affects all of society and the reactions to it that can keep individuals and our society from moving into the reality that "the Lord continuously saves and brings grace, new life, beauty, and justice" (p. 155). When there seems to be so much tearing us apart and so little beauty and justice at times, the author calls the reader (of any background, race, and ethnicity) to move to spiritual/soul, physical, emotional, and relational health. A needed encouragement not to give up or despair, but to join the move forward together.
The book clearly describes ways that racial trauma affects all of society and the reactions to it that can keep individuals and our society from moving into the reality that "the Lord continuously saves and brings grace, new life, beauty, and justice" (p. 155). When there seems to be so much tearing us apart and so little beauty and justice at times, the author calls the reader (of any background, race, and ethnicity) to move to spiritual/soul, physical, emotional, and relational health. A needed encouragement not to give up or despair, but to join the move forward together.
August 28, 2020
During this turbulent time, this book is a must read for everyone who wants to grow in compassion and understanding toward people of color. I found this to be a heartbreaking read as I learned about the author's own journey, as well as the treatment of others who aren't part of the white majority. The book is a challenge for those of us from a more comfortable background, but necessary if we are to empathize with different experiences. We must not look away.
Especially I thought of all my friends of color who have to "code switch" when operating in a predominantly white environment. The author effectively portrays how utterly exhausting it is for people to navigate these two worlds. I highly recommend the book to people of color as a source of healing and encouragement to let them know they aren't alone--and to white people as a source of backstory and explanation for all the heightened emotions we're seeing in our country at this time.
Especially I thought of all my friends of color who have to "code switch" when operating in a predominantly white environment. The author effectively portrays how utterly exhausting it is for people to navigate these two worlds. I highly recommend the book to people of color as a source of healing and encouragement to let them know they aren't alone--and to white people as a source of backstory and explanation for all the heightened emotions we're seeing in our country at this time.
December 10, 2020
The author’s name, Sheila WISE Rowe, is a true reflection of who she is. She teaches with such a deep understanding of people, victims of trauma, the human psyche, and Scripture. I found myself highlighting so much, that I realized this will be a book I refer back to over and over again. She shares the stories of different individuals, what they went through, how the felt, and how they heal. If you or your loved ones have experienced any amount of pain from racism, implicit bias, or micro-aggressions, I think you’d enjoy this book. Sheila is a college professor and has counseled victims of abuse and racial trauma in the US and South Africa for many years. I chose this book because I wanted a better understanding of what Black people and immigrants go through in the US. I also wanted to learn if there was anything I can do to help, or to avoid contributing to the problem. This book did not disappoint.
March 21, 2021
So grateful for Shelia Wise’s work in this book. She does an incredible job communicating and putting into tangible appropriate words, what many people of color experience intuitively daily. Reading these stories, and these terms brought a sense of “Yes! I’m not crazy!” That was good for my soul to read. And toward the end of the book, Sheila doesn’t settle with just definitions and explanations, but challenges readers to do the internal and external work to pursue healing, and communal reconciliation, all while keeping Jesus centered in the journey. I was grateful for that.
For those who have experienced acute levels of racial trauma the past couple of years (or for decades), this book will speak directly to what you’ve experienced and help you communicate it. For those who are white, or have not fully understand the racial trauma that others have talked about, please buy this book and learn how to love those around you better.
For those who have experienced acute levels of racial trauma the past couple of years (or for decades), this book will speak directly to what you’ve experienced and help you communicate it. For those who are white, or have not fully understand the racial trauma that others have talked about, please buy this book and learn how to love those around you better.
February 3, 2021
Sheila Wise Rowe shared really great stories if racial trauma and its impacts on the current lives if Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian individuals. I appreciated her tie in of the work/words of well know trauma practitioners. And while i think the bible stories she founded each chapter on ran parallel to the stories of racial trauma and racism experienced by the individuals, I experienced the recommendations cemented in Christian considerations were too definitive for me. For example, i wished she would have spoken more to her definition of forgiveness and its vitalness when processing and healing from racism. Additionally, I am a little hesitant to stand in and accept an apology on someone else’s behalf. I also am skeptical when we believe we can apologizing for someone else’s actions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2020
This is a Christ-centered book about racial trauma, it's affect on people, and finding ways to heal through a relationship with God and community. I found it very enlightening and helpful, both as a white woman who needed to better understand the affects of systemic racism and examine my own privilege, and as a person who has experienced trauma and sometimes forgets the deep scars it leaves. Sheila Wise-Rowe writes in an honest, open, and compassionate tone. She shares the stories in an unblinking way that both acknowledges the reality of trauma while also upholding the sovereignty of God. She pulls from scripture and the latest psychological studies and theories on racial trauma, balancing faith with science in a way I rarely see but is so necessary for a topic like this. It is also refreshing to see a Christian work that calls out the church on its failings in standing up against racism in communities while also highlighting the role the church can have in helping bring about healing.
I feel this book would be helpful for anyone struggling with racial trauma and seeking healing or for anyone looking for helpful insight that improves empathy and understanding for those scarred by racism. As mentioned previously, it relies heavily on biblical passages and provides prayer prompts at the end of each chapter.
I feel this book would be helpful for anyone struggling with racial trauma and seeking healing or for anyone looking for helpful insight that improves empathy and understanding for those scarred by racism. As mentioned previously, it relies heavily on biblical passages and provides prayer prompts at the end of each chapter.
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