What Mama Couldn't Tell Us About Love
Healing the Emotional Legacy of Racism by Celebrating Our Light
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- € 9,99
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- € 9,99
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“A wonderful gift to Black women. . . . Richardson and Wade, with pens dipped in abundant love, gracefully advise us as to the lessons of the past we must embrace and those we must discard, if we are to achieve true self-empowerment and emotional liberation.” — Darlene Clark Hine, Ph.D., coauthor of A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America
In this provocative rethinking of the African American woman's experience, Brenda Lane Richardson and Dr. Brenda Wade ask their Black American sisters to consider this question: "What lessons about love and intimacy were passed down from your foremothers to you?" By exploring the emotional legacy shared by all African American women whose ancestors were enslaved, the authors examine the impact of this history on romantic relationships between today's Black women and men—and reveal how the power of inherited beliefs can both heal and strengthen these bonds.
This remarkably uplifting book will show you how to move toward the emotional freedom you seek. It offers spiritual wisdom from well-known African Americans, ways of enhancing the coping skills and strengths your forebears harnessed to help them survive, and the certainty that emotional emancipation is your birthright. Mama may not have told you all this in so many words—but there is no doubt that she would want you to use the positive messages inherent in the African American experience to create a better life.
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Based on their belief that "descendants of people stolen from sub-Saharan Africa" have a unique ancestral history that affects their intimate relationships, journalist Richardson and psychologist Wade (the coauthors of Love Lessons) have written a guide to emotional, romantic and sexual success aimed at the African-American Everywoman. Drawing on anecdotal material and occasionally the experiences of fictional characters in the work of Toni Morrison, the authors devote the bulk of the book to exploring specific "anti-intimacy beliefs" that they claim are rooted in slavery (e.g., "My body is not my own"; "no matter what I do, it won't make a difference"; "I'm not good enough to be loved"), and outlining "life-enhancing beliefs" ("God loves me"; "I can make something from nothing") that can be superimposed in their place. They also provide meditations for clearing the bodily energy centers known as chakras, instructions for constructing an emotional genealogy, role-playing exercises and other familiar techniques for working through negative attitudes and emotions. Though skeptics may not be convinced by the vaguely worded yet impossibly exact statistics that Richardson and Wade use to bolster their thesis ("90 percent of our beliefs and behaviors arise from the subconscious"), and their premise is bound to stir debate, their recommendations, especially for handling anger and depression, are on-target.
