What Mama Couldn't Tell Us about Love: Healing the Emotional Legacy of Racism by Celebrating Our Light

by Brenda Lane Richardson and Brenda Wade

Book Overview

"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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060930799
• ISBN13: 9780060930790
• Release Date: September 2014
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Very informative and applicable to personal growth

This is an excellent book and necessary for each one of us to read to better understand who we are and why we make the choices we have made and continue to make. If we want something different for our lives, this book introduces us to ways to examine the lives and choices of our mothers, grandmothers, etc., in an effort to make different choices......

Provocative, Enlightening, and Engaging

This book is an absolute MUST for any black woman (or man for that matter) who wants to deal with intergenerational scarcity beliefs which prevent us from truly experiencing love in our lives. Richardson and Wade do an excellent job of explaining how the slavery experience impacted every facet of black life and remnants of that impact are played out in our relationships with our family, friends, and mates. For instance, many of us can look back in our family tree to locate where different behavioral patterns (i.e. alcoholism, sexual abuse, obesity, etc.) developed and now play out in our own lives. The authors have you do a series of exercises, such as a genogram which lists the scarcity beliefs and self-destructive behaviors members of our families have developed and passed on to us, to help you begin to understand those internalized beliefs and behaviors which prevent us from experiencing real love. The book doesn't just focus on love relationships with mates but explores love relationships with ourselves, our family, and our mates. Personally, I found the chapter on anger to be the most provocative and enlightening. So much so that I have begun using the information I learned about my anger issues in my individual counseling sessions. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to deal with the pain of slavery and its reprecussions on our present day lives.

This is the best book I ever read! Excellent!

I cound not put this book down! I was amazed of the imact black slavery has on us today.The entire truth was never taught to me in school. I'm glad this book tells it how it is(or how it use to be)!This book taught me how to heal deep emotional scars that have been pasted down from one generation to the next. I had no idea what a profound impact past emotional abuse has had on my personal life and love relationships today. Don't live in the dark, buy this book and be enlightened to the abudance that was ment for you...

The Black Book Network highly recommends this book!

Brenda Richardson and Dr. Brenda Wade have done a tremendous job in putting together this well researched and documented book. It discusses our collective histories of slavery and sorrow, and their lasting effects on black male and female relationships. Particularly poignant were the prologue (A Letter to Mama) and the chapter entitled, "Believe in Abundance." The use of genograms to decipher and understand our personal family histories, and how the lives of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors have shaped our attitudes today, was sheer genius. If you liked Vanzant's Yesterday, I Cried, you'll love this book. It put more historical and documentary uumph behind the words.

"At last," Black women have our own --The Road Less Travel.

This book is a "MUST" read for all Black folks. Slavery has done its damage to African American, but this book finally addresses ways to heal.Our book club, ALMOST GOLD, is reading and discussing this book in our June meeting. I can't wait.Black folks should have been waiting for this book to hit the shelves like folks were waiting in line for Windows 95 to hit the shelves. This book deals with the generational side effects of slavery which only a trained eye can diagnose and prescribe multiple chronic regiments of therapy. I was raised by a women whose caretaker's mother was a slave. Now, I am beginning to understand my own issues.Dr. Brenda Wade and Brenda Richardson, thank you for the courage to write this book.LET THE HEALING BEGIN. "AT LAST"