cover image What Mama Couldn't Tell Us about Love: Healing the Emotional Legacy of Slavery, Celebrating Our Light

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

Brenda Richardson. HarperCollins Publishers, $24 (241pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019296-9

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. (June)