Reviews

Liberated to the Bone: Histories. Bodies. Futures. by Susan Raffo

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asali's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

11corvus11's review

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DNF. This is another book in the series that seems to talk more about caveats of privilege, the author's and that of others, more than the actual topics I thought it would be about. If you'd never heard of any of it, perhaps it's a good entry point to thinking about this stuff. I'm just kinda tired of it and feel like it ends up taking up more space than it should. I don't think we should abandon the practice of introspection and dismantling internalized supremacy, just that it shouldn't be the focus because it still puts the focus on the privilege which I doubt is the intended outcome.

damienhhh's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

cebolla's review

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4.0

There was a chapter or so that felt like it was written for specifically radical, white healers that I found extremely boring. The rest of the book varied from really good to amazing. I love books that hit me in the brain and heart, and this was definitely one of them.

juliaem's review

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challenging hopeful medium-paced

5.0

Read for my collective liberation book club. This book is about healing justice. It is about how to be alive and in relationship with others (human and more than human), but especially in the current US framework of "healthcare." I basically underlined the whole thing, so it was hard for me to even choose a few quotes of Raffo's writing that moved me, but here's two:

"Each of these weave together: stopping the violence, coming in to the present moment, and creating the conditions to allow deep healing. They are each part of the other, but, if we don't hold them with intention, systems of supremacy may find the cracks to, one small bit at a time, bring us to a place where healing is about feeling better within our isolated bubbles rather than a fiercely felt connection with life. None of this should be a task list. It is poetry, an incantation you whisper to yourself as you are planning your day, organizing an action, sitting down with a group of people to dream or act together, showing up out of deep respect for someone else's pain, or claiming your own survival." (p. 29)

"...how are we honoring the sovereignty of life rather than trying to control it so that we feel like we have done a good job?" (p. 84)

lathramb's review

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4.0

Raffo describes Liberated to the Bone as an act of emptying her pockets, to share what has been collected over the years. As a queer, racialized as white, healing practitioner and cultural worker, those are often the people she is speaking to and with. But in the ways that these systems have hurt as all, she’s speaking to collective wounds of life and land. It is a collection of stories that ask us to honor the lineages of healing work that are too often not named, to be with the complexities of identity and the construction of race, to explore the questions of what comes after, for us all. What feels particularly resonate for me is the practice of stopping the violence and getting to the origin of our collective pain. I think this is the dance that is required, and has been practiced by many peoples for time immemorial. The deep healing that can come only when violence is stopped. So, we move between attempting to stop violence in all forms, in real time, to traveling to the depths of our pain, grief, greed, to sit with what needs to be seen before new/old life and culture can emerge. The deep healing in each of our threads of identity is what is necessary for our movements to ripple in ways that are actually transformative. And the violence ensues, so we must move between. Raffo explores her experience, and more importantly, her practice, doing this throughout this book. I’m in the questions of: What is mine to stop? Where does the violence of the generations of white supremacy live in my body? Where does it live in other people whom I love? It is part of the work of white people to be in these questions, and to work towards the root of what’s there, to see that whiteness actually hurts all of us. Some people may read and feel put off by Raffo’s desire to hold this complexity, but for the abolition of supremacy, it’s necessary. For me, her words felt like a companion.

Especially into: “It Starts with the Land,” “Agitation as a Part of Healing… and Organizing,” “What Happens to the Body When It Hates and Why It Is So Pleasurable,” “Listening: Three or More Brains,” “On Eldering, Attachment, Fear, and Control”