Layla F. Saad - Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

Copyright 2020 by Layla F. Saad

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Excerpt(s) from White Fragility: Why Its So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo copyright 2018 by Robin DiAngelo. Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Excerpt(s) from Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde copyright 1984, 2007 by Audre Lorde, used with permission from Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt(s) from Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, copyright 2013 by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt(s) from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, copyright 2015 by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Used by permission of Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt(s) from Im Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown, copyright 2018 by Austin Channing Brown. Used by permission of Crown Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Parable of the Sower copyright 1993 by Octavia E. Butler. Reprinted by permission of Writers House LLC acting as agent for the Estate. Parable of the Talents copyright 1998 by Octavia E. Butler. Reprinted by permission of Writers House LLC acting as agent for the Estate. Excerpt(s) from White Like Me by Tim Wise, copyright 2008, 2011 by Tim Wise. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press. Excerpt(s) from The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, copyright 1980 by Toni Cade Bambara. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt(s) from The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, copyright 2017 by Angie Thomas. Excerpt(s) from Barbarian by Mona Haydar, copyright 2018 by Mona Haydar. Used by permission of Mona Haydar.

I appreciate The Circle Ways spirit of generosity allowing people access to their information and practice. Its inclusion in this book does not indicate endorsement. Readers are encouraged to explore thecircleway.net, to find other open materials and to read the book, The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010).

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Originally published as The Me and White Supremacy Workbook in 2019 by Layla F. Saad.

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For Sam, Maya, and Mohamed.

Thank you for loving me, believing in me,

and inspiring me to be a good ancestor.

I love you.

This is for you.

To shape God

With wisdom and forethought

To benefit your world,

Your people,

Your life,

Consider consequences

Minimize harm

Ask questions,

Seek answers,

Learn,

Teach.

Earthseed: The Books of the Living I ,

Verse 43; Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

contents

foreword

BY ROBIN DIANGELO

All right! you say. I get it! Now what do I do?

I am a white antiracist educator. Invariably, the number one question I am asked by a white participant at the end of a presentation is What do I do? It may seem a reasonable thing to ask upon realizing that you are complicit in white supremacy. Yet this question is problematic. First and foremost, it is problematic because I believe it is disingenuous. It has been my consistent experience leading antiracist education over the last twenty-five years that most white people dont really want to know what to do about racism if it will require anything of them that is inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Indeed, asking this question is often a way to mitigate or deflect feelings of racial discomfort. While the racist status quo is comfortable for me virtually twenty-four-seven as a white person, challenging the racist status quo is not. Building the racial stamina required to challenge the racist status quo is thus a critical part of our work as white people. Rushing ahead to solutionsespecially when we have barely begun to think critically about the problembypasses the necessary personal work and reflection and distances us from understanding our own complicity. In fact, racial discomfort is inherent to an authentic examination of white supremacy. By avoiding this discomfort, the racist status quo is protected.

The entitled demand for simple answers also allows us to dismiss the information if those answers are not forthcoming (She didnt tell us what to do!). This is especially arrogant when the demand is made of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). In essence we are saying, You do all the work and take all the risk, then hand me the fruits of your labor. I will sit back and receive them while taking no personal risk myself. And what happens when we dont like those answers because they are not quick, convenient, or comfortable? When the answers challenge our self-image as open-minded progressive individuals, free of all racial conditioning? As BIPOC have experienced again and again, when we dont agree with the answers we have demanded, we all too often feel qualified to dismiss them.

White supremacy is arguably the most complex social system of the last several hundred years. If only the answer was to be nice and keep smiling! But, of course, there are no easy answers for ending white supremacy.

In my effort to answer to the question of what to do next, I have begun to ask a counter question: How have you managed not to know? In the era of Google and social media, the information on what white people can do about racism is everywhere, and BIPOC have been telling us what they need for a very long time. Why havent we sought out the information on our own up until now? Why havent we looked it up, as we would have done for any other topic that interested us? Asking white people why they dont already know the answer is meant to be a challenge to the apathy about white supremacy that I have come to believe most white people feel. But it is also a sincere question. If we actually made a list of why we dont know what to do, we would have a guide for moving forward. Nothing on that guide would be simple or easy to change, but change would be possible. Your list might look something like this: