Book Review: Me and White Supremacy

[Normally I place a book cover and image description here, but blogger is deciding to make that impossible at the moment. I shall try again another day.]

"Welcome to the work."

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

Layla F. Saad's "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor" is truly a gift to the world and especially to white people. This is someone directly affected by racism, misogynoir, and other oppressions (though she admits privileges of living outside the USA among others,) taking your hand, caring about your feelings, and also giving you an honest, no-nonsense education about how to combat white supremacy. I grabbed the audiobook version of this on a whim because it was available and was a racial justice book for white (and white passing) people that I had not read. I did not realize it was in workbook format, and am not on instagram, so I did not know it was previously and insta challenge. I was listening to it while doing other things with my hands that prevented me from writing down answers to all of the questions. This led me to quickly answering them in my head which is not good enough, so I will be returning to the print version of this book.

I should mention some things about my history with being a white person doing my best to fight racism. I am not looking for cookies here, you'll see eventually where I am going with this. So, like many white people, I have done a slew of racist things throughout my life that I am still embarrassed about (even though I know that all that guilt does is take up even more space with white neediness, so I am working on this.) I have made many mistakes while actively fighting racism and will undoubtedly continue to make mistakes (the book is very good at discussing this.) When I got serious about fighting white supremacy, I read a ton of books (and still do,) I started organizing and going to events, protests, and workshops and having real conversations with people close and not so close to me. I eventually co-founded an anti-white supremacy group that focused on helping white people with the lifelong journey of dismantling white supremacy within themselves that included study groups, conversation practices, organizing of events, and so on. I eventually became less involved in person due to my health and did a lot of secretarial stuff online for a while. Eventually stepped back completely due mostly to disability and stressful life stuff that I felt made it too difficult for me to participate well. I continued doing the regular upkeep within and outside myself on my own. All of this is to say that I would not call myself a beginner. And here's the point: Even though this book is focused on being accessible to beginners, I got a TON out of it. I think any white person at any phase of fighting white supremacy would get a lot out of this book, so please don't walk past it just because you've been around.

Saad encourages the reader/listener to come to the book with as fresh eyes/ears as possible. She encourages us to experience each chapter and concept as if we are for the first time. This was good advice that I did my best to follow. Something that I think Saad does especially well is realizing that, well, we white folks tend to be pretty fragile by default. When you grow up in a white supremacist system, you don't have to think about race and racism every second of every day like many BBIPOC (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and (other) People of Color) do. This results in us not having as much practice managing those emotions. We hear racism and white supremacy and unless we are full blown Nazis, we think of it as an egregious personal insult that we must defend against. Rather than telling us we're awful trash or coddling us like babies, Saad prepares us for the feelings and tells us why they are common, painful, and necessary.

"Here's to doing what is right, not what is easy."

“Antiracism work that does not break the heart open cannot move people toward meaningful change.”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

I felt she was quite gentle and kind about this, but, no matter what, there will be white people who aren't ready for this workbook. Some of the reviews exemplify just that (in which angry white people act out every chapter of the book within their hyperbolic 1-star reviews while not even realizing it.) I was there in the past, especially in my youth. (By the way, young people who are already fighting racism and white supremacy, thank you for getting it so much sooner than I did and making the world such a better place.)

As I said, I got a lot out of this despite my past experience. I have read pretty much every book that she quotes in this. All of them are also books I would recommend. As a non-newbie, the sections that I got the most from were probably those on cultural appropriation and white apathy. (She even directly mentions that white folks who think they don't have to write down their answers or do the work are practicing a form of this.) Called in. This is when I made the promise to return to this book later. I also think that for others, this book is set up really well as both a beginners course and a continuing education course. I imagine that I could come back to it in 10 years. While some of our language for things will likely have evolved, the prompts and questions will still be valid.

Saad also mentions that this book is for white passing people of color, but stresses that their experiences will be very different than that of white people. At times she addresses them separately from white people in order to stress this. I can't say if she does this perfectly being that I'm white, but she did seem to put a lot of care and thought into addressing them as a separate group.

This book is quite short, but nonetheless, Saad manages to introduce a huge amount of information. She stresses that each person can tackle this at their own pace- day by day and week by week like she has it set up, or faster and slower. I listened to it all quickly which is another reason to return. Were there a couple things I don't totally agree with? Sure. Very small ones that are gripes over the evolution of word meanings. For instance, the original meaning of gaslighting was used to describe an intentional form of lying and scheming in order to disorient one's victim (often of intimate partner or family abuse) in order to harm and control them. Saad uses it basically to describe any disagreement white people express about people of colors' experiences. Many social justice people have grabbed onto the term and used it in a variety of ways outside the original abuse definition. I think this evolution of the term can water it down. It continues to be spread further and further as I have also seen radicals use "gaslighting" as a description for anyone who disagrees with them at all, even while sharing their own experience of oppression. As a result, I think when abuse victims try to discuss how gaslighting feels in its original definition, people don't understand what we mean. But, words evolve and there is a very real phenomenon of silencing of BBIPOC both intentional and strategic as well as unintentional and ignorant. Both can have the same horrific detrimental effects, so maybe I need to accept these new definitions.

The other thing I disagree with is that there is the suggestion that white people are giving up everything by giving up white privilege. I disagree that we only have something to lose. White privilege, entitlement, and other forms of supremacy actually rob us of real and authentic experiences and relationships with our BBIPOC friends, lovers, acquaintances, coworkers, etc. It's also a lot of work to run away from accusations of white supremacy the way many white people do. In my opinion, while the lifelong work of fighting white supremacy is very hard work, it can also provide quite a lot of relief. Saying, "I'm sorry I did harm, thank you for telling me, here is what I heard, here is what I will do better, I am open to anything else you have to say and am also ok if you don't want to say anything else," is actually not as hard as people think once you overcome the fear. It is a hell of a lot easier than writing facebook novellas about your black friend who said you're cool and how you voted for Obama and how you're a good person because you went to a protest at your library or whatever.

These disagreements are of really small parts of the book- a few sentences. I am really only mentioning these disagreements to combat some of the aforementioned white people 1-star reviews claiming that people are afraid to disagree because they'll be called racist. No, social justice people disagree all of the time. We spend hours, days, months, years disagreeing. It's gonna be ok, I promise. Give the workbook another shot, will you?

Anyway, white folks, please read this, reread this, and if you are able (and if not, can have someone help you,) please do the workbook part, too. Even better, organize a white people study group where you can go through the book together and support each other. There are other formats for groups you could organize before and after this as well. Make sure you listen to BBIPOC, realizing they are not a monolith and will have many different- sometimes conflicting- things you will need to navigate the best you can. But also, don't lean on them for venting and processing your racist issues unless they explicitly ask you to and give their permission. And, for real, try really hard to hear the words "racism" and "white supremacy" as prompts to learn and do better rather than as terms to run from as perceived insults.

As I was writing this, I had the privilege of seeing this, in which Kimberly Jones gives us 500 years of history in 7 minutes. So, go watch that in the meantime.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Deciding for Ourselves

Image: The cover of the book has a scrapbook type of style to it, complete with scotch tape pieces holding down images (which I initially reached for and attempted to peel off, thinking I had put them there!) The background that can be seen around the edges is an ombré of pink fading downward to yellow, white, blue-grey, and finally black. Taped on top of this are three clips of the same photograph on top of one another. In the image is a very large group of people standing with their fists raised in the air. There appears to be a large quantity of women and children making up most of the people. The photo is stylized with a low contrast ombré overlay of orange fading down to pink, red, and purple. In hand written black marker style font, the title of the book is written in cursive with each word placed on each photo panel. Printed in small white letters going down the right side is "the promise of direct democracy," and below that in the same letters, the author's name.

Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy, edited by Cindy Milstein, gives us something we don't see enough of in our worlds of utopian ideological purity politics. I don't necessarily mean that as a negative or positive, but simply a realistic statement. Some politics and ideas should never be compromised. Yet, as history and the present continuously show us: the everyday grind of existing in this world with each other, especially in the long term, is far messier than the way we envision a better world to be. In this text, Milstein has gathered an international selection of people's writings on self-governed spaces that have existed or currently exist. The formats range from interviews between organizers to clips of stories and the essay format you would expect from this type of book. There is also a small amount of poetry by Milstein at the beginning and end of the book. I was not a fan and prefer her writing in other mediums far more. I am not a poetry person in general though, so perhaps I don't know what I am talking about.

"Deciding for Ourselves" is not another book on what these spaces are or why self-governed space are needed. Instead, it offers real-life praxis from many areas throughout the world. Off the bat, in the introduction, Milstein talks about this messiness and the complicated nature of true community. She describes self-governed spaces as beautiful and necessary as well as fragile and complicated. The movements and communities detailed in the book are written about in various stages from very new to long-lived to destroyed. She also mentions that the entries are often from people who do not speak English at all or as their first language and takes credit for any miscommunication. As far as I could tell, the translations and editing were done well. I suppose time will tell if someone were to come out and say, "that is not what I meant," but it seems like she communicated closely with each contributor.

It was interesting reading this book, (albeit slowly due to everything going on,) in the current climate of a pandemic existing simultaneously with one of the most brilliant uprisings in the USA that I have witnessed in my 37 years of life. Sparked to action by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the constant stream of other victims of murderous police, there have been huge masses of people out there every day, defending Black Lives and fighting the violent authoritarianism of police and governments. Among the people in Costco getting into fist fights over toilet paper, there have also been people (some of whom had never considered themselves radical) building effective mutual aid systems to make sure people have their needs met throughout this pandemic. People have been setting aside conflicts and working together, including anarchists working alongside unlikely allies to gangs declaring truces and uniting in struggle. Reading this book has me asking myself frequently- what happens when the protests and pandemic end? How can we keep these things going?

One of the news sources that is actually trustworthy during all of this is Unicorn Riot. So, I was pleased to read an entry with one of the founding members of the alternative media outlet- Niko Georgiades- discussing Greek self management. The entries in the book by contributors other than Milstein that I would count as my favorites are: "Pan-Africanism, Social Ecology, and Intimate Direct Democracy," by Modibo Kadalie in conversation with Andres Zonneveld, "Christiania: A Free City in the City of Copenhagen," by Asbjørn Nielsen, "'Only with You, This Broom Will Fly': Rojava, Magic, and Sweeping Away the State Inside of Us," by Dilar Dirik, and "Pirate Ships, Stormy Seas, and Finding Solid Ground: The Quartier Libre des Lentillères," by Natasha King. That said, I put a ton of page flags throughout the entire book. All of the entries are excellent.

Some of the themes that are explored are so important and are things that can easily divide communities to the point of fracture and complete breakdown. These include issues like social and ecological interactions, drug use and addiction, cultural differences, interactions between people in a space for politics alone (for instance white cis male anarchists from middle or owning class backgrounds squatting) and people in a space out of necessity (such as homeless people, refugees, those marginalized into a life of trauma and poverty,) communities in conflict (such as gangs or others with different ideologies,) avoiding restricting definitions and labels, being open to constant change, and the capacity for "ordinary" people- who may never have seen themselves as activists- to organize and revolt. All of these themes and more were explored with real life examples of people making really tough stuff work as a community as well as when communities failed. Basically, truly cooperative communities are full of messy struggles that defy definition. But, in that messiness, truly beautiful, necessary, and successful things can exist- showing us that a better anti-authoritarian world is indeed possible. 

I kept asking myself: Where can I and others bend on our beliefs without breaking the core important issues at the center? How can people with very different needs and desires best share space? How can we continue to cooperate when there are major conflicts and disagreements? What happens to people who are kicked out or barred from joining? How can we make these things accessible to the most marginalized of people? How can we make expensive accessibility methods exist or utilize outside structures when necessary? These and many other questions exhibit the book's successful execution of starting real-life conversations about real-life struggles.

Another less important note, I really love the cover and interior design of the print book done by Crisis. I am not sure if the ebook was able to include any similar formats, but it definitely added to the experience of reading for me. So, it's definitely worth picking up the print version if you are able.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Exhalation

 

Image: The cover of the book is a black background with scattered white specks that are or resemble stars in the night sky. All of the letters on the cover are disintegrating at parts into said stars. Across the top is the title in large capital very light blue letters. There is small text across the top too blurry to read. In the center of the cover is the word "stories" in smaller letters. Across the bottom is Ted Chiang's name in larger capital letters followed by another string of small text too blurry to read.

Exhalation: Stories, by Ted Chaing, sets itself apart from many other short story collections. Usually, collections like this have one or a few bad or boring stories in them. This is not the case here. It is clear that Chiang's usual method of sticking to short fiction has made him a master of it. Even the stories that bent in a way that is usually not my taste were so well written and engaging that I remained immersed. The book also has something I don't see a lot of- the inclusion of author's notes at the end of each story. These little anecdotes were very interesting. Learning Chiang's inspiration and thought processes in writing were a welcome transition between stories.

My favorite story in the book was also the longest. The Lifecycle of Software Objects is one of the best AI stories I have ever read. What makes many of Chiang's stories interesting is the very human (or sentient) elements he adds to it. He captures everyday life and long term results of big decisions we make throughout our existence. This particular story takes a look at evolution of AI life forms over time within the realm of human interactions with AI and with each other in the time of late stage capitalism, increasing automation, rapid obsolescence of technologies, social and sexual consent, and many others.

Other themes include time travel, the unreliability of memory, the gray areas of technologies that can both help and harm us, alternate histories, determinism, materialism (the philosophy/physics version) vs creationism, and others. In every one of these themes, no matter how common in science fiction, Chiang managed to explore them in original and interesting ways. I am glad this collection exists as it was a great introduction to Chiang's work for me.

This was also posted to my goodreads.