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.