Me and White Supremacy: Young Readers' Edition: Become an Antiracist Changemaker

PART I

introduction

CHAPTER 1

how to use this book

Here are some tips for reading this book, whether you are reading it alone or with others.

KEEP A JOURNAL

This is a book that is designed not just to be read but also to be worked through. The best way to do that is to use a special journal to answer the reflection questions in the chapters. This journal can then become your antiracism journal, which you can refer back to anytime.

GO AT YOUR OWN PACE

We cover a lot of things in this book that may be new to you and may be challenging for you to think about and discuss. There’s no need to rush through the book; you can go as slow or as fast as you are comfortable. Remember it’s not a competition; it’s a journey.

RECAP, REFLECT, RESPOND

Throughout the book, I’ve tried to share as much as I can to help you understand how white supremacy operates and how we can work to dismantle it within ourselves and our communities. In part 2, each chapter covers a different aspect of white supremacy, and all the chapters follow the same format. For example, our first chapter in part 2 on white privilege is outlined as follows:

•What is white privilege? We explore what it is using personal stories, history, pop culture, and the media.

•How does white privilege show up? We examine examples of what it looks like in practice.

•Why do we need to look at white privilege? We discuss why it’s important for us to understand how it relates to white supremacy and racism.

•Recap, reflect, respond. We recap the definition, answer some reflective questions, and explore ways to practice antiracism in our lives. In some chapters, the reflect and respond sections have different questions and advice for people who have white privilege versus those who don’t have white privilege. That’s because depending on our race, our way of practicing antiracism often can and will look different.

ADVICE FOR READING WITH A GROUP

You can use this book alone or read it with a group of other people who are also seeking to practice antiracism. For those reading with a group, you may be using this book with your family, your friends, your community interest group, or at school. Here are some basic guidelines for how to read this book in a group:

•Read the chapters together, or read alone and then discuss the chapters together. You can use the reflection questions in each chapter for your discussions.

•Have a consistent schedule for when you are going to meet to discuss the book, for example every Monday at 1:00 p.m. in class or every Sunday at 5:00 p.m. at home.

•Make sure your group is nonhierarchical, meaning make sure it’s a group where everybody’s voice is valued and listened to. Don’t talk over one another or allow one or two people’s voices to dominate the discussion. A suggestion is to have guidelines that say in order to talk, you must raise your hand or hold a talking stick, and only one person can talk at a time. Another helpful suggestion is to go around in a circle to make sure each person’s voice is heard.

•Sometimes it’s good to take breaks in between discussions when things are getting a bit heavy. Make sure everyone knows that they can call for a break if they need one. You could even schedule a half-time break so that people can have a time-out from the challenging conversations.

•It’s okay and important for people to express their emotions while reading the book. As we will discuss in chapter 11, it’s normal to experience a range of different feelings while reading this book and learning about white supremacy. It’s also okay to disagree and to have different perspectives. Remember, everyone has their own identities and experiences, so we are not always going to agree on everything! That’s totally okay. However, do make sure that you stay respectful, kind, and compassionate to one another at all times. Practicing antiracism means treating others the way we would like to be treated. As we explore in chapter 18, we don’t have to cancel one another if we mess up or have disagreements.

•If an adult is leading your group, ask them to first work through the adult version of Me and White Supremacy and to review the appendix of that book, which lays out a process called the Circle Way, which is helpful for leading Me and White Supremacy Reading Circles.

•Know that this book was written for people of all races to explore their relationship with white supremacy and learn how they can practice antiracism. It’s important that everyone in the group participate equally, and that an expectation should not be placed on the people of color in the group to answer all the questions about race and racism that the white people in the group may have. Instead, I encourage you to explore together, sharing your own experiences, and respectfully asking questions that can take your understanding deeper.

CHAPTER 2

a little about me!

As we are going to be spending quite some time together on this journey, I think it’s important for you to know a little about me—your guide—before we begin.

My name is Layla Saad, and I am an author who writes about race, identity, leadership, personal transformation, and social change. I am extremely passionate about doing work that helps to positively change people’s lives and makes the world a better place for people of all races.

The first thing to know about me is that I hold a few different identities and experiences at the same time. I am an East African, Middle Eastern, Black, British, Muslim woman. I live in Qatar, and I speak with, write to, and teach people all over the world. I am a third-culture kid, which is a person who was raised in a culture that is different from the culture of their parents or the culture of their country of nationality.

My mother was born and grew up in Zanzibar and my father in Kenya. As young adults, they immigrated to the United Kingdom, where they met each other and got married. My two younger brothers and I were born and spent the early years of our childhood in Wales. We lived for a short while in Tanzania with my mother’s family, and then we moved to England for a number of years, and then onward to Qatar, where I still live today with my husband and our two children, Maya and Mohamed, and our two cats, Oreo and Marshmallow.

When I was growing up, I thought that being a third-culture kid made me weird or wrong because I never felt like I really fit in. However, what I’ve come to understand and love about being a third-culture kid is that I can talk to and relate with anyone around the world—especially others who also feel like they don’t fit in. As an adult, I see that my identities and experiences as a third-culture kid are among my superpowers. But as a kid, I didn’t really understand that.

You see, I spent the first part of my childhood, between the ages of three and fifteen years old, going to schools in the UK that were predominantly white and Christian. I was always the only Black and Muslim girl in all my classes, and I had no friends who I could talk to about what it felt like to be Black in largely white spaces. A lot of the time, I felt odd, weird, different, and wrong. I just wanted to be treated like everyone else.

The one thing that made a huge positive difference in how I saw myself was that I grew up with amazing parents who affirmed our cultural identities. My father spent his career sailing around the world as a mariner. He would travel to far-off places and bring us back gifts and stories from other countries. He instilled in my brothers and me a philosophy of being citizens of the world. This idea that there is nowhere in the world where we do not belong—and that we don’t have to fit into anyone else’s ideas of who they think we should be—has stayed with me to this day. My mother took on the huge task of raising my siblings and me alone during the long months when my father was working at sea. She was dedicated to creating an environment in our home where our cultural identity and our religious beliefs were nurtured and practiced. My mother spoke to us in both English and Swahili (my parents’ mother tongue) and taught us about Islam and how to practice our religion. The loving foundation she laid in those years of our childhood still stands strong today. When I was at home, I never felt that there was anything wrong with being a Black Muslim girl.

But every time I left the house, every time I went to school, every time I watched TV, every time I connected with the rest of the world, I was interacting with white supremacy. Every day, in little and not-so-little ways, I was reminded that I was other or different—and not in a good way. That I was less than people who were white.

I didn’t have many incidents where I experienced overt racism such as someone calling me a racist word. But in countless subtle ways, every day, I experienced racism indirectly. And those indirect messages—from being treated slightly differently by schoolteachers, to hardly ever seeing fictional characters or media representations that looked like me, to understanding that I would have to work a lot harder than my white friends to be treated the same as them—painted an unforgettable picture in my mind. A picture that taught me this: Black girls like me did not matter in a white world. I will spend the rest of my life tearing down this picture and painting a new one that reflects the truth: Black girls—and Black people—matter. Everywhere.

Across my lifetime, I have lived on three different continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. I have spent just over half that time living outside the Western world, but that does not mean that the effects of white supremacy have not continued to impact me. As you will come to understand as we travel on this journey, white supremacy harms Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color (the acronym we’ll be using for this is BIPOC) all around the world in different ways—in person, online, and in the media. I do the work that I do to stop this harm and to help create a better world.

My work is born out of both the pain and the pride of being a Black child and a Black woman. It is painful to me to know how BIPOC like me are seen and treated because of the color of our skin. At the same time, I feel incredibly proud to stand in the fullness of who I am as a Black woman and to support other BIPOC to do the same for themselves too.

I do this work because white supremacy negatively impacted how I saw myself when I was young and how the world still sees and treats me today. I do this work because white supremacy will negatively impact my children and my children’s children. I do this work because it hurts me that Black people around the world are treated as inferior because of the color of our skin. I do this work because BIPOC everywhere deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, something that white supremacy strips us of. I do this work because I have a voice, and it is my responsibility to use my voice to dismantle a system that has hurt me and that hurts BIPOC every day. I do this work because I was called to it, and I answered that call.

The concepts that I have brought together in this book begin from my own personal lived experiences. They are deepened and further illustrated by drawing on examples from experiences I have witnessed, historical contexts, cultural moments, fictional and nonfictional literature, the media, and more.

It is my intention that this work—which is a combination of learning and reflective questions—will create a deep shift in thinking and action within you to help create a world without white supremacy. A world where everybody, of every race, feels safe and lives free. My hope is that this book will give you the tools you need to help become an antiracist change maker.

CHAPTER 3

a little about you!

Recognizing and owning our identities is an important part of understanding how to practice antiracism. White supremacy exists to benefit people who are white or who look white and to oppress or harm people who are not white or who don’t look white. For that reason, the roles and responsibilities we have in dismantling it and practicing antiracism are different depending on our identities.

If you are white or appear to others to be white, white supremacy gives you certain benefits and privileges that make your life safer. People generally treat you better, and you generally don’t experience racism, discrimination, or oppression because of your race.

If you are Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color who doesn’t look white, white supremacy doesn’t give you any benefits or privileges that make your life safer. People generally treat you as lesser than,