Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

Week 1 lays out the foundations of white supremacy and asks the reader to re-examine their relationship to the ways white supremacy has personally benefitted them. Saad lists characteristics of white supremacy as white privilege, white fragility, tone policing, white silence, white superiority, and white exceptionalism.

The first day focuses on white privilege, defined as “the unearned advantages that are granted because of one’s whiteness or ability to ‘pass” as white’” (34). White privilege happens because of white supremacy and loses its meaning and power without white supremacy to uphold it. Scientists who assert that race is a social construct rather than biological fact have proven this. Race is determined by different expressions of the same genotypes and phenotypes by people around the world. But the fact that racism is a social construct does not diminish its power, nor the real impact that white privilege can have. Despite all the advancements of civil rights movements, the social constructs of race are still deeply embedded at the subconscious level.

Saad evokes her own personal experience of learning about white privilege from her mother as a child, who told her she’d have to work harder than others because she was not only a woman, but both Black and Muslim. She witnessed white privilege at work while in school in the U.K., where teachers favored white students.

White privilege is also separate from, but sometimes entangled with, other forms of privilege including class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. But someone who is oppressed in one way does not have their white privilege negated. Because white privilege is invisible, dismantling it requires the ability to notice it in the first place:

In order to dismantle white supremacy, you must understand how much white privilege is a key aspect of your life, how you benefit (whether knowingly or unknowingly) from your whiteness…You cannot dismantle what you cannot see. You cannot challenge what you do not understand (38).

For this first day, the journaling prompts specifically focus on reflecting upon what kinds of white privilege the participant holds, negative and positive experiences it has given or shielded them from, ways the participant has wielded white privilege in the past, and naming the discomfort they feel when considering the role of white privilege in their life.

The second day focuses on white fragility, a term invented by white antiracism author Robin DiAngelo to define the distress and defensiveness white people feel when confronted with the truth of racism. Saad tells a story about the moment she realized the strength of white fragility after posting about white women and white supremacy in spirituality; white women readers met the post with a range of defensive responses. She traces white fragility’s causes to two factors: little exposure to conversations about race among white people and a misunderstanding of what white supremacy is. White fragility can manifest as a variety of different responses, but Saad highlights white people getting angry, defensive, argumentative, withdrawing from or engaging in argument, unnecessarily calling the authorities, or leaving an in-person/virtual discussion where a conversation about race is happening. White fragility, in essence, is the result of a white person who sees themselves as the victim rather than the BIPOC who are truly oppressed.

Saad notes the word “fragile” is telling because it refers to white people’s difficulty standing up to the pressure necessitated by antiracism. Conversations about race are uncomfortable, but white fragility creates a barrier in which white people are unable to take part in a real conversation about racism and their own complicity. By falling apart at the assumption they may not be a “good person,” under the assumption that outright racism is now associated with being a “bad person,” white people hide behind their white privilege in order to opt out of criticism. But this becomes dangerous when it prioritizes white comfort over the safety and dignity of BIPOC, making clear that the white person in question is both unreliable and lacking the resilience needed to have difficult conversations.

White people’s defensiveness both minimizes the lived experiences of BIPOC and silences them. It also hints at the idea that the white person may be willing to allow a BIPOC person to be harmed in order to keep themself from looking “bad.” Saad’s reflective prompts ask the participant to consider how their white fragility manifests in conversations about race, reframing memories of past white fragility, how they have weaponized fragility against BIPOC in the past, and how white fragility has made them fearful, uncomfortable, or unwilling to critically think about what defines “whiteness.”

Moving into the third day, Saad pivots focus to tone policing, defined as “a tactic used by those who have privilege to silence those who do not by focusing on the tone of what is being said rather than the actual content” (46). Tone policing typically centers on BIPOC who sound “too angry” when talking about race. While a white person’s anger may seem justified or noble, a Black person’s anger may seem dangerous and violent. This is a form of judgement that follows Black people. In addition to being mentally draining for BIPOC, Saad notes she fears the possibility of tone policing while writing this book.

Tone policing can be done in a variety of ways, including asking someone to say something in a kinder way, telling them they are being aggressive, calling discussions of race divisive, bringing negativity into a conversation, or not using “white” communication rules. When telling BIPOC how they ought to communicate, white people use white supremacy to reinforce the idea that BIPOC shouldn’t speak at all. This is a form of “gaslighting,” a term for psychological manipulation in which a person is made to feel like they are crazy or overreacting to real threats or problems. When white people tone police BIPOC, they rob them not only of their feelings and voice, but of their humanity—all for the sake of white people’s comfort. This day’s questions ask the participant to consider how they’ve used tone policing against BIPOC, tone policing thoughts they have had, how the participant has derailed conversations about race, and how white people’s tone and comfort are centered in the participant’s antiracism discussions with others.

The fourth day revolves around “white silence,” a phenomenon in which those with white privilege stay silent about racism. Saad uses a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. about white silence to launch her own story about a white woman friend of hers who distanced herself from Saad after she published a blog post critiquing white women. Saad was hurt not only because it was a betrayal of the friendship they had cultivated, but because it also showed her the friendship was conditional, hinging on whether or not Saad spoke up about racism.

When Saad confronted the former friend, the white woman told her she thought she had “enough support” from other women of color, rather than admitting she completely backed away from the discussion. Anecdotes like this point to the fear BIPOC feel about their safety in the company of white friends. By keeping quiet or making excuses when white family make racist jokes/comments, witness discrimination, address bi- or multi-racial people, not taking part in conversations about race, and not attending or participating in antiracism activism, the white person becomes complicit in white supremacy.

White silence can seem harmless on the surface, but silence does not allow for a disruption to white supremacy. It is self-protection rather than real engagement with racism. It is often found in workspaces, spiritual spaces, healthcare systems, educational systems, and beyond. Saad encourages participants to use their voice in some way in order to demonstrate to BIPOC where their values lie and how they truly feel. On this day, questions revolve around race, racism, and silence in the past, which kinds of situations leave the participant staying silence, how that silence may have been complicit in upholding racist behavior, and how white silence has benefitted them.

This transitions into the next concept on the fifth day, in which Saad turns the readers’ attention to “white superiority,” the belief that white or white-passing people are superior to BIPOC—a clear result of white supremacy. While the most extreme examples resounds in the ideology of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups, white superiority can appear in progressive, liberal circles as well. It isn’t necessary to subscribe to extremist views to have internalized white superiority. In fact, white superiority is instilled in children at a very young age; in Dr. Margaret Beale’s “doll tests” in the 1940s, she learned through a series of social experiments with children that a “white” doll was associated with more positive words rather than negative terms the way that a “black” doll was. Whiteness is considered the “norm” around the world, particularly in consumer retail—even in countries like Saad’s home, Qatar, which are not majority white.

White superiority can be seen in tone policing; learning, reading, buying from, and valuing white art, culture, and products; looking down on African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as “ghetto”; only sharing black content that doesn’t disrupt white supremacist ideals; and harboring secretive feelings that the participant is better, smarter, or more deserving than a BIPOC. It is vital to analyze white superiority because it is truly the foundation of white supremacy. Those with white privilege have white superiority conditioned into them, and without efforts to disrupt this conditioning, it will continue to be perpetuated through issues like cultural appropriation, white saviors, bad human resources policies, and more. The only journaling prompt from this day is to consider how and when the participant has thought they were superior to BIPOC.

On the sixth day of the challenge, the focus is on “white exceptionalism,” which Saad describes as follows:

…the belief that you, as a person holding white privilege, are exempt from the effects, benefits, and conditioning of white supremacy and therefore that the work of antiracism does not really apply to you (67).

By assuming they are a “good” white person, white exceptionalism keeps white people from doing the necessary antiracism work needed to benefit BIPOC. White people may cite voting for President Obama or having a friend of color as a reason why they are not racist. Once again, this belief can be internalized even if someone is not a part of an extreme hate group. Acts of support for BIPOC like voting for Obama do not erase the social component of white exceptionalism, or the internalized feeling that as a white person, their advantages are “deserved.”

White exceptionalism can show up in the form of saying that since the participant is not racist, antiracist work doesn’t apply to them; that they can skip a part of the book they are holding and don’t need to dig deeper; or even the sense that because they’ve done some antiracist work, they no longer need to do any more. This occurs frequently in progressive, liberal people, which Saad points out makes them dangerous to BIPOC because they are unlikely to own their complicity in white supremacy.

In other words, “[i]f you believe you are exceptional, you will not do the work. If you do not do the work, you will continue to do harm, even if that is not your intention” (71). Even if a participant has other marginalized identities, they will still need to confront white exceptionalism as it has come up in their own life. Reflective journaling for the day includes prompts about how and where the participant learned about white exceptionalism, times when the participant believed they were an exception to antiracist work, and if they are a parent, how they may be reinforcing white exceptionalism in their children.

On the last day of Week 1, Saad reviews the foundational concepts with which participants have engaged over the past six days. Acknowledging these concepts can often be intertwined and interwoven, and that rather than focusing on whether the person is a racist or not, Saad encourages the participant to consider how they have internalized racism over time. There is no day off from antiracist work, but Saad asks participants to reflect on their experiences over the last week, reminding them not to seek a teachable moment, opportunity for shame or self-pity, and or a “shortcut” to finish the challenge sooner. By resisting white fragility and considering the patterns that have emerged over the last week, participants are called upon to journal about how they have been personally complicit in white supremacy in ways they may not have realized before.