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Me and White Supremacy Workbook
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Part education, part activation, the Me And White Supremacy Workbook is a first-of-its-kind personal anti-racism tool for people holding white privilege to begin to examine and dismantle their complicity in the oppressive system of white supremacy.
ebook, 133 pages
Published
2018
by Layla F. Saad
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Feb 25, 2019
Asderan
rated it
did not like it
Recommends it for:
People interested in studying philosophies of identity politics
Recommended to Asderan by:
Acquaintance
Let me start out by saying, I am a person who is strongly anti-racist. I try very hard in my life to treat everyone with respect and as an individual, valuable person, regardless of anything that sets them apart from me. I am around people of color all the time in my neighborhood, city, and job, and have friends who are people of color. I am one of the only white people in my neighborhood. I try hard to understand other peoples' perspectives and put myself in other people's shoes. I couldn't say
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This is a book I believe everyone should work through. Our culture, our world is set up with a white bias. Just fact. Those who are white are beneficiaries. What I didn't understand was how it not only "didn't benefit" BIPOC - but that it was so very harmful. From my privileged place of white, cisgendered, middle class America - I just didn't understand. The part that was so hard for me to wrap my head around was that I thought I was trying really hard. However, without understanding what you ar
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This was one of the most difficult books I've read, but also one of the most influential books. There were several times where I just wanted to quit reading and writing because being faced with the truth was extremely difficult for me. However, I'm glad I stuck with the workbook until the end. This workbook required a lot of introspection through journaling and helped me realize where I need to improve with my efforts towards anti-racism. This book gave explanations on subjects such as white pri
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Mar 13, 2019
Elizabeth
marked it as on-hiatus
Recommended to Elizabeth by:
Heather May
Shelves:
racism
I was reading this workbook with a group online and then the facilitator linked to this FB post and said:
It came to light that several BIPOC female activists, have been critiquing and criticizing Layla Saad’s workbook. These critiques and complaints seem to fall into two categories: 1)that Layla is not African-American, she lives in Qatar and is therefore not subjected to the same kind of racism, or quantity of racism that most BIPOC encounter living in the United States. Additionally to this po...more

My feelings about this book are complicated but overall good. It's relevant to note going in that I have a couple of fundamental disagreements with the author that, while they are not specific to this work, are relevant to how I take in this work.
First, know from the outset, that I am biased against folks who self-identify as "spiritual", in particular those who are active participants in the spiritual industry. I've had a significant number of negative encounters with spiritual bypassing and f ...more
First, know from the outset, that I am biased against folks who self-identify as "spiritual", in particular those who are active participants in the spiritual industry. I've had a significant number of negative encounters with spiritual bypassing and f ...more

Reading these truths and journaling responses to the prompts in this workbook was so much harder than I had imagined. It is never easy to look inside yourself and face the ugly things that have lived in there for so long, so many of them unconscious. When we live in a society built on white supremacy, and when we are steeped in racist ideology from the time we are born, we cannot help but internalize it. But we can absolutely do the necessary work to recognize it, call it what it is, root it out
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My boss at the Harry Potter Alliance encouraged white (& passing) volunteers to do this workbook in the month of February, and needless to say I have learned a lot. The questions didn't allow for any shying away, and I know now that, though I have a lot of work to do, I have a direction.
Nonetheless, I'm afraid I still fall into a couple of the "why did I read this?" categories Saad mentions at the end of the book: "There will be those who read this book because they want others to think they ar ...more
Nonetheless, I'm afraid I still fall into a couple of the "why did I read this?" categories Saad mentions at the end of the book: "There will be those who read this book because they want others to think they ar ...more

This workbook opens your eyes in many ways. I recommend everyone to do this workbook. I'm commited to do this anti-racism work, and will therefore again and again come back to this workbook.
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Phenomenal resource for engaging white people in anti-racist thinking and action.
"The primary force which drives my work is my desire to become a good ancestor. I know that my soul work is to help create change, facilitate healing, and seed new possibilities for those who will come after I am gone. This workbook is a contribution to that purpose. It is a resource which I hope will help you do the internal and external work needed to become a good ancestor, too." -- layla f. saad ...more
"The primary force which drives my work is my desire to become a good ancestor. I know that my soul work is to help create change, facilitate healing, and seed new possibilities for those who will come after I am gone. This workbook is a contribution to that purpose. It is a resource which I hope will help you do the internal and external work needed to become a good ancestor, too." -- layla f. saad ...more

I downloaded this in the immediate aftermath of the diversity blow-up in the knitting world, early in 2019, because it was being recommended by various people and it sounded like it might be useful.
I’m glad I read it, but I can’t say that I found it especially helpful, in a practical sense. Part of this is because I was a history major in college, and I wound up studying the African slave trade quite a bit. This gives me a somewhat broader perspective than some people, I gather (many are surpris ...more
I’m glad I read it, but I can’t say that I found it especially helpful, in a practical sense. Part of this is because I was a history major in college, and I wound up studying the African slave trade quite a bit. This gives me a somewhat broader perspective than some people, I gather (many are surpris ...more

Saad's workbook gave me a great space to think through my own white supremacy. I wish I had participated in the 28-day Instagram challenge instead, to see other responses. I would like to revisit this workbook every few years - hopefully with new knowledge and experiences.
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Layla Saad's workbook is a vital text that guides the reader through hard-hitting questions to uncover personal, internalized white supremacy. It's easy to acknowledge personal biases, but none of us should stop there. It is up to us to unlearn and undo the lessons that we have consciously and unconsciously learned. I was challenged and convicted by the questions and my own responses to them. Even though I finished the 28-days, I know that I am not truly done the work, and this is just the begin
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Important anti-racism work being done here. For white people who know “this current state of affairs isn’t right but where can I start” the starting point is here. Unlike the many great books I’ve read on being anti-racist, this one doesn’t let you keep the work at an academic/arms length distance, it puts the reader in the work. Doing the journaling prompts is an essential part of this work, reading alone won’t do it. I recommend it highly to those white people ready to look at themselves, thei
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Three-line review: I spent lots of time over the past 28 days working through a myriad of journal prompts that helped me understand my own racism and white supremacy in my life. This workbook should be required work for every white person as it walks through all the ways whiteness in general (and the reader's whiteness, in particular) harms BIPOC. I'm giving it four stars because, though I have a better grasp on the work I need to do, I still don't feel fully equipped with the tools I need to ad
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100% recommend this book to everyone willing to do the work in understanding their role in how our systems reinforce white dominance/supremacy. It provides prompts at the individual level to understand the role we play in upholding systems of oppression, how we can change our own behavior to improve inclusion, and how this work is a lifelong process - particularly for those who hold a lot of white privilege.

It's almost unbelievable that something such as this could be taken seriously. What kind of idiot reads this insane crap? Gawd. We're sinking into oblivion when someone as dumb as this woman can get paid for writing such nonsense.
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essential work for all white & white passing folk - we can't really do the work on destroying white supremacy around us before confronting it within.
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I’ve picked up the book on Kindle during the BLM protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. It had been a recommended reading suggestion that popped up time and time again in my Instagram feed. I wanted to spend some time and reflect on the issues that were being raised by activists across the United States and beyond, including France. I did not know that originally this book was an Instagram journaling challenge, didn’t sign up mentally for a “28 day challenge”, so
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I downloaded the free ebook last year (2019) and knew I wanted to be very intentional in reading and reflecting, so when shelter-in-place came in this spring (2020) I did the 28-day challenge. This admission in and of itself feels reflective of my waiting and wanting a "more convenient" time for increased comfort in facing the toxicity of White Supremacy and my part in it. I'm learning! And from this learning, commit to do better. This was (is) challenging and messy and necessary work. I'll be r
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Apr 05, 2020
Katherine Cooper
added it
I don’t think I’m ready to give any “stars” to this one yet, because honestly I’m still processing... and I think I might continue to do so for a long time!
I definitely have a lot to continue exploring, especially pertaining to my personal choice of outward silence on the subject of many racially-charged conflicts, and also in my ongoing avoidance of racial discussions with family. In the case of the latter, I believe that there is far more complexity than expressed in the workbook when it come ...more
I definitely have a lot to continue exploring, especially pertaining to my personal choice of outward silence on the subject of many racially-charged conflicts, and also in my ongoing avoidance of racial discussions with family. In the case of the latter, I believe that there is far more complexity than expressed in the workbook when it come ...more

Layla Saad’s workbook is a gift to white people. It offers a wonderful opportunity to spend 28 days actively engaged in self-reflection about our whiteness, the myth that we’ve internalized of white superiority, and how that affects both us and Black, Indigenous, People of Color. This workbook can be used by folx anywhere along the spectrum of racial knowledge.

I did not like this book at all. I started out trying to cope with Saad's extremely ethnocentric narrow perspective and lack of subjective knowledge or research about the 'white people' she is supposed to be writing for.
Then it got worse and I found it to be opinionated in an underhand, guilt-inducing way. It's also very boring and constantly trying to persuade me I'm a racist when I am not.
Then I am asked to be guilty of 'corporate' racism. No charge or evidence or trial - just 'guilty as a wh ...more
Then it got worse and I found it to be opinionated in an underhand, guilt-inducing way. It's also very boring and constantly trying to persuade me I'm a racist when I am not.
Then I am asked to be guilty of 'corporate' racism. No charge or evidence or trial - just 'guilty as a wh ...more

This is a hard, hard, hard read. Because it forced me to confront my own implicit biases when it comes to race. What more, it required the honesty and commitment to recognize and dig them out. It's exhausting work, it's never-ending work.
Not all topics were challenges for me, I freely admit my own white privilege for instance.
Some were obvious but hard to act upon, as I shy guy white silence is really tough. (I know, woe is me, eh?)
There were even some that I was surprised to discover within my ...more
Not all topics were challenges for me, I freely admit my own white privilege for instance.
Some were obvious but hard to act upon, as I shy guy white silence is really tough. (I know, woe is me, eh?)
There were even some that I was surprised to discover within my ...more

This workbook made me seriously look back my own actions towards BIPOC, and I wasn't always happy with what I saw. That's the purpose of Me and White Supremacy: to challenge yourself to become a better anti-racist. I hope that after this book I will show up for BIPOC in a more authentic, tangible way. Some of the information I knew already, but some was new to me. I think it's worth going through for any white person, whether you consider yourself a "good white person" or not. It can be fairly e
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Layla Saad is a globally respected writer, speaker and podcast host on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change.
As an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in Middle East, Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives. L ...more
As an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in Middle East, Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives. L ...more
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“In the absence of white supremacy, white privilege is meaningless.”
—
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