Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World

by Layla F. Saad

The system of white supremacy was not created by anyone who is alive today. But it is maintained and upheld by everyone who holds white privilege—whether or not you want it or agree with it.

White supremacy is a system you have been born into. Whether or not you have known it, it is a system that has granted you unearned privileges, protection, and power. It is also a system that has been designed to keep you asleep and unaware of what having that privilege, protection, and power has meant for people who do not look like you.

Your desire to be seen as good can actually prevent you from doing good, because if you do not see yourself as part of the problem, you cannot be part of the solution.

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Racism is the coupling of prejudice with power, where the dominant racial group (which in a white supremacist society is people with white privilege) is able to dominate over all other racial groups and negatively affect those racial groups at all levels—personally, systemically, and institutionally.