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

by Layla F. Saad

The primary force that drives my work is a passionate desire to become a good ancestor.

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 racist ideology that is based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore, white people should be dominant over other races.1 White supremacy is not just an attitude or a way of thinking. It also extends to how systems and institutions are structured to uphold this white dominance.

White supremacy is an ideology, a paradigm, an institutional system, and a worldview that you have been born into by virtue of your white privilege.

the historic and modern legislating, societal conditioning, and systemic institutionalizing of the construction of whiteness as inherently superior to people of other races.

what you can do is wake up to what is really going on. I invite you to challenge your complicity in this system and work to dismantle it within yourself and the world.

The purpose is the healing and restored dignity of BIPOC. This work is designed to help you to be and do better by BIPOC in your communities, and that requires you to tell the truth

You will also need love for this journey because when the truth telling gets really hard, you will need something more powerful than pain and shame to encourage you to keep going.

there is no greater reward than being in integrity with your values and living your life in such a way that it makes the world a better place now and for the future.

Race is a social concept, but that does not make it imaginary when it comes to the very real consequences it has for BIPOC in their daily lives in the presence of white supremacy.

You cannot dismantle what you cannot see. You cannot challenge what you do not understand.

But not looking at something does not mean it does not exist. And in fact, it is an expression of white privilege itself to choose not to look at it.