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

by Layla F. Saad

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. White fragility makes you dangerous to BIPOC.

White fragility thus makes you an unreliable ally to BIPOC, because you do not have the resiliency needed to talk about racism.

white fragility, which is really fear, can quickly turn into active harm.

Tone policing is 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.

BIPOC are expected to cater to the white gaze—the white supremacist lens through which people with white privilege see BIPOC—and the comfort level of a person’s white fragility when talking about racism.

People with white privilege often tone police BIPOC in their thoughts or behind closed doors, understanding that to do so out loud would be considered racist.

A white person’s expression of anger is often seen as righteous, whereas a Black person’s anger is often seen as aggressive and dangerous.

Tone policing in all these places is the constant judgment—or threat of judgment—on how BIPOC express themselves.

People with white privilege wonder with confusion and frustration, Where is all this anger coming from?, not realizing it was always there and that the expression of it is the beginnings of self-reclamation as a BIPOC.

Tone policing shows up when people with white privilege say or think the following things to BIPOC during racial conversations.

in a nicer way.

you sound too angry.

•The way you are talking about this issue is not productive.

•If you would just calm down, then maybe I would want to listen to you.

Tone policing also occurs when you judge BIPOC for not conforming to white norms of communication (e.g., being too loud, using African American Vernacular English, or speaking in ways that do not conform with Standard English).

Tone policing reinforces white supremacist norms of how BIPOC are “supposed” to show up. It is a way of keeping BIPOC in line and disempowered.

Tone policing is an insidious way of gaslighting BIPOC.

When you insist that BIPOC talk about their painful experiences with racism without expressing any pain, rage, or grief, you are asking them to dehumanize themselves.

White silence is exactly what it sounds like. It is when people with white privilege stay complicitly silent when it comes to issues of race and white supremacy.

white fragility—a fear of being incapable of talking about race without coming apart.

White silence is also a defending of the status quo of white supremacy—a manifestation of holding on to one’s white privilege through inaction.

her silence hurt more than any stranger’s racial slur thrown at me because it was the betrayal of a person who loved and supported me…as long as I did not talk about racism.

if our friends cannot show up for us, what does that mean for how safe we can feel around other people with white privilege?

•Staying silent (or making excuses/changing the subject/leaving the room)

•Staying silent when you see your colleagues of color being discriminated against at work.

•Staying silent by choosing not to engage in any conversations about race because of your white fragility.

•Staying silent by not attending protest marches against racism like Black Lives Matter or protests for immigrants at risk.

•Staying silent by not sharing social media posts about race and racism in your spaces because of the way it might affect your personal or professional life, or simply reposting the posts of BIPOC but not adding your own voice or perspective.

•Staying silent by not holding those around you accountable for their racist behavior.

it is a method of self-protection and therefore also the protection of the dynamics of white supremacy. It protects you, the person with white privilege, from having to deal with the harm of white supremacy.

white silence is violence. It actively protects the system.

Remember, white supremacy is not just about individual acts of racism, but rather it is a system of oppression that seeps into and often forms the foundation of many of the regular spaces where you spend your time—

Now understand that no matter who you are, no matter what level of power, influence, or authority you hold, your voice is needed.

Your silence is a loud message that you side with white supremacy.

Introversion is not an excuse to stay in white silence.

You can be an introvert and have powerful conversations. You can be an introvert and use writing to disrupt white supremacy.

White superiority stems directly from white supremacy’s belief that people with white or white-passing skin are better than and therefore deserve to dominate over people with brown or black skin.

•Words such as savage, monkey, and primitive are what have led to historical and modern-day white saviorism,

•Words such as hate speech about my antiracism work have been used against me by some of the most progressive

The seeds of the idea of white superiority are planted at a very young age, and nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than with the doll tests.

What’s really significant here is that white children are learning or maintaining those stereotypes much more strongly than the African American children.”

The idea of whiteness being “of higher rank, quality, or importance” begins before you are even consciously aware of it. And because you are unaware of it, it goes largely unchallenged and becomes an internal truth that is deeply held even though it was not intentionally chosen.

•Tone policing

•Subscribing to and elevating European standards of beauty

•Believing African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is “ghetto”

•Primarily buying from and working with white entrepreneurs and service providers, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

•Primarily reading books by white authors.

•Primarily learning from and supporting white leaders, whether political or nonpolitical.

•Primarily staying on the “white” ...

•Holding the expectation that BIPOC should “serve” you by providing free emotional labor around racism.