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

Layla F. Saad

Jan 2020 · Sourcebooks, Inc.

About this ebook

The New York Times and USA Today bestseller! This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

"Layla Saad is one of the most important and valuable teachers we have right now on the subject of white supremacy and racial injustice."—New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert

Based on the viral Instagram challenge that captivated participants worldwide, Me and White Supremacy takes readers on a 28-day journey, complete with journal prompts, to do the necessary and vital work that can ultimately lead to improving race relations.

Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases, whether you are using the book on your own, with a book club, or looking to start family activism in your own home.

This book will walk you step-by-step through the work of examining:

• Examining your own white privilege
• What allyship really means
• Anti-blackness, racial stereotypes, and cultural appropriation
• Changing the way that you view and respond to race
• How to continue the work to create social change

Awareness leads to action, and action leads to change. For readers of White Fragility, White Rage, So You Want To Talk About Race, The New Jim Crow, How to Be an Anti-Racist and more who are ready to closely examine their own beliefs and biases and do the work it will take to create social change.

"Layla Saad moves her readers from their heads into their hearts, and ultimately, into their practice. We won't end white supremacy through an intellectual understanding alone; we must put that understanding into action."—Robin DiAngelo, author of New York Times bestseller White Fragility

Ratings and reviews

Finished the book, from start to finish. The fact Google is deciding to put this up for User's Choice speaks volumes of their pandering, insensitive business tactics. What a waste of money and time, would make the world better without this book. Despite all the racism this book incites, it is indeed a disconcerting piece meant to poison the minds of young adults. Luckily, most people in this beautiful world are free thinkers and will tend to see the bigger picture instead of being so close-minded. Anyone who is saying that this book was "eye-opening" or "a much needed book for this era" is only lying to themselves to stroke their own ego as most people would highly, HIGHLY disagree with this. Racism is a dying thought process as we drift further from every races' sins and this is due to the free-thinking mind having a space to share their views more openly. This is because we live in age of information, every answer at our fingertips. Next time, please be more responsible.

Promotes further division within the United States in an already divided nation As a Latino, I can vouch that this is one of those books that promotes hatred towards a single sect of ethnicities (caucasians) without confronting issues within ghetto societies. This is essentially just the "Mein Kampf" of modern society in which it points its fingers at the caucasians as being oppressors and being the sole cause of every ethnic groups troubles. TL;DR A "White Guilt" novel that will cause further division and chaos in this nation

My hunch is the negative reviews are from people who either didn't even try to read it, or couldn't finish it. This book is...challenging, to say the least. I'm about halfway through, and it has been painfully eye-opening. Everyone should read this book. You will be a better person for having read it, and help make the world better as a result. As an aside; as a straight, cis, white man, I find myself thinking of other privileges while reading the book. For example, when the book discusses white fragility, also consider male fragility, straight fragility, etc. Same with white supremacy, white superiority, etc. This is a hard book to read, but it is also vital to read as well. And I'm glad that I am reading it now.

About the author

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. Layla's work is driven by her powerful desire to 'become a good ancestor'; to live and work in ways that leave a legacy of healing and liberation for those who will come after she is gone.Me and White Supremacy is Layla's first book. Initially offered for free following an Instagram challenge under the same name, the digital Me And White Supremacy Workbook was downloaded by close to ninety thousand people around the world in the space of six months, before becoming a traditionally published book. Layla's work has been brought into homes, educational institutions and workplaces around the world that are seeking to create personal and collective change.Layla earned her Bachelor of Law degree from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. She lives in Doha, Qatar with her husband, Sam, and two children, Maya and Mohamed. Find out more about Layla at www.laylafsaad.com.