Learning to Listen #9 - Me and White Supremacy

 This week I read "Me and White Supremacy." This book is the result of a 28-day Instagram challenge by author Layla F. Saad, who challenged white people to examine how we engage on a daily basis with racism. The book asks us to read about one aspect of racism and white supremacy each day, and then gives us a series of journaling points to consider.

What hit me about this read is how Layla was able to break down "racism" into so many different aspects - each one unique, challenging, and very, very real. Privilege, fragility, tone policing, silence, superiority, exceptionalism, colour-blindness, intersectionality, stereotypes, cultural appropriation, apathy, centering, tokenism, saviorism, optical allyship, calling out/in, feminism, leaders, friends, family, values, losing privilege - there is no way to avoid digging deep into how racism is embedded in our subconscious thought-process.

My eyes were opened to deeper levels of racism than I was previously aware of. Particularly the idea of White Centering, which is the unconscious idea that how we were raised is best and then all my worldviews are centered around that experience.

The thought that stuck with me in this book was "intent vs. impact." Most of the white people I know, including myself, fall into the "good intentions" category. What we say and do, we say and do with good intentions. We have purposely chosen values of equality, meaning that we desire that all are treated equal. But often the impact of what we say and do can cause deep pain. Sometimes we aren't even aware of the microaggressions or systemic racism around us - it is easy as white people to remain unaware since we are the benefactors of the privilege. We have to open our eyes to the impact around us, and truly listen to Black voices to understand their lived experience.

Here are a couple of passages in Layla's own words that sat deeply with me:

"The promise of Color Blindness (saying "I don't see color") is that if we stop seeing race, then racism goes away. That racism will go away not through awakening consciousness of privilege and racial harm, not through systemic and institutional change, not through addressing imbalances in power, not through making amends for historical and current-day harm, but instead by simply acting as if the social construct of race has no actual consequences - both for those with white privilege and those without."

"White centering is a natural consequence of white supremacy. If you unconsciously believe you are superior, then you will unconsciously believe that your worldview is the one that is superior, normal, right, and that it deserves to be at the center."

"To ask BIPOC to focus on gender before race is to ask them to put their different identities in a hierarchical order. But as a Black woman, I am not Black then woman. I am Black and woman. My womanness cannot erase by Blackness, and my Blackness cannot erase my womanness."