60 pages • 2 hours read
Layla SaadMe and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Now What? Continuing the Work After Day 28”
Part 3 Summary
The final section focuses on what ought to happen next after Day 28. Saad recommends keeping the journal to reference when re-examining white supremacy and complicity in the future. She also suggests doing the 28-day challenge again later to help reveal new layers of complicity in white supremacy.
Tips for continuing antiracist work include regularly reflecting on the journal prompts; finding other antiracist educators; following through on antiracist actions; showing up to rallies, meetings, marches, and fundraising events for BIPOC; uplift and fairly pay BIPOC leaders and educators; and ask those around you to live according to antiracist values.
Although the past 28 days focused on personal complicity in white supremacy, this will need to translate into larger structural change. Personal growth and understanding of white privilege and supremacy is important, but the work must be done every day in order to help center and imbue dignity for marginalized groups. Saad circles back to her desire to be a good ancestor and appeals to the “good ancestor” in the reader/participant.
The appendix includes materials and resources for translating the 28-day Me and White Supremacy challenge to a group setting. In keeping with the spirit of this challenge, Saad recommends a non-oppressive form of group work called “The Circle Way,” created by Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea. Their process for group work asks participants to sit in a circle, to enter the space with purpose and productive energy, and to not assign one leader, but allow everyone to serve as a leader of discussion.
Group dynamics are inherently different than an individual’s dynamic, and Saad gives very specific instructions for how not to go about this work as a group; namely, that it should not be run without a clear focus or intention, be led by a hierarchy of power, or in a manner that will token BIPOC. There should never be a fee charged to participants (unless the venue hosting the meeting requires it), and BIPOC should never feel pressure to participate. In addition, Saad includes an excerpt from The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair by Baldwin and Linnea to give a sense of how this method may be used to lead a Me and White Supremacy group.
Part 3 Analysis
Working from the end of the last week’s reflections, the final section and appendix offer the reader/participant a variety of options for how to proceed with their antiracist work now that the 28-day challenge is finished. This is meant to embolden and empower those who have completed the challenge to continue learning, growing, and challenging themselves to unpack and dismantle their personal complicity in white supremacy in the future.
Tangible actions, like supporting, paying, and centering BIPOC educators, are provided to remind participants of simple actions they can take that can begin to restore integrity to BIPOC in their community. Saad also urges readers and participants to consider how they can use their journal entries so far to reflect on their journey and also re-examine their personal complicity in white supremacy as time goes on. This 28-day journey is not meant as a one-time challenge but a tool for a lifetime of challenging one’s self to be a better ancestor. In other words, this book and this challenge can be repeated or revisited as many times as necessary and it may always bring up new, vital, and difficult truths for the participant.
Saad also gives very specific instructors for how the Me and White Supremacy challenge ought to translate into group settings because of the emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental difficulty of the exercise. By recommending a specific kind of group modality in addition to what should not happen in one of these groups, Saad makes clear that intentionality, honesty, leadership, and energy must be managed, understood, and agreed upon by all who participate. Without this, white fragility, centering, or tokenism could compromise each person’s individual work.
Group dynamics are harder to control than an individual’s dynamic, which can be more easily focused and disciplined. The Circle Way and other rules remind the reader/participant who may wish to start a group they will need to bring their newfound understanding and critical thinking skills surrounding white privilege and white supremacy to the group experience in order to help center BIPOC and those who are marginalized, rather than the white fragility of those who will attend.
