You don't read the book Me and White Supremacy, you do the book for 28 days, examining your role in upholding and benefiting from racist structures. Author Layla Saad talks to Eleanor Black.
Me and White Supremacy - who is this book for?
This book is for people who have white privilege - and that includes white people, people who may be biracial and are able to pass as white; and also even sometimes people of colour who are seen as white. The work will look slightly different for them - they have multiple identities so there are some areas in which they benefit from privilege and some areas in which they are on the receiving end of racism.
Can you unpick white exceptionalism (the idea that a holder of white privilege is exempt from the benefits and conditioning of white supremacy)?
If you believe that racism is those people and not you, if you believe that the actions that you take are enough and you don't really need to do further work other than just reading a book and taking in information, then you continue to hold white supremacy in place through non-action. It may not look as violent as traditional outward acts of racism but it's violent in other ways because it makes the assumption that you don't benefit from the system and uphold the system when you do. White exceptionalism operates at the individual level but also certain groups of people may view themselves as exceptions because they live in a certain place or worship a certain way or because they have other identities through which they experience marginalisation, for example being a woman or LGBTQ or disabled. My invitation is to look beyond the binary of "I am either one of the good ones or one of the bad ones" to realising you can have multiple identities and in some of those areas you hold privilege and in some you don't. And both can be happening at the same time.