Home > Work > Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
21 " Often times, what you describe as cultural appreciation is a form of tokenizing and exoticizing while continuing to discard and dehumanize the actual people of that culture. Often times, the cultural elements that are appropriated are stripped of their original cultural context, meaning, and significance and used in such a way as to serve or pleasure whiteness. "
― Layla F. Saad , Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
22 " All people, regardless of race, can hold some level of prejudice toward people who are not the same race as them. A person of any race can prejudge a person of any other race based on negative racial stereotypes and other factors. Prejudice is wrong, but it is not the same as racism. "
23 " All people, regardless of race, can hold some level of prejudice toward people who are not the same race as them. A person of any race can prejudge a person of any other race based on negative racial stereotypes and other factors. Prejudice is wrong, but it is not the same as racism. Racism is the coupling of prejudice with power, where the dominant racial group (which in a white supremacist society is people with white privilege) is able to dominate over all other racial groups and negatively affect those racial groups at all levels — personally, systematically, and institutionally. "
24 " White exceptionalism is the belief that because you have read antiracism books and articles, listened to social justice–based podcasts, watched documentaries on the effects of racism, and follow some BIPOC activists and teachers, you know it all and do not need to dig deeper. "
25 " Science has proven that the concept of race is not a biological fact but rather a social concept. "
26 " 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. Nowhere "
27 " Pain and shame are neither desirable nor sustainable as long-term strategies for transformational change. It is my hope that love is what initially brought you to this work. It is my conviction that love is what will keep you going. "
28 " 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—school, work, spiritual spaces, health and wellness spaces, and so on. "
29 " but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season. "
30 " The reality is that you have been conditioned since you were a child to believe in white superiority through the way your history was taught, through the way race was talked about, and through the way students of color were treated differently from you. You have been educated by institutions that have taught white superiority through curricula that favor a white-biased narrative, through the lack of representation of BIPOC, and through the way these institutions handled acts of racism. "
31 " You do not have to be the loudest voice. But you do need to use your voice. "
32 " Today, notice how color blindness shifts the burden of addressing the consequences of racism onto BIPOC by asking them to stop talking about racism and just work harder and be more like white people. "
33 " Color blindness causes harm at multiple levels. In the first instance, it is an act of minimization and erasure. "
34 " If you are willing to dare to look white supremacy right in the eye and see yourself reflected back, you are going to become better equipped to dismantle it within yourself and within your communities. "
35 " Building the racial stamina required to challenge the racist status quo is thus a critical part of our work as white people. "
36 " It may seem like we are at a time in history when racism and white supremacy are resurfacing, but the truth is, they never went away. So while it is true that events in recent history, such as the 2016 U.S. presidential election, have brought these issues to the forefront, the reality is that these issues have always been there. "
37 " White supremacy is a racist ideology that is based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore, white people should be dominant over other races.1 White supremacy is not just an attitude or a way of thinking. It also extends to how systems and institutions are structured to uphold this white dominance. "
38 " However, this idea that white supremacy only applies to the so-called “bad ones” is both incorrect and dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that white supremacy is an ideology that is only upheld by a fringe group of white people. White supremacy is far from fringe. In white-centered societies and communities, it is the dominant paradigm that forms the foundation from which norms, rules, and laws are created. "
39 " you who came to this book with questions about dismantling white supremacy and who leaves this book knowing that you are a part of the problem and that you are simultaneously also a part of the answer. "
40 " Feeling the feelings—which are an appropriate human response to racism and oppression—is an important part of the process. When you allow yourself to feel those feelings, you wake up. You rehumanize yourself. You start to realize that you weren’t feeling these feelings before because you had shut down a part of your humanity in order to participate in white supremacy. "