Not belonging to one of the thousand hate groups active in the United States does not let us off the white supremacy hook. Hate groups are active throughout the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center has an interactive map you can access here. https://www.google.com/search?q=SPLC+hate+groups+map&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS803US803&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7s4Pct8PsAhUvhXIEHbQYDnIQ_AUoA3oECAoQBQ&biw=1536&bih=754#imgrc=MlL3oj79aDeSOM
In order for hate groups to survive and proliferate, an entire cultural substructure is needed. Each level of the pyramid depends on the level below it (see pyramid here https://www.google.com/search?q=White+supremacy+pyramid&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS803US803&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD6vfRtsPsAhXvlHIEHTHXDDwQ_AUoAXoECAcQAw&biw=1536&bih=754. ). It’s easy to think that telling an off-color joke or letting a racist relative’s comment pass unchallenged has nothing to do with white supremacy. Such behaviors are, however, a lower level of the cultural substructure that contributes to white supremacy.
It may seem like an overstatement, but after reading Layla F. Saad’s New York Times best-selling book, Me and White Supremacy, it will become painfully clear. This is not an easy book to read, it leaves no place to hide. With deft skill she exposes attitudes from the most blatant forms of white supremacy to the most subtle. Her words are a profound invitation to explore our attitudes, prejudices and internalized privilege.
Beginning with a language correction she expands the phrase “People of Color” to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). One of the first lessons is that by collapsing all groups of people into one group, individual cultures and unique traditions are flattened. The traditions of Indigenous Peoples in our land are very different from the experience of Blacks who were brought here as slaves over four hundred years ago. “People of Color,” according to Damon Young in a GQ article in August 2020 says, “People of Color has become a linguistic gesture, trade jargon related to a market tested veneer of inclusivity…it is a white people thing.” Acknowledging that there are many different groups of people with skin colors other than white is a way to begin honoring their unique histories and traditions.
Saad defines white supremacy as a “racist ideology that is based on the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore, white people should dominate over other races.” (p.12)
This is a journaling book. Engaging the reflection questions at a deep level is the beginning of inner transformation that is the foundation of changing the world. She explores the deepest recesses of the human heart and spirit where racism and privilege hide and exposes them for what they are. Over the course of thirty days Saad systematically peels back each layer.
In Week One she explores white privilege, white fragility, tone policing, silence, superiority and exceptionalism. In Week Two she exposes the topics of antiblackness in general, antiblackness against black women, men and children, and stereotypes, as well as cultural appropriation and color blindness.
Week Three tackles apathy, tokenism, optical allyship, white saviorism and white centering. Week Four explores power relationships and commitments and further breaks the topics into white feminist leaders, how we relate to our own families and friends, what deep values are held and the fears that exist around losing privilege.
Each chapter is a masterful exploration of each strand of thought, perception and feeling that together make up the strong cord of racism and white supremacy in our nation. Lest we delude ourselves into thinking white supremacy is really not a problem, something not endemic to our culture, review where we are as a nation in the white supremacy pyramid. We are frighteningly close to the apex. While we may not participate in violent actions, those actions are contingent on our complicity as articulated in lower levels of the pyramid.
As necessary as it is to protest police officers shooting unarmed black men, it is equally necessary to deal with our own privilege. As troubling as systematic discrimination against BIPOC is in our society, it is equally troubling to explore the attitudes we harbor deep within when we are honest with ourselves.
Saad’s book is one to read over and over again, engaging the questions at a deeper level each time. If attitudes are the first level of the white supremacy pyramid, then changing the pyramid begins with changing our attitudes. Changing our attitudes begins with changing our hearts.
The Irreverent Reverend 