"Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad

 I recently finished working through Me and White Supremacy which is a book based on an Instagram challenge designed for individuals to work though and address how they are complicit in white supremacy. It's the first book of its kind that I've read, even though I've read most of the big books about racism (White Fragility, How to be an Antiracist, etc). This book is inherently very interactive and personal as a result. 

The structure of the book is simple, each day contains information about a concept inherent in white supremacy and a list of prompts to journal and think through for each day. Even though the reading is short, each day is designed to be intense and for you to really go through and think about your actions and feelings in relation to each topic.

Having read other similar books before, I found that this book didn't expose me to many new concepts around white supremacy. They all interweave and so it can be pretty similar. However, going through and thinking about how each concept affects my life makes the experience radically different. For example, I never really think about my conceptions and prejudices around Black children, but there's a whole day dedicated to that in this book. 

What I also really liked is that the book contains an appendix about how to lead meetings discussing the content of the book. It's not something that I've seen many other places, but it's a cool way to make sure that people respect the work going forward.

Another aspect of this is that I've been reading this book along with a Discord server dedicated to discussing and meeting and working through this together. It's been great having a community to talk about these issues and recommend resources and get advice. Having a community is so important for this work, and it's a great reminder that we aren't alone in this. Our actions affect and can hurt others around us, but we can also enact great change. Would highly recommend that anyone read this and do the work to improve their mindset before taking on the world.