These are some of my reflections from the amazing book and workbook from Layla F. Saad Me and White Supremacy

White fragility is the discomfort and defensiveness experienced and expressed by a white person when confronted with information about racial injustice and inequality. My white fragility shows up around perfection – that I can only start being anti-racist when I know everything.

I used to feel that I needed to be an amazing ally or I wouldn’t bother. I have my ideas about “allyship” and perfectionism is not part of that, so why was I constantly putting that on myself? And doing so whilst ignoring the issues facing people who do not have the time or resources to be perfect, and of which perfection is expected that much more. I wanted to make sure that I don’t cause harm by sharing misinformation, disregarding the fact that my (white) silence caused more harm. I was worried about saying something wrong and being called out – I was thinking about myself when real harm was affecting racialised people.

Not too long after reading this chapter in Me and White Supremacy, I wrote a post about James El Jones and how he had said misogynistic things about Black women in his past and allowed his white wife to chime in too (watch the video on YouTube for yourself). In my comments a white man appeared to tell me how I was wrong, not showing evidence etc. This was super frustrating as a point of direct misogyny to me, and racism and misogyny to everyone else this video spoke of. This comment made me think how exhausting it must be to constantly get this about your experiences as a Black woman. All that free emotional labour to satisfy others that what you’re saying is true, when they could simply watch the video for themselves and not just assume that a man who had not publicly apologised about this, having had over 40 years to do so, probably still held misogynoir in his heart.

Layla’s book has been a great starting place for me to unpack racial prejudice and open my eyes to what I have never and will never experience due to my white privilege. I’ll name just a few:

• I do not fear or experience racial violence or misogynoir.
• I don’t experience access issues with regards to race in healthcare, social care, housing, employment, education and training.
• English is my first language, and my name is always pronounced correctly others.
• There are no rules at work or school that affect my hairstyle.
• I am not profiled in shops and other public spaces (including in my front garden or outside my house).
• I am not stereotyped as being: a thug, a drug dealer, violent, aggressive, loud, a DEI hire, promiscuous, uneducated, sneaky, subservient, dirty…
• I am not blamed for causing Covid-19 or AIDS.
• I do not experience inter-generational trauma based on slavery, legally mandated segregation and other racism.