A Mighty Book: "White Women"
Silence is complicity
“I plan to speak up. Not just at work. But also at home. In my community, which is a predominantly white one.”
- Nicole, a white woman interviewed for
the aptly titled, “White Women”
"White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better" by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao of Race2Dinner
To my fellow white women, I implore you to read "White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better" by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao of Race2Dinner.
My biggest takeaway (and I have a LOT of them): As white women, we’re so paralyzed by our fear of perfection, and our need to seem “nice,” that we say nothing, lest it be the wrong thing, lest we be judged. But, as the authors make very clear, our silence is complicity.
Please buy this book, and read it, and join me in committing to put ending white supremacy ahead of the personal discomfort we feel when speaking or going against the grain.
Because honestly? The grain sucks. The status quo sucks. And lamenting that fact, while sitting quietly behind our laptops, honestly doesn’t do anyone a lick of good.
We need to get loud, not because it’s “nice,” but because we see the insidious ways in which white supremacy is choking the entire world.
Here’s a passage from the last chapter of the book:
“Do you see now how your liberation is tied to our liberation? How your fight against white supremacy cannot be ‘help’ or ‘support’ or allyship? That fighting against white supremacy is fighting for YOU and YOUR KIDS, not just us and our kids?
You need to be in the fight, not helping. To help is to be ancillary, to be outside the problem. You are the center of the problem. Allies don’t have any skin the game; they are standing side by side in solidarity. But you do have skin in the game — your white skin. Stop aspiring to be an ally — and good Lord, stop calling yourself an ally. Rather, be an accomplice. A partner, a collaborator, a co-conspirator. Anything but an ally.
The fight against white supremacy is not just a fight for Black, Indigenous, and brown people. This is a fight for your life, your children’s lives, and Mother Earth.
White supremacy is killing us all.”
- Regina Jackson and Saira Rao
If you’ve already read “White Women,” I’d love to know your thoughts. And if you haven’t, I hope you will, and I’m here to talk about it when you’re done… because being in conversation with each other, about things we don’t already have all figured out, is one way of getting louder.
Amanda