[applause]. Layla saad. Her book, me and White Supremacy group on online group. She calls it good ancestors, people who live a legacy for others to follow. Shes a writer and podcast author. She lives in and her husbands and two children. So, we are very excited to be able to talk with her tonight. We also are very excited to announce that this very new book has already released as number eight on the New York Times bestseller list. [screaming]. [applause]. And number 88, on usa today. So with that, layla thank you. Layla i am very happy to be here. Can you hear me. Host there is a technical problem. This never happened before. So now you can hear me right. So i will ask a question and i will and this mike over to layla so she can hear you. Im going to start with this really fascinating book. An really great exploration of the topic of or that we are all interested in talking about tonight. But in this book youre asking why people in particularly white people of the United States like me. To confront the racism, its an uncomfortable process. Can you talk about what motivated you to tackle this is a writer. Layla yes, it is so interesting because ive been asked this question so many times on this tour and i think if i had known before embarking on this journey if i had known what this journey was going to be ahead of time i might not have necessarily have chosen it. The work that i was doing before, i was a life coach in a business coach i wasnt doing anything controversial or you know, anything that would make people uncomfortable. If anything, i would say i would take care of you, i will help you grow your business. But in 2017, when the charlottesville, the you write rally happened. It was a turning moment for me. I remember seeing the images of the men marching in the streets which we can all remember, the racial slurs and everything. It was a lights just clicked over for me. And i had things that had been brewing up inside of me for many months. About things that i was observing the Life Coaching space. Wellness and personal growth space. I could see was White Supremacy. Those people who look like me, or the minority. People who looks like the majority of people in this room, where the majority. I wanted to know why. Why wasnt the case. Was it because people like me did not do this kind of work for we being excluded. From being seen as the experts. So, i wrote a letter, and a political need to talk to spiritual white women about White Supremacy. I was addressing things that are brought up within me. I was asking people that space to look at, you say you want to change the world and heal the world. You say youre all about love and light. You say, you dont see color. Racism is running rampant in the space. We need to have a conversation about it. So get started on that journey through this letter. And it went very viral. Very very very viral and so, fastforward one year later, when night after thinking about what they learned that time since we started having this public conversation and i grab my phone and i started asking what if you learned about White Supremacy. Within i observed in it. What i had experienced about it. I started listing out dozens of these things. I really thought not many people are going to want to go on this journey because it doesnt sound fun, it sounds uncomfortable and hard and i woke up the next day and there were so many people who said im scared but in and we started that challenge and i had 19,000 instagramfollowers and at the end of the 28 days that number had more than double. We had people coming in every day to do this work so its been an incredible journey because while it came from a place of the anger and grief, from charlottesville and what i was seeing and then the curiosity of what had they learned so the, you started this on social media, as you describe. Which is i feel like a very millennial way of writing a book. So what made you then want to try and convert that social media experience intoa book . Is there had been anybody in this room who took the original instagram challenge mark it wasnt incredible and incredible experience because it was for the first time people having very public conversations around their own unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs. And it has never seen it done before in that way. It was behind a pay wall or in a private setting, anybody could come on my page and read what was beingsaid and i knew from day one that this was a very special thing that was happening and i had to Pay Attention and i knew by the end , it had to become a book. Because there were people who were watching the challenge were too scared to join in and iknew they wanted to do the work. But they were afraid. And that because of the transformations that i had seen i knew it had to go beyond a challenge which i knew i would never run again. It was hard to read. Were never doing that again but it was so incredible that it had to go beyond that live experience so i decided to turn it into a workbook and the great thing about doing that was i was no longer constrained to the instagram caption size and i could write and i had learned some things. I didnt realize how hard it would be for me and for the people i was asking to go on this journey so what i did with the book was let me just prepare you for what youre about to experience let me equip you for a journey its going to be very uncomfortable so we included extra things in the pdf workbook. And having gone through it in those intro pages, you help get the notion that this is not like work, this isnt something you can do without a real heavy amount of effort because its going to ask you really hard questions. Yes. The exercises that come in the workbook, obviously when you get themonline you did that in a particular order. You have to think about heres a one, heres a two and are asking different and more challenging questions. So it gets harder. Somebody start and says im good. And you know, they start seeing themselves after seeing theircomplicity, they start seeing these issues. How did you decide when you are doing it the first time was the right order did that change when you put into a print book or did it modify . What were those decision points . The night that i received the download of what the challenge would be, i actually received dozens. I wrote dozens of these things down. Then when we started day one which was just the nextday when i woke up and thought oh no, im going to do this thing and now i have to do it. And from day one when i was like let me just choose the easiest one it is my privilege which i know some people have heard of the term so its a good starting point, as i began to say that see the way people were engaged on that post, no, you happen it makes sense to the thing that comes next is to build on what justhappened. Because you know, at first it was like i said the night before and the next day so my plan had been justto share them in order that i had received them in. But it didnt make sense to do that if it was going to be a sequence children. So i was there intentional each day about what was going to come next. And that same order and the same prompts have remained the same from the challenge to the pdf workbook to the hardcover book. Its the same. But you were definitely composing that order as itwas happening. Absolutely. And the responses you were getting. One of the main things that was important was not to do week 2, the date to 16. Thats a hard week. Thats the week we look at race stereotypes, cultural appropriation, the things most wellmeaning people do not want to be associated with racism dont want to admit to. If i had gone to that in week one, most people would have shutdown. Because consciously, the way that many people see themselves is im not racist. Because i know who racists are and they are the bad people, theyre the ones who marched in charlottesville, im not one of those people so i cant even hear this. So in week one we thought start with what i call the basics and what does do is allow you to understand that White Supremacy is not a fringe thing that only some people do, its actually this whole system and this whole belief in this consciousness that all of us have been conditioned to finding different ways so when you get to week two, you are more open to the idea that maybe i do have antiblack thoughts. Maybe, since i had all these other things that seem to resonate with things i know ive doneand said and thought. And then on that same line you were talking about how the people were seeking and that was helping you guide which challenge you were putting to them next and then they started order things. The other thing you mentioned in the book is obviously the difference between the book and the challenge was that it wasnt just your voice out there. As you were posting these things people were responding online. And then some people who might have been working through the issues as a white person trying to adjust or confront or deal with this, there were other people chiming in. Women of color, other voices that were adding to the conversation read how did that influenceyou then when you went to great workbook . The Biggest Surprise to me was that out of nowhere, black women i knew and didnt know to help facilitate the work. Voluntarily. And they didnt have to do that and my instinct was to try and protect them. Dont look at this, you dont want to read this, its not nice but they showed up and helped me facilitate the work and they collectively have been so integral to me. I had two of my closest friends here who are sitting up front to our black women and they, you know, its that sisterhood and that working together that is so integral. When i went from the challenge to the workbook, now i was alone and it was just me. But this support that they get and the challenge me to push more as well. Yes. Because there were some voices in there that were like no, cut the bs. Go deeper. And it helpeda lot. So this is to some extent a book that has definitely yourwriting but a communal support behind it , that had an influence on , a very different type. Thats so important because nobody does anything alone. Nobody does anything alone. Were sitting in the American Writers Museum and we get to see the legacy, the body of work, incredible writers, some of whom are just everything to me and i stand on their shoulders because the work that they did so informed the work that i do. Thats awesome. So i think part of the book is this notion of journaling, youre asking people to write, asking them to engage with these questions and write their responses read theres a Writers Museum so my question becomes why is it more important for them to write the responses been just have a conversation with someone around these questions or think about it. Why do you want journalingto happen . There are two answers to that question read the first one is when i first started having conversations about race andi wrote that letter , i was, it was like a street vessel every day on social media trying to invent white women, this is real. You do this. And it was exhausting. It was really exhausting and what i found instead of telling, asked, it slipped things. It made it easier on me and it made them more open to having the conversation so thats one part of it but the other part is when we just, if were just thinking about it, if you read thebook and think about it , you see things at an intellectual level where youre processing it here but youre not processing it inside so when were talking about racism, racism is not an intellectual study. Its people live lives. Its their lived experiences so that has to be matched with a live embodied experience of trying to understand your own unconscious thoughts and beliefs because they dont theoretically harm peoples color, they actually harm people of color so its important to use your whole body to put pen to paper, to write out and bring to the surface things that when you just consciously think about themare not there immediately. I agree fully in the power of writing to have things happen and change. In the introduction to the book you talk about the need to be a good ancestor , can you tell us what that means, what does the phrase mean to you . Good ancestor i think save my life. And help me to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you now read in a way that im ableto have. When i thought about, when i first started doing this work and how hard it was, i went from being somebody who, i just said i was a light coat. I was very optimistic, very hopeful, very positive and when i wrote that letter and began to experience the very nice women who were in my community suddenly have this reaction of what Robin Dangelo called white credibility which is that many white people are not used having nuanced and complex conversations around race so when the conversation is more often they had a very sometimes violent reaction to it read its offensiveness. Its getting angry. Its getting up and walking away. Its saying things they would have never said, they couldnt even imagine that they would come out of their mouse or crying. And so i went from being that hopeful positive person to a very negative, very pessimistic, very hopeless because i couldnt see if something that, if this work had been done for the amount of time that we know its been done which is deliberation and inequality for people of color, its been going on so long and i could rethink read things that had been written by writers like audrey lord and read it and think you could have written this today. The same experience ive had today i needed something bigger than what i was seeing. To allow me to continue on the journey. Because i couldnt do it from a place of resentment and hopelessness so this idea of being a good ancestor went beyond me. It became about my children and my descendents. It became about the people who will come after im gone so i use that. I have it on the cover. I was the podcast called good ancestor podcast because i needed it but whats been interesting is so many people have resonated with it for themselves and i think for people who have White Privilege in particular , the what it inspires for what it activates within is this idea that i didnt create White Supremacy. But i absolutely benefit from it. And why people who came before us didnt fix it. It didnt dismantle it, didnt change it. Perhaps i can do what i can do right now in this lifetime to create a different future for those who will come after im gone. So its been a thing as i said, selfishly it was for me but it is has helped so many people. And can you tell me or us some of the people you feel left the kind of legacy you want to leave you would consider that ancestors . [laughter] i will say before i say the people that we all know, i would actually, the first people are my parents and their living ancestors today. And you know, when i got the news of New York Times just as we were arriving here, i called my husband first and then i called my mom and at 2 am, but i woke them up and told them because theyare , everything they poured into me make me who i am today. Everything. The spirituality, the ability to write and speak, everything i get from them so there first. But after mom and dad , our writers. We were sent over there waiting and theres an image of Octavia Butler on the wall and i look in the book, open it and close it with her words. As shes a huge influence for me, audrey lord as wellwho i mention as well. Lack, feminist women who did this liberation work in different ways. Octavia butler was not an essayist, she was a Science Fiction writer but i spent i think it was 2018, 2019 reading her entire collection and if you read the parable of the chalice and the parable of the sower, the character in that book is what inspired me to be a good ancestor and she documents everything, this character and it reminds me how important words are. The power of words because theylive beyond us. They live beyond us. Thats great. So you mentioned theres a months worth of content in this book and really its more than a month worth of content because you discussed the idea of people being able to walk through it and that 28 day cycle but they could easily go back to it but you really want them to step through it in the order in which its kind of put the first time though we cant go over all of these concepts do not and we want you all to buy the book and to doityourself, to do the work as you mentioned. Its important for people to do the work if they want to engage with this content so i just wanted to ask you about three, that i think is as i read through it, hit me so i want you to. See yourself in them. Yes, so i want to know how you define them and how do you want someone like myself to respond to these concepts the first one is white silence. So the first, just to zoom out a little bit, but the aim of this book is for people to understand that White Supremacy conditions and has infiltrated all of us. And what racism is isnt just what we can all point to say that person being racist. But its these unconscious thoughts and beliefs and behaviors which you take as normal for its not that bad, and then understand that those things actually perpetuate White Supremacy and or they maintain it in place by their nonaction. And so white silence is oneof those things. Being silent when you see the racist happening again, im not just talking about being somebody call someone a racial slur but seeing somebody being mistreated, racially rest in normal situations and just thinking is it worth it to say anything . Is it my place to say anything . Does anyone even notice if i say anything and thenchoosing to stay silent, that actively keeps it in place. Its not neutral, if not a neutral behavior to be silent in the face of racism so i was saying earlier you didnt create it. You didnt create White Supremacy, nobody here alive created but you maintain it and white silence is one of the ways in which you maintain it. That even just the scroll through facebook and you see something from someone you knew in high school or you see something from a Family Member and you ask the question and i going to confront this here in social media, and i going to . Theres different ways you can talk yourself into silence, talk yourself into not saying anything and making a case for life is worth it and moving on. Did anybody actually get harmed and moving on, was it that bad . Were they having a bad day, maybe they didnt mean weight theres different ways you talk yourself into white silence. I thought that was one, you also talked about the concept of like centering area and you talk about that a little bit after mark. Yes, White Supremacy and lets define what it means White Supremacy comes from the root seed belief that people who are white are superior to people of other races. Therefore deserve to dominate over those people. That has looked, if we just look back onhistory we see that looks like colonization, genocide, land theft , enslavement different ways that this has shown up in various violent ways people can say that happened before but doesnt happen anymore. Like centering is very subtle. When i talk at the beginning about why was it that in the space that i was in Life Coaching, the industry there were so few people who looked like me. Like centering played a huge part in that and this is this idea that im remembering a conversation i had once. I had been podcasting for a while and i make an intentional effort to mainly interview people of color, especially black women and a question i got once from a white woman is is this podcast for me to listen to because it was mainly of color being interviewed and i said that so interesting. That mean i have to ask you see the majority of podcasts which have majority white guests , do i have to ask is this podcast for me. White centering is this idea that if something is presented by white people through white people it applies universally but if its through people ofcolor, its only for those people. Right, another example i was giving recently in a book event was when you watch movies i watch soda through 2 lenses. Im watching the story but im also watching whats going on racially and im not just looking for do they have a certain number of people of color, a body count but how close are those people of color to the role of the protagonist and i said something ive noticed its interesting is if in a story and it doesnt matter if its a romantic story or not but theres a romance line, if in a story one of the romantic partners is a personof color , the other person will not be a person of color unless its seen as a black movie. Right . Unless its seen as a black movie and the audience is black people but most of the time its that those romantic partners are white and thats supposed to be a universal story of love that we can all relate to. [laughter] right, so thats what white centering can look like in very subtle ways that doesnt allow people of color to be the center of the story. They are always a side character. Our stories are also always marginalized. And then the other one that i thought was rather powerful was your conversation about white savior is him. What you think about that is i was on a plane recently and the man sitting next to me, we were cheering because nobody had come to sit in the middle. Three people, awesome so i said what do you do . Sorry, he said this is my short flight, im actually going on a longer flight to africa and in my mind unlike africa is a continent, not a country. Where in africa are you going to . He said kenya and i said my dad is kenyan. Where are you going in kenya . He said nairobi. What are you doing there west and mark im the coo of this food program, a nonprofit and we provide meals and we do it in the us and we have programs here but we have one in nairobi im like, my spidey sense is out because i want to know whats going on and im asking and investigating and asking all these questions and it was the basis of the company, was also very much faithbased so it was sort of like a christian program. Sending this christian to kenya , but i was like im not going to go deeper into this conversation because we just met. And what was funny after that, he asked me what do you do and he said and i said let me show you my book and he took a picture of it and everything but its this idea , this story, this idea that white people can save black and brown people from our inherent status, wretchedness i guess and lower work and that can look like missionary projects to black and brown countries and it can also look like trying to speak for a black woman when she can speak for herself. It can be very subtle and so if we root it back to where this comes from its that same belief that white people are superior to people of other colors and so what whites White Saviourism does is this belief that i know better for them whats best for them because im white and colonization and the whole idea behind that was to go and save black and brown people. Theres a museum in arizona called the hurt museum and its the advancement of American Indian arts and there was this exhibition upstairs about the boarding schools that native children were forcibly put in and stripped of their entire identity, put in the schools and throughout the exhibition were words that were used at the time of this policy and it was take the indian out of the men, make him into a man by taking a way his culture because we know whats better for them thanthey do. So yes, those are all as you go through the book and as you go through these different things, each of these has a different amount of weight for individuals. I picked three. Is there anything that you think people need to know about another part that i didnt touch on . I think another big one that often feels like a slap in the face when they get to it is white exceptionalism. I think thats around the basics and what white exceptionalism is is this idea that ive read all the books, done all the programs, watched all the documentaries. Reposted all the articles and posts on social media. Im one of the good ones. I already know this so i dont really need to go that deeply because lets be real, if i wasnt one of the good ones i wouldnt have picked up this book in the first place. So its just conversation, this sort of selfcongratulatory conversation of im already, i dont need to go that deep and white exceptionalism that day comes up and its a callout. Its a callout that its you to. It is you to and be careful of getting into the space of thinking youre one of the good ones that leads to a sense of, but it leads to is you become more harmful to people of color. When somebody is outright with their racism, i just know to stay away from them. I just stay away from them but if somebody is like im one of the good ones, you can be safe with me and they havent examined whats actually going on underneath the surface and they call tom in another way that they dont realize thats more painful to experience. Its more painful because you werent expecting it. Because they created the sense that theyre safe to be around and then you went and told them something that you experienced that was racist and they Say Something back like do you know though, ive experienced that as well so maybe it isnt racism, maybe its Something Else and you realize they didnt see you, they dont understand. And theyre not listening. So im just going to mention i have a couple more questions im going to ask, if you have a question you want to write down and pass it to the side after ive asked a couple more we will jump into these questions so your heritage personally, these african,rabid, british , black, muslim and you live in the middle east now so what kind of perspectiveto these identities and experiences bring to your writing . Its so interesting. This process of doing this workexternally has helped me so much in owning all of who i am. I grew up in wales. I was born in wales and ihad a welsh accent in the beginning of my life. Actually its gone now. But i grew up as a black muslim girl in a predominantly white space going to predominantly Roman Catholic schools so i was always aware from the very beginning, my mom has a recording of me when i was about three years old and so i was listening to it recently and im in the background singing welcome baby jesus, welcome and my mom says you used to sing it all the time. It was just a nursery rhyme you could sing it all the time and so ive always been aware of my difference because i would go to school and we would pray how we pray at school, our father who art in heaven, right, and i come home and we would pray in an entirely different way so it was hard because i had no other person to share that experience with and the story that i made up in my mind about all that was i dont fit in and who i am isnt acceptable. And who i am is something i should be ashamed of. Because it isnt the mainstream in so doing this work helping others to do this work has meant i have to do my work and owning all who i am and learning to love all of who i am so what i think i bring to this conversation is unable to toggle between 2 different perspectives. A western consciousness and a nonwestern consciousness area i can zoom in and i grow up, i understand how you think and i can say that isnt the whole picture so what do i think why thats important is although were here in the United States at the American Writers Museum having this conversation is important to remember White Supremacy isnt just an american thing. It is a global phenomenon White Supremacy has touched so much of the world through different ways. It shows up differently in Different Countries and different spaces and places but its all White Supremacy and i think having those different perspectives of growing up, being born and growing up, lived in tanzania for a portion of my life and thats where my mom is from, my fathers from kenya, those are countries that were touched by the colonization of great britain. Its the reason they moved to the uk because they spoke english because they were colonized by the british and living in the middle east and seeing you know, even when white people come here there treated as superior to people of other races so what im trying to do with this work is not take a political stance, not take a country specific dance but help people to understand this is a thingthat many of us are conditioned into and its about changing from the inside out. Raising consciousness and changing from the inside out. The last question i ask you is who are some writers who are important to you in the process of forming your thoughts on this and putting this together . Who are writers who influenced you . It would be the same asthe ancestors so Octavia Butler, audrey lord. I was the Chicago Public library yesterday and i when i was in the green room there were images of other writers who influenced me. Alice walker, bell hooks and i want to shout out my friend lisa renc holmes because she does antiracism and unconscious bias work and she also uses the process of reflective journaling to help people get into the core and so there are amazing brilliant people who have passed transitioned and people who exist today, ancestors who are doing incredible work and all of the imprints on you. So we are waiting for people to pass up the questions im going to ask one more alongthat they. Youve mentioned bell hooks, youve mentioned Octavia Butler and the differences there obviously are the sas and the scholar versus the Science Fiction writer. Which do you think has more impact on making people think . I cant talk for people but i can talk for me and for me i need all of it. I need the Toni Morrison and the Octavia Butler and i need audrey lord and the bell hooks. I need it all. I need the poets, the nikki giovannis, i need them all because im a human being, processing things in many different kinds of ways and i need knowledge but i also need heart. And fiction and nonfiction and poetry impacts us in different ways where it builds up this, it fills this very nuanced and very textured way of understanding what White Supremacy is which is not, its not just no pun intended black and white. Its not just racist or not racist. Its how does racism and White Supremacy impact us in different ways from the feelings of thinking to everything. So i need all of it. Im going to ask you a couple of questions that came from the audience and grab a few more. Its surprising this one to save last. Its surprising or is it surprising that there arevery few men in this room. You know whats interesting in a sort of personal growth, personal Development Space it has to be a majority of women to and i think women tend to lean towards introspection and self reflection in a different way than men do. I think everybodys agreeing. That is not meant as an insult but were reflective of what we see in the spaces. There is a secondary question which is you see more resistance to acknowledging complicity in White Supremacy from men versus women . I often say within White Supremacy the world is made for a very specific type of person and that person is white male since gender, heterosexual. Thats who its supposed to ultimately benefit and the more you deviate from that box, the more discrimination and marginalization you experience and i think when you benefit so much from something , why do the work when you would have to lose those benefits . I think thats where the resistance comes from. I dont think its a malevolent hanging onto but i think nobody likes being uncomfortable area nobody likes losing something that they like having so thats where theresistance i think comes from. Though this is a question from someone in the room who is a white teacher teaching in a school. I think they are saying primarily latinx students. Is there a way to avoid the pitfalls of White Saviourism. The first way is to do work like this whether its my book or somebody elses but examining what am i bringing into that space . What and i bringing into the space im not even awareof . How am i viewing these children in away that is harmful to them that i am not aware of . Consciously we all like to believe we are good peopleand we keep that definition of good real simple. And we dont want to look at the other part of ourselves. That is a human tendency. When you go into spaces like that and youre coming in with White Privilege and unexamined unconscious racist thoughtsand beliefs you dont even know the ways you could be doing harm. Its been a long trip and ive been in many cities but i was in a certain city and the security person who was with me was a black man and when we finished the talk we were driving back to the hotel and i said did you enjoy the talk and he said i did and he said when you were talking i remembered so many things that happened and i remember being in school and constantly being told youre disadvantaged, your disadvantaged. And i just couldnt take it anymore so i dropped out of school. I dropped out of school. So i dont know what be the intention of those people telling him that was but the impact was that it caused his life to go in an entirely different direction than he might haveconsciously wanted. So its important to examine what are you bringing into that space. So with increased white supremacist ideologues present in ideologies present in classrooms by people who use language and antiracist work,how do we change our strategies for confronting this . Im going to try that again. With increased white supremacist ideologies present in the classrooms, not sure. But lets go with it. Im sorry if i misunderstood your question and my eyesight isnt what it should be. What if anything did you learn or were most surprised to discover about White Supremacy during the initial instagram challenge . I would say that how easy it can be. How sneaky it can be and what it can really look like in practice that people just by being prompted to examine were able to uncover within themselves. One particular day standout to me, it was the day we did what have you learned about you and black women which was me the hardest day for obviousreasons and it was the one day of the challenge where i did cry because it was that hard. But i remember one of the things that was written was a white woman said i went to the doctors and was surprised when the doctor came out and they were a black woman. Because they just werent expecting it because in their minds black women are not that smart i guess but do not , are not able to occupy that kind of and it was only because weve been doing work for a number of days now that she was able to recall that memory because she said that was my first thought and then i immediately knew that was wrong. And replace it with the Second Thought which was its completely, i dont seecolor. And so what was interesting in observing what people were writing was house and he it is that theres always a first thought and that you recognize thats not right, can be one of the racists, let me replace it with a Second Thought that matches up with the person ithink i am. With the thoughts i think i have. And so that sneakiness was there. And then the question, second question is how have you scaled the program to meet the intersection of race and misogyny . So black women, its the day we look at that and the intersection of experiencing sexism and experiencing antiblackness at the same time. Women of color especially black women, especially black women who are not as gendered and heterosexual always ace the most oppression and i encourage people in the work when theyre looking at these , when youre thinking about a woman dont just think of a woman whose straight and since gender. Think about these other intersections as well and how does that modify how you treat them . And this question which i know the answer from going through the book. Is the book meant to be a solitary journey . If so how can a group use it through conversation, etc. You want to talk about that . When i did the instagram challenge it was a solitary journey about self reflection and when we finished the challenge and i announced i was going to write a book i kept getting requests about i want to do this work with my family, i want to take this and work, i want to dothis in a group , can you include instruction on how to do that so i did just that in both the workbook and the hardcover book. There was an appendix in it that tells you how to do a White Supremacy book circle call in a process called the circle way, it was a book written by linnea and they gave me permission to include an excerpt from their work in the book and what the circle way does is there tagline is a leader in every chair. One of the most important things for me in choosing a process for how to do this in a book was not to recreate white supremacist paradigms, hierarchies and that can happen when there is a leader who is more woke who knows more and can tell the other white people what to do. I didnt want to do that. I wanted people to understand this is a lifelong work. You will be uncovering more and more as you go on this journey so have a circle process everyone is responsible for doing the work. Nobodys more i had another and everybody is responsible for making sure that were all on the journey so i include extensive appendixes for how to do this in and i want to say sorry, i want value in doing it in a group as well. Doing it individually is great and some people process things better by themselves but the value of doing it in a group is accountable to the process, dont clock out debris and realize what this journey actually is and if this is too hard, you get to see that youre not the only one who has these unconscious thoughts and beliefs. Other people do too, people you respect, people you like so it doesnt stay as his personal thingthat you feel shame about. When you feel like its only me and im such a bad person for believing this, you start seeing people in your life also feel that way it goes from the personal phase to a collective thing. Another question which i know you address in the book but its something that is how the work may change with a nonwhite audience who have White Privilege. Example, white latinx, white parents, you talk about that. Early on in the book before you get to the facing page i do find this work is for and i dont say it for white people. I say is for people who have White Privilege and its wordy and its easier if i could have written throughout the book white people but i keep saying people with White Privilege because you can be a person of color or biracial or multiracial and be seen as white or can be mistaken for white if they dont know more about you. And i include a kind ofato that. If you fit in there because the process for those people is very different to those who are just white area its complicated. I had a, i did an event in washington dc, i remember. Washington dc and i talked about this and after the talk , a Palestinian Woman came to talk to me and said im really glad you said that because myself and my family have been pretty much doing that, passing as white and where we can get away with it we will do it because thats easier than having to deal with being seen as palestinian but what it has meant is weve had to sacrifice parts of ourselves. We had to subdue parts of our culture and our heritage in order to fit into this box of whiteness so for people who fit into that, who have White Privilegebut are not white , is complex and its nuanced because you have to look at how have i had unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs and harmed other peoples color and how have i been, how have i been on the receiving end of racism and not addressed it . Allowed it to happen in order to continue to receive White Privilege. We had an author here just yesterday i think i mentioned, an american author was a young adult author and he told the story of his being a young man and acting which he did early on in his career before he became a writer and beingtold by casting agent you should change your name. You should pass as white because he could. And just how painful that was and so it is something that has definitely been out there and a choice thatpeople sometimes make he said. And feel that they have to make. Because it will be easier for them if they are told that they should sacrifice and they are so another question is your thoughts on navigating the line if there is one between White Saviourism and using privilege for good or dismantling. I always get asked this question. How do i know if im using my privilege or being a white savior . There is no checklist. There is no perfect way to do anything, especially in this work and sometimes you will get itwrong. You will absolutely get it wrong. Whats important is to keep developing the school skill which this work teaches you which is Critical Health examination. The more aware you are of your unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs the less harm you will do. The moreaware , the less harm you will do so if you are someone whos going for this work and you get to the area on White Saviourism and you realize i have a long history of trying to save people of color , its probably a tendency or me. So i should probably question when i do that. And then the other part is instead of swooping in tosave the day, ask questions. Ask questions. Ask if you are needed. If you are needed how. Ask the people of color to whom you are trying to be in ally ship with or number two, ask them what they need that we know what we need. I dont need somebody to speak for me, i know how to speak but i might need you to when im being racially addressed i might say can you talk to them because you know, if i ask you youre not saving me because i asked you but if you assume and you just step in, then youre saving me because maybe i was fine. And this is a good one, how would this conversationbe different if you were being interviewed by a black woman . You know whats really funny, i was speaking to someone yesterday and i said this is going to be my first interview with a white man and nearly every interview ive done on this floor has been with a black woman bar one i think has been with a black woman. That certainly changes things that it doesnt change me. It doesnt change me. My change the dynamic that it doesnt change me because part of my personal antiracism work has been to learn how to not bend and full of myself for the white gays. So i stay true and myself as a blackwoman and i trust you can handle it. Im doing my best. And so i was just handed this one and i have one more im going to ask you. Great questions by the way. As a recovering wellmeaning white woman who has recognized harms, what are your thoughts on reaching out, sending a letter to make amends black who you may have harmed. My gut says no but i believe in the power of taking responsibility for accountability. Unless you are my best friend who harmed me and i write in the book as a best friend who was white and did do this and i chose to end the friendship cause she couldnt show up for me and unless youre that person in my life i dont need a letter from you. We had a personal relationship, i would appreciate if you reach out to me if you realize one day and im laughing because i get dms all the time about your work has taught me to realize this thing i did was racist, do you think i should , and im like no, they dont remember. And they dont care and you coming back to them is just going to annoy them because they had to get over in the momentwhen it happened and who are you doing it for . Ill leave that there. Im going to ask you one more which i think was a good one to end on and then with this question asked is basically throughout this very uncomfortable process of engagement, and what youve done with this and what you work through onthis, what still gives you hope . My children. My children, because thats who i do this for. I do it for layla the little girl who will always grow up feeling alone and other and my children who deserve to live in a world where they are treated with their full humanity and dignity no matter where inthis world a set foot. They are the ones who give me hope because they are beautiful, they are amazing red they are everything and they arethe ones who give me hope. Thats great so i want to thank you i like to ask you all to thank layla for coming out. [applause] i hope you all had a wonderful time. As i mentioned there are books or sale in the back if you havent gotten it already,they are already signed so thank you all for coming very much. [applause] to next this week we are featuring tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, books on appalachia , first story and matthew lg you articles Robert Kennedys visit to apalachee him in the winter of 1967 88 and how it fueled his interest to run for president. Then cassie chambers looks back at her grandmother, aunt and mother who grew up in poverty in kentuckys Appalachian Mountains region and their decisions to remain or leave. After that, jd vance recalls his childhood in a rust belt town in ohio 17th annual national bookfestival in washington dc. Watch book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. If you miss any of our live coverage of the governments response to the coronavirus outbreak watch it anytime at cspan. Org coronavirus from daily briefings by the president and White House Task force to updates from governors of the hardest hit states, its all there. Use the charts and maps to trackthe viruses global spread and confirm cases in the us county by county. Our coronavirus webpage is your fast and easy way to watch cspan2s unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. Ill come to the Carnegie Endowment of international peace, im a senior fellow of the endowment and its a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to this Book Discussion of colin duecks age of iron which is a marvelous analysis of conservative nationalism. Ill say a couof