With her tonight. And we also are very excited to announce that this very new book has already released as number eight on the New York Times best seller list. [applause] and number 88 on usa today. So with that layla, welcome. Thank you so much. Very happy to be here. Are you on . Here it comes. Can you hear me . Try again. Can you hear me . No. Will you grab the third myth. Sorry about that. Thats okay. Sudden technical never happened before. Its because the tv is here. So, you can hear me, right . Ill ask a question and hand this mic over to layla so she can hear you. So, im going to start with this really fascinating workbook and book and a really great exploration of the topic of that we are all bed to talk but more tonight, but in this boom youre asking white people, in particularly white people in the United States, like me, to confront the racism. You say outright you know this can be ununcomfortable process. What motivate you to tackle this as a write center. Yes, so, its so interesting because ive been asked this question so many times now on this tour and i if i had known before embark on the journey of dying this work if i had known what the journey would be ahead of time i might not necessarily have chosen it. The work i was doing before i was life coach and a business coach. Wasnt doing anything controversial or anything that would make people uncomfortable. If anything i was like, come, ill take care of you and help you grow your business. But in 2017 when the charlottesville the unite the right rally happened in charlottesville it was a turning opinion if remember he illinois offed the men marching in the street, we torches and racial slur and a like collect on for me and i had things that had been brewing up in inside of me for many monthed but things i was observe egg in Life Coaching space, the spirituality, wellness, personal groel space i could see what White Supremacy. Was that people who look like me, a minority. People who looked like the majority of people in this room were the majority and i wanted to know why. Why was that the case, because people like me didnt do this kind of work or were we being excluded from being seen thats experts, leaders and credible people. Wrote a letter, an open letter called i need to talk to spiritual white women but White Supremacy. And i was addressing things that were brought up within me and asking people in that space to look at. You say you want to change the world, heal the world you say youre about loving life and you dont see color. But racism is running rampant in this space. We need to have a conversation but it. And so i got started on that journey through this letter that went very viral, very, very viral, and so fast forward a year later, one night im thinking about what have they learned since we start having this public conversation, and i grabbed my phone and start writing, what have you learn but you and White Supremacy, and i thought, what is White Supremacy . What had i observed, experienced of it . And started listing out dozen of things. White violence, tone policing, cultural appropriation, white fragility, dozens of these prompts that i quickly realized wasnt a single post i was going share to my community but rather was a journey, and so i created this 28day journey, posted it on instagram that doing some wed begin tomorrow to explore your complicity in White Supremacy. Sounds fun. Right . And i really thought not many people are going to want to good on this journey because it sounds uncomfortable and hard, and i woke up the next day and there were so many people who said im scared but im in. And we started that challenge and i had 19,000 instagram followers and by the end of the 28 days that number more than doubled. People came in every day to do the work. Its an incredible journey. Came from a place of the anger and grief from charlottesville and what i was seeing, and then the curiosity of, what have they learned . Amazing. So, you started this on social media. I feel like a very millenial way of writing a book. So what made you then want to try to convert that social media experience into a book . Is there anybody in the room who did the original instagram challenge . No. Okay. It was an incredible experience because it was for the first time people having very public conversations around their own unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs, and it had never never seeped done in that way. Wasnt behind a pay wall or private setting, anybody could read what was being said on my page 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. There were people who were watching the challenge who were too scared to join in and i knew they wanted to do the work but they were afraid. And that because of the transterm makes i had seen i knewed had to go beyond had to go beyond a challenge i knew would never run again. Never doing that again. But it was so incredibled had to go beyond that live experience, and so i decided to turn it into a workbook, and the great thing about doing that was i no longer cob strained to the instagram caption size. Could write at length and i had learn some things. Didnt realize how hard it would be for me and for the people i was asking do go on this downy, so what i did with the book is let me just prepare you for what your about to experience and equip you for a journey thats going to be very uncomfortable. So we clued extra things in the pdf work book. Having gone through the intro pages happen get you to the notion this is not light work. Something you can do without real heavy amount of effort because its going to ask you some really hard questions. Yes. Now, the exercises that come in the work book, obviously when you did them online you did them in a particular order. Had to think about, heres day one, day two. And youre asking different and more challenging questions. As you negotiating right. Somebody starts and says, im good. Im good. And then they start seeing themselves, seeing their complicity, issues. How did you decide when you were doing it the first time, what was the right order and did that change when you put it into a print book or did it modify . What were the decision points. The night i received the download of what the challenge would be, i actually received dozens i wrote dozen of these things down, and then when we started day one, which was just the next day, when i woke up and thought, oh, no, i said i was going to do this thing and now i actually have to do it. And from day one, when i was like, let me just choose the easiest one which is White Privilege because some people heard of the term and its a good starting point. As i began to see the way people were engaged on the day one post i was like you have to make it make sense. The thing that comes next has to build on what just happened. Because at first it was like i said the night before and then the next day and my plan had been to just share them in the order i had received them in. But it didnt make sense to do that if it was going to be a sequential journey, and so i was very intentional each day about what was going to come next, and that same order and those same prompts have remained the same from the challenge to the pdf workbook to the hard cover book. Its the same. Its actually the whole system and whole belief that all of us had been conditioned by in different ways. When you get too weak to you are more open to the idea that maybe i do have anti black thoughts. Of all of these other things that things to seem to resonate. On that same line you were talking about how that people were speaking and that was helping you guide which challenge you are putting to the next the other thing you mention in the book is obviously at the difference between the book and the challenge was that it was not just your voice out there people were responding online and some people may have been working with the issues trying to adjust or confront this. There are other people chiming in. How did that influence you when you went to create the workbook. The Biggest Surprise to me is that out of nowhere black women i knew and didnt know showed up to help facilitate the work. Voluntarily. They did not had to do that. My instinct was to try to protect them. They showed up. And they helped me facilitate the work. They collectively had been so integral to me i had two of my closest friends here it is that sisterhood and the working together that is so integral. When i went from the challenge to the work vic workbook i was alone. The challenge helped me to push more as well. There are some voices in there that was like cut the bs. It helped a lot. This is to some extent a book that has definitely your writing but a communal support behind it. I think it is so important. Nobody does anything alone. Nobody does anything alone. We get to see the legacy in the body of work with so many incredible writers. Some of them are everything to me. Ice the end on their shoulders because the work that they did have so informed the work that i do. A big part of the book is this notion of journaling. Youre asking people to write you and engage and engage with these questions and write their responses. My question becomes why is it more important for them to write the responses than to just had a conversation with someone around to these questions what he want journaling to happen. There are two answers to that question. When i first have conversations about race it was like a straight bethel every day. Note this is real. You do do this. It was really exhausting. What i found instead of telling and i asked it flipped things. It made it easier on me and then it made it more open to having the conversation. So that is one part of it. We were just thinking about it if we if we just read the book. A very intellectual level. Youre not processing it inside. When youre talking about racism. It is not an intellectual study is peoples lived lives. Its their experiences. They have to try to understand your own unconscious thoughts and beliefs. It is important to use your whole body. To bring to the surface that when you just consciously think about them. Theyre not there immediately. I agree fully in the power of writing. In the introduction to the book you talked about the need to be a good ancestor. Can you tell us what that means. Good answers saved my life and helped me to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you now in a way that im able to have it. When i talked about and i first started doing this work and how hard it was. I went from being someone i was very optimistic very helpful very positive and when i wrote that letter and began to experience the very nice women who were in my community suddenly had this reaction of what they call right white fertility many white people are not used to having complex conversations around race. When its brought up they have a very sometimes violent reaction to it. Defensiveness. Its getting angry. Its getting up and walking away. It is saying things they wouldve never said they couldnt even imagine the thing would come out of their mouth. I went from being that hopeful positive person to a very negative very pessimistic hope less. If this work has been done for the amount of time we know its been done which is fighting for the liberation and inequality for peoples color its been going on for so long i could read things that have been written by does. She could have written us today if the exact same experience have today. I needed something bigger than what i was seeing to allow me to continue on the journey. I could not do it from a place of resentment and hopelessness. The idea of being a good ancestor went beyond me and it became about my children and my descendents. And the people that will come after im gone. I use that, i have it on the cover. I needed it. But what has been really interesting as summary people had resonated with it for themselves. For people that had White Privilege in particular what it inspires or what it activates within is this idea that i didnt create White Supremacy but i absolutely benefit from it. And the white people who came before us didnt fix it didnt dismantle 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 i am gone. Selfishly it was for me but it has helped some of the people. Can you tell me for us some of the people you feel left the kind of legacy that you want to leave. The people that we all know the first people are my parents and they are living ancestors today. I called my husband first, my mom. I woke them up and i told them. Everything they poured into me makes me who i am today. The ability to write and speak. They are first. There is an image of Octavia Butler on the mall. I open and close it with her words. She is a huge influence for me. Black feminist women who did the liberation work in different ways. I think 2018 or 2019 reading to the entire collection the character in the book is what inspired me to be a good ancestor. The documents everything. The power of words they live beyond us. You mentioned there theres a month worth of content in this book. They can easily go back to. You really want to step through the order. We can go over all the concepts tonight. Undo the work as you mentioned. I just want you to know about three. I want to know how you define them and how do you want someone to respond to these. The first one is white silence. The aim of this book is to have people understand that it has infiltrated all of us. Thats not what we just can point to and say that person is being racist. Its the unconscious beliefs and behaviors that we think our normal those things actually perpetuate. White silence is one of those things. Being silent when you see something racist happening im not just talking about someone call someone a racial slur. But being mistreated or racially at rest normal situation and just thinking is it worth it to say anything is at it my place to say anything does anybody even notice if i say anything. That actively keeps it in place. Its not a neutral behavior to be silent in the face of racism. Unit created nobody here created it but you maintain it. Silence is one of the ways you maintain it. Just to the scroll through facebook and you see something from someone you knew in high school. You asked the question in my going to confront this. On their there is different ways that you can talk your way into silence. Did anybody actually get harmed and moving on. Where they just having a bad day. There are different ways you talk yourself into silence. I thought that was one you he also talked about the concept of white sensory. White supremacy comes from the seat belief that people who are white are superior to people of other races. That looks like colonization. That doesnt happen anymore. White sensory is very subtle. There were so through people who are just like me. This is the idea that im remembering a conversation i have once. Make an intentional effort to interview people of color especially black women. The question i got from a white woman is this podcast for me. Drive to ask is this podcast for me. It applies universally. But if it is through people of color it is only for those people. Another example you are getting. When you watch movies i watch through two lenses. Im not just looking for do they have a certain number of people a body count but how close our those people of color to the role of the protagonist is something i have noticed that is really interesting is if its a romantic story or not. If in a story one of the romantic partners as a person of color the other person will not be a person of color unless it is seen as a black movie. Unless its seen as a black movie. And then the audience is black people. What happens most of the time that supposed to be a universal part of love that we can all relate to. That is what white centering can look like in very subtle ways. It doesnt allow people of color it to be the center of the story. And then the other one i thought. It was rather powerful. I was on a plane recently and the man sitting next to me nobody have come to see in the middle. I said what you do. He said this is my short flight im going on a longer flight to africa after this. I said my dads canyon. I am the coo of this food program nonprofit and we provide meals and we do in the u. S. We had one in nairobi. I want to know whats going on. The basis of the company was also very much faithbased kind of like a Christian Program i said im neck and a not can it go deeper into this conversation we just met. And what was funny after that. Let me show you my book. He took a picture of it and everything. That white people can save black and brown people from our inherent state of wretchedness i guess and lower worth. That can look like missionary projects to black and Brown Country but it can also look like trying to speak for a black woman when she can speak for herself. It can be very subtle. If you wrote it back to where this come froms its the same belief that white people are superior to those of other colors. What it does is its the belief that i know better for them whats best for them. Because i might in colonization and the whole idea behind that was to go and save black and brown people. There is a museum in arizona called the heard museum. There was an exposition upstairs. About the boarding schools they were stripped of their entire identity. Throughout the exposition was words that were used at the time of this policy. It was take the indian out of the man. Make a mantoman by taking away his culture. We know whats better for them than they do. As you go through the book and go through these different things. Everyone has a different amount of weight for individuals. I picked three. Is there anything that you think people need to know about or another part i think the big thing one that often feels like a slap in the face is white exceptionalism. And what white exceptionalism is ive read all of the books. I watched all the documentaries reposted all of the articles im one of the good ones. I dont really need to go that deeply because lets be real if i wasnt one of the good ones i would not had picked up this book in the first place. I am already. I dont need to go that deep. Its a call out it is you too. And be careful of getting into a space of thinking you are one of the good ones because that leads to a sense of you become more harmful to people of color when someone is out right with their racism and to stay away from them. If someone is like and one of the good ones you can be safe with me they havent examined what is actually going on underneath the service surface. That is actually more painful to experience. We were expecting it. They created the sense that they are safe to be around. And you and told them something that you experienced. Maybe it is that racism may be something else. I will just mention ive a couple i have a couple more questions im going to ask. If you want to just pass it over to the side after he passed a couple more we will get into those questions. Your heritage personally east african. And you live in the middle east now what kind of perspective or these identities. What kind do they bring to your writing. This process of doing this work externally has helped me so much in owning all of who i am. I grab in wales. At a welsh accent in the betty beginning of my life. I grew up as a black girl i was always aware from the very beginning my mom has a recording of me when i was about three years old. I was listening to it recently. And i was thinking she said you used to sing it all the time. It was the nursery rhyme. I have always been aware of my difference. I would go to school. Ive had no other person to share that experience with. And who i am is something i should be in owning all of who i am. What i want to bring to this conversation as im able to toggle between two big perspectives. A weston consciousness. I grew up. I understand how you think. And i can seem out and i can say thats not the whole picture. I think why that is important is over here in the United States at the american museum. Having this conversation its important to remember that White Supremacy is not just an american think it is a global phenomenon. They had touched so much of the world through different ways. It shows up differently in Different Countries and different spaces and places. I think having those different perspectives of growing up and being born in the uk. I lived in tanzania for a portion of my life. Those were countries that were touched by the colonization. It is the reason they moved to the uk. They were colonized by the british. And living in the middle east and saying even when white people come here they are treated as superior to people of other races. What im trying to do of this work. Is not to take a country specific stance. But help people understand this is a thing that many of us are conditioned into and its about changing from the inside out. Changing from the inside out. The last question i will ask you is who are some writers who are important to you in the process of forming air thoughts on this and then putting this together where writers who had influenced you. Would be the same as the ancestors. I was at the Chicago Public library yesterday. When i was in the green room there. There was images of other writers who had influenced me. I also want to shout out my friend lisa rene holmes. She does antiracism. She is as a process of reflective journaling they are amazing brilliant people who have passed transitioned. They are just doing incredible work and all of it imprints on you. As im waiting for people to pass out the questions. You mentioned Octavia Butler and that difference there. Which do you think has more impact on making people think. See mac i cant talked for people but i cant talk for me. And for me i need all of it. I need the Toni Morrison and the Octavia Butler. I need all. I need the poets. 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. In fiction and nonfiction and poetry impacts us in different ways where it builds up it builds this various nuance. Of understanding what White Supremacy is. It is not no pun intended black and white. Its not just racist or not. It is how does racism and White Supremacy impact us. I need all of that. I will ask you a couple of questions that came from the audience here. Its surprising. It surprised me is it surprising that there are very few men in this room. In the personal growth space it tends to be majority women too. I think women tend to lean towards introspection and self reflection in a different way than men do. That is not meant as an insult. It is reflected in what we see in the spaces. There is a secondary question here where youd see more resistance. I often say within White Supremacy is made for a very specific type of person. The standard heterosexual white male that is who it is supposed to ultimately benefits. And the more you deviate from that the more discrimination you experience. When you benefit so much from something why do the work where you would have to lose those benefits. I think that is where the resistance comes from. I think nobody likes being uncomfortable no one likes losing something that they like having. Thats where the resistance comes from. This is a question for someone in the room. I think thats what theyre saying right now. Is there a way to avoid the pet fit pitfalls. The very first place to start is to do work like this. Whether its my book or my work or someone else. Really examining what i am bearing into that space what am i bringing into that space that im not even aware of. Consciously we all like to believe thats were good people. We keep the definition of good really simple. When we go into spaces like that. And unexamined unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs. You dont even know the way weight that they are doing harm. It has been a long trip. I was in a certain city. The security person who was with me was a black man. When we finished the talk we were driving back to the hotel. When you are talking i remembered some new things that happened and i remember being in school and constantly being told your disadvantaged your disadvantaged. I just couldnt take it anymore. I dropped out of school. I dont know what the intention of those people who cap telling them was. But the impact was that caused his life to go in an entirely different direction than he might have consciously wanted. It is important to examine what are you bringing into that space. With increased White Supremacists ideologues by people who use language. How do we change our strategies for confronting this. With increased White Supremacy im sorry if i misunderstood your question. My eyesight is not what it should be. What if anything did you learn or were you most sip prized to discover during the initial instagram challenge. I think i would say how sneaky it can be. And what it can really look like in practice that despite being prompted to examine were able to uncover within themselves. It was a day whatever you learned about you and black women. And was the one day of the challenge where i did cry because it was that hard. I remember one of the things that was written was a white woman set i went to the dr. And was surprised when the dr. Came out and they were a black woman in their mind black women are not that smart i guess. Theyre not able to occupy that kind of space. Only because weve been doing the work for a number of days now. That they were able to recall the memory. I immediately knew that was wrong. And replace it with a Second Thought i dont see color. It was interesting in observing what people were writing. Theres always a first thought you recognize that cant be right. With the thoughts i think i have. That sneakiness the question is how had you scaled the program to meet the intersection of race and misogyny. Black women. It is the day that we look at this. It is the intersection of experiencing sexism. Women of color especially black women who are not the standard always face the most depression. And i encourage people in the work. Dont just think of a woman who is straight. Think about these other intersections as well. This question which i actually know the question two. Is that book meant to be a solitary journey. If so how can they use more depth in conversation. When i initially did at the challenge it was just a solitary journey. Very much about individual self reflection. When we finished the challenge and i announced i was gonna write a book. I want to take this into work. Can you include instruction on how to do that i did that in the workbook and the hardcover book. There is an appendix in it it tells you how to do it. Using a process called the circle way. It is a book that was written by christina baldwin. They gave me permission to include that. What they do is their tagline is a leader in every chair. One of the most important things for me in choosing a process was not to recreate White Supremacists and that can happen when there is a leader who is more woke who knows more and can help the other people tell him what to do. I wanted people to understand that this is lifelong work. You will be uncovering more and more as you go on this journey. Everybody is responsible for doing the work. Everybody is responsible for making sure that we are all on the journey. I include extensive appendix for how to do this in a group. I want to say there is a lot of value in being in a group as well. Doing individually is also great. But the value of doing it in the group is used accountable to the process. And you get to see that youre not the only one that has the unconscious thoughts and beliefs. Other people do also. People you like. It doesnt stay as this personal thing that you feel shame about where you feel like youre only meet and im such a bad person for believing this. People in your life also feel that way. It goes from a personal thing to a collective thing. Another question here i know you address in the book. It is how the work may change with a non white audience who has a privilege. Early on in the book before you even get there. I design who the the work is for. I dont say its for white people. People who had White Privilege. If i couldve written throughout the book i keep seeing people with White Privilege. You can be a person of color who is seen as white or can be mistaken for white if they dont know more about you. I include an asterix to that. If you fit in this. The process for those people is very different to those who are just white. Its complicated. I did an event in washington dc. A Palestinian Woman came and talked me afterwards. Myself and my family had been pretty much passing as white. Where we get away with that we will do it. That is easier than having to deal with being seen as palestinian. What it has meant is that we have to sacrifice parts of ourselves weve had to subdue parts of our culture and heritage in order to fit into this box. For people who fit into that and had White Privilege but are not white it is complex in its nuanced because you have to look at how had i have unconscious racist thoughts and races thoughts and beliefs and harmed other people of color and how had i been impacted. Impacted. We have a author here yesterday the young adult author. He told the story im being a young man and acting which he did early on. You should change your name. And just how painful that was. Its something that is definitely out there. And a choice that sometimes people make. It will be easier for them they should sacrifice who they are. Another question is yours thoughts on navigating the line. And using privilege for good. How do i know if im using my privilege. Sorry to break it to you. There is no checklist or perfect way to do everything. And sometimes you will get it wrong. You will absolutely get it wrong. What is important is critical self examination. The more aware the less harm you will do. If you are someone who is going through the work. If you start to realize actually i have a long history of pattern of trying to save people of color is probably a tendency to me. And then the other part is instead of swooping in to save the day. Ask the people of color to people we art trying to be an ally ship with. I dont need someone to speak for me. But i might need when im being racially aggressive. Can you talk to them because im done. If i ask you youre not saving me. Because i ask you. If you assume and you to step in then maybe you are saving me. Maybe i was fine. This is a good one. How would this conversation be different if you werent being interviewed were being interviewed by a black woman . I was speaking to someone yesterday. This is getting me give me my first interview with a white man. Nearly every interview that ive done has been with a black woman. It absolutely changes things. It doesnt change me. Part of my personal antiracism work has been to learn how to not bend and fold myself. I stay true to myself as a black woman. I trust that you can handle it. I am doing my best. I was just handed this one. And then i had one more and can ask you. As a recovering wellmeaning white woman it was recognized those harms. What are your thoughts on reaching out. My gut says no. But i believe in the power of taking responsibility. Unless youre my best friend who harms me and i write in the book as a best friend who was white and to do this i choose to in the friendship because she just couldnt show up for me. I dont need a letter from you. We have a personal relationship. I would appreciate if you reach out to me. Im laughing because i have those all the time. Your work has helped me to realize that this thing i had was racist. You coming back now. They have to get over it in the moment that happened. Really, who are you doing it for. I believe that there. I thought it was a good one to end on. With this question ask. Basically throughout the uncomfortable process of engagement and what youve done with this and what youve worked through on this. What still gives you hope. My children. So cheesy i know. My children. Thats who i do this for. I do it for layla the little girl who always grew up feeling alone and my children who do live deserve to live in a world where they are with their full humanity and dignity. They are the ones that give me hope. They are beautiful and amazing. They are everything. They are the ones that give me hope. I want to thank you and i would like you all to think like lila for coming out. [applause]. I hope you all have a wonderful time. As i mentioned there are books for sale in the back. They are already signed. I think you all for coming. Here is a portion of the program. There is several that were putting me in the position of being an adult and i was a child. I had grown women who were teaching me that my body was a commodity. It was a mean to get things for men and it was completely acceptable to expect things in return for the companionship and the things of that nature. That resolves around pleasing a man and some form i was 13 when i started learning these things. That is really what started me on the trajectory to being more vulnerable to being exploited i was told that these things were normal for it had been reshaped. This is how relationship between men and girls and thats how this goes. By the time i met a man who convinced me that we were in a relationship and part of this relationship meant i would go out and had money. I thought that was something to be normal. Society that i was in at that point did not call me a Trafficking Victim i was called a prostitute. I was made to believe that these are my choices there was never any conversation about the adults that have talked taught me these things. Not from the people that i was around not from the court system. Take your the rest of the story visit our website type her name or the title of her book. Into the search box at the top of the page. Good evening thanks for burying the rain and the coronavirus in joining us. I am the chief marketing officer. Before we get started in honor of our men and women in uniform who defend us around the world please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. To the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all