Me & White Supremacy: Layla F. Saad
Today, we're talking to Layla Saad, author, speaker and teacher on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change, and the author of the book, Me and White Supremacy.
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A big theme in this podcast is reckoning, and you can literally hear me doing that throughout the conversation where I am learning in real time, because I know this work is constant. Layla calls it a practice, an everyday commitment to interrogate the ways in which we are implicated in white supremacy and a choice to do something different. She says that if you are doing this work and you are still comfortable then not much has changed, while intellectually you may understand what's going on.
If your life hasn't had to change in any significant way, it's not really making a difference. I say this as someone who is examining my own life, how I do this work, even how I manage this podcast and the question I think all white folks should be asking themselves is what am I willing to risk? What am I willing to give up to put on the line so that we can disrupt the violence that is white supremacy and be an active part of transforming our culture and community?
This podcast is calling white folks like myself up to a whole new level of practice and action. One that exists beyond our comfort zone, beyond business-as-usual, beyond our attachments to power and position. It asks us to trust in something bigger than our individual selves to believe so strongly in something that we will fight for it no matter what. And if we do that, perhaps we can become the good ancestors we were meant to be. Check it out.
If this episode resonates for you, we’d love for you to take a screenshot and tag us on Instagram stories @ctznwell and @laylafsaad, and click below to tweet:
+ Read Transcript
Layla Saad: The sense of humility is that you, an individual person, are not going to change the world in a day or even in your lifetime. This is so much bigger than you. And at the same time each person needs to show up.
Kerri Kelly: CTZN Podcast.
Kerri Kelly: Welcome back to CTZN Podcast. This is Kerri Kelly. Today, we're talking to Layla Saad, author, speaker and teacher on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change, and the author of the book, Me and White Supremacy.
Kerri Kelly: A big theme in this podcast is reckoning, and you can literally hear me doing that throughout the conversation where I am learning in real time, because I know this work is constant. Layla calls it a practice, an everyday commitment to interrogate the ways in which we are implicated in white supremacy and a choice to do something different. She says that if you are doing this work and you are still comfortable then not much has changed, while intellectually you may understand what's going on.
Kerri Kelly: If your life hasn't had to change in any significant way, it's not really making a difference. I say this as someone who is examining my own life, how I do this work, even how I manage this podcast and the question I think all white folks should be asking themselves is what am I willing to risk? What am I willing to give up to put on the line so that we can disrupt the violence that is white supremacy and be an active part of transforming our culture and community?
Kerri Kelly: This podcast is calling white folks like myself up to a whole new level of practice and action. One that exists beyond our comfort zone, beyond business-as-usual, beyond our attachments to power and position. It asks us to trust in something bigger than our individual selves to believe so strongly in something that we will fight for it no matter what. And if we do that, perhaps we can become the good ancestors we were meant to be. Check it out.
Kerri Kelly: Welcome, Layla Saad. So amazing to have you with us. I've been following your work for years and have been sort of anxiously awaiting this conversation because we have so much in common and because I admire your work so much.
Layla Saad: I'm really excited to be here. CTZN Podcast is one of my favorite podcast.
Kerri Kelly: Yay. Well, you belong on it, so thank you so much for saying yes to being in conversation with us. And I have like a long list of questions for you because there's so much about your work that I want to know and I want to understand and I think our readers are really hungry for, but I want to start with how I came to know you. I was first introduced to you through a blog called, I Need to Talk to White Women About White Supremacy, and that's that's me by the way. You were speaking to me. And it was a really formative piece for me and for so many people because it brought together perspectives and trauma perspectives in systemic oppression, perspectives in spiritual practice. And one of the things you referenced in this blog was FLEB which I think is a term that Kelly Diels came up with.
Layla Saad: Yes.
Kerri Kelly: It's an acronym which stands for Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand, and I feel like these are the goofs of the world. And you described it as A, an archetype woman that must comply with and embody in order to be deserving of rights and resources and a marketing strategy that leverages social status and white privilege to create authority over other women. And so I'd love to know like what is the cost of that behavior on our society and our collective well-being? Because there's definitely a price of embodying that way of being in the world.
Layla Saad: Yeah. So you're absolutely right. FLEB is a term that Kelly Diels coined and has written about extensively and I really encourage people to go check out her site and her work because she really maps that out, but really what I was speaking to was this sort of intersection specifically in this article about how largely white women who work in the spiritual industry are talking about changing the world, healing ourselves, really creating change in the world but are doing that on this platform of the female lifestyle empowerment brand which is really about the empowerment of the individual and not of the collective.
Layla Saad: And so it marginalizes anyone who doesn't fit into that brand. It marginalizes anyone who is not white, anyone who is not a cisgendered woman, anyone who doesn't hold those areas of privileges. And so the cost is not necessarily to the people who are able to leverage that because society rewards that. We're doing that.
Kerri Kelly: It's a benefit.
Layla Saad: It's an absolute benefit and that's why in the personal growth, personal development wellness, virtuality industries, you see that the majority of the people who hold the positions of most power, most popularity, who gained the most rewards who are offered the best author publishing deals, offered everything are usually white people and white women. And so the cost is to people who look like me. The cost is to black and brown people, people who hold identities which have been marginalized. We get pushed to the margins and then the question is where are all the black and brown people? How come we can't find people to come on our podcast or to speak at our conferences or to partner with?
Layla Saad: And that was a myth that really bothered me. It really bothered me because as it became a question that I began to ask white women who would invite me on to their shows, and their stages, and their online platforms, when I would ask the question, "Okay, thank you for inviting me, but are you planning on inviting more black and brown people especially black women who are often the most underrepresented especially dark-skinned black women? The question is always we would love to have more people like that but we don't we don't know any. We don't know where they are, right? And so it becomes this idea where black people and brown people are in hiding somewhere.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: It's a room that we're all hidden in. And so the cost is that it creates this fake reality where black and brown people are in hiding intentionally, but actually it's that we've been pushed to the margins and cannot find ourselves in those spaces because we are intentionally kept out of those spaces.
Kerri Kelly: Well, and it also makes me think about how a lot of this is by design and yet white folks don't don't understand that because they don't have the power analysis. Ruby [Sale 00:07:39] says, "Inclusion implies that someone owns the table."
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: And white folks own the table of wellness right now. And we talk a lot about spiritual bypass in our work and I know that you talk about it also. And I feel like sometimes when people are talking about it, their perspective on it is that it's ignorance or it's an oops, and they don't get the part where they're actually upholding the system that created this problem in the first place. It's not just an oops, it's not just negligence, it's an active engagement and upholding system that created this mess in the first place.
Layla Saad: Right because it takes something that is intended to unify us and intended to... Spirituality is intended, in my eyes at least to show us all the places in which we are similar and the same, to show us all the ways in which we can be connected with each other through the power of love. It takes that which is so pure and sacred and uses it to skip over the realities of the real world which is that we don't live in a utopia. We don't live in a world where everyone is treated equal and the same.
Layla Saad: When used for me, it feels abusive and it feels like a betrayal because it takes this thing that matters to me so much spirituality and faith, and uses it to tell me to be quiet, and uses it to tell that-
Kerri Kelly: It weaponizes it.
Layla Saad: Right. To tell black indigenous people of color to ignore their lived reality and live as if essentially they're experiencing the world the way white people do, the way people with white privilege do which is not the reality. I really believe spirituality and spiritual practice, deep spiritual practice is a door through which, we can really do this work because when we look at... If I just talk about my own journey in doing this work it is hard, hard work. It is heartbreaking work, your heart aches, your heart feels like it's being torn apart.
Layla Saad: Where is the place from which you find grounding and hope. For me, it's my faith and my sense of spirituality because I have to look above what we as human beings do to one another, to find a place, to aim for something better. When it gets tough, when I need to dig deep and find my courage or my compassion, my empathy, to use my anger in ways which are not destructive but have the intention and aim to clear through so that we can get to the other side, I have to ground it in something that is more than just my humanity, and placing my trust in more than what we as human beings do to one another and do to the world. But when we use spirituality in this abusive manipulative bypassing way, it hurts my heart.
Kerri Kelly: Yeah. This feels like where we actually need spirituality to hold the bigness of this conversation and the many contradictions and the paradox, because I really appreciate the spiritual perspective you're providing because I think sometimes it's not that we're debunking the spiritual framework. We're saying that it's actually a lot bigger than we give it credit for because there is a spiritual... I mean, we can't just intellectualize race, right? The same way that we can't meditate away race.
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: And for me, I call it like the reckoning, the spiritual reckoning is like a white woman of understanding how white supremacy works, how power works, how dominance works and then having to locate myself inside those systems and my complicitness and my responsibility. And this is one of the, I think, calls to action in that blog that we're referencing that you make to white women into FLEBs, is that actually there is a great responsibility that we have to reckon with and there's an action and an engagement that it calls us to do in order to navigate these two pieces. The spiritual truth that we are all human, right?
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: And divine. And the relative truth that we're having a very different experience of being alive on the planet right now.
Layla Saad: That's right. I love that you used the word reckoning actually because I think that's what my work essentially is getting people to do. The work that I do through Me and White Supremacy, the 28-day process getting people to really look at their own personal complicity within the system of white supremacy is a reckoning. And that's very different to a white person coming in and saying, "How can I help you? How can I be an ally to you? What actions would you like me to take to show you that I'm not racist?"
Layla Saad: And it's like, "No, you actually have to begin by looking at yourself." That is where it begins. That is where the deep, deep work begins because if you are trying to approach anti-racism from the perspective of white saviorism and from the perspective of an allyship which is performative or optical, then essentially it just continues to serve you. It's just a continuation of the perpetuation of white supremacy meaning black and brown people don't need to be saved. Black and brown people are not in the position that they're in because they have done something to put themselves in that position. White supremacy is a system paradigm that was created by white people, is upheld by white people. It benefits only white people and people with white privilege and so that's where the reckoning must take place.
Kerri Kelly: And you just named something that I wanted to go back to because I remembered you did a Learn with Layla. It's like an Instagram live right thing.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: I think the question you posed is, is your allyship harmful or helpful. And this is a conversation we have a lot at CTZN especially with the white folks who have a yearning to show up, right?
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: They want to do the inner work and the outer work, but the ego right and the attachment to our positionality and... It's not even just the inner ego work, it's like we're attached to our position in society. It's so powerful that I feel like we slip often right into a performative nature that just repositions us in a position of authority again. Is there such a thing as allyship? I mean that's like really my question. Is there a right practice of allyship or is it something else?
Layla Saad: Yeah. Allyship is not a word that I feel comfortable with simply because it gives the impression that you either are or aren't. Or that there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it and that if you can just get the check boxes right and line them up correctly then you are in the zone of allyship. I think what that does is makes the work of anti-racism shallow, it makes it performative and it as you said continues to uphold the ego. You talked about the sort of outer ego of white people wanting to hold that dominance but then there's the collective ego of white supremacy which also has this energy that it's trying to maintain and it will do so in the sneakiest of ways, right?
Layla Saad: It will do so through very violent, very abusive, manipulative ways which are clearly we can see them, but then it will do it through other ways like spiritual bypassing, like white saviorism in these ways that look like the right actions to take, the good actions to take on the surface but without a deep understanding as you said of your positionality, without a deep understanding of contextual history, without a deep understanding of yourself and the way that you participate in the system and of how it impacts black indigenous people of color.
Layla Saad: Without all of that, you're not able to really show up in what I refer to as the practice of anti-racism. It's a practice. It's not a you are doing it or you aren't doing it, it's everyday you're showing up and you're trying. There was a quote and I think it's by Ijeoma Oluo who wrote the book, So You Want to Talk About Race and I think it was like... I just saw it recently on Instagram and she said that the great thing about... I'm paraphrasing.
Layla Saad: So the great thing about the practice of anti-racism is that you don't have to not be racist in order to practice anti-racism, which to me allows people with white privilege to be able to hold the paradigm of both and yes, I am racist because I live in a society in a world which is racist, which privileges me because I'm white. I could be the nicest, kindest, white person in the world and have all black family members and all of my friends are people of color and I am still racist, and it is not a reflection of my heart, my soul, my being, it just is what it is. And I can attempt every single day to practice anti-racism.
Kerri Kelly: Ibram X Kendi just wrote about this and how to be an anti-racist.
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: And that was really helpful right because I think I equated to I can only claim to be an anti-racist when it's perfect. And he's saying that's not what it is, it's the practice, right?
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: And that you can be both. And Robin DiAngelo talks about that too as the good/bad binary, right?
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: There's no good. That I think is actually one of the biggest pitfalls. Someone asked me this question the other day like what's the biggest pitfall of doing this work? And I said trying to be good at it is the biggest pitfall.
Layla Saad: And where that is most dangerous is in the spiritual world, because so much of the talk is about enlightenment, transcendence, reaching a stage of beyond the normal and so it itself creates I am one of the good ones because I have reached this level of spirituality and they are not because they are still down there in their ego. You just take that and transplant it into this world and it's the same thing. It's like they parallel each other. They're paralleling each other in what we see in the spiritual world is that the spiritual world XFLEB, right? X, the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand which is attain this level of perfection essentially.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: And that is the most damaging thing to the practice of anti-racism because every day you're going to make mistakes, not because there's anything wrong with you, not because you're a bad person, but you have lived your entire within the paradigm of white supremacy, your entire life, and through generations past, your ancestors have too. So you're not just going to change it just because you decided to change your mind today that you're not going to be racist anymore and you're going to practice anti-racism.
Layla Saad: Every day, you're going to go back to what you're conditioned to believe is the truth and what you're conditioned to believe is right and correct, and you're going to get called up, you're going to get called in, you're going to mess up, you're going to forget. And so you have to have endless amounts of compassion for yourself. You have to have endless amounts of resilience and courage to keep going and I struggle with this word, but the word humility is coming to mind. A sense of humility is going to be important because your ego is going to want to keep reasserting itself.
Kerri Kelly: Why do you struggle with that word?
Layla Saad: I struggle with the word because it's a word when I think about it, to me it's... And I think Maya Angelou spoke about this as well. It's a word where like you're told that humility and modesty is like the better way of being. But to me it's just the opposite of being arrogant is just two sides of [inaudible 00:21:22].
Kerri Kelly: Like it's one more performance.
Layla Saad: It's a performance like we are all whole human beings. We don't need to show up and puff our chests out. We also don't need to act like less than we are.
Kerri Kelly: I see what you're saying. So it's about like not smalling down.
Layla Saad: Right. But in this conversation, I think I'm using the word in a slightly different way which is the sense of humility is that you and the individual person are not going to change the world in a day or even in your lifetime. This is so much bigger than you. And at the same time each person needs to show up.
Kerri Kelly: One of the things that you did in front of this blog that I thought was so brilliant and skilled is before you even began your address to the white woman in the spiritual community, you provided a list of assumptions like a really transparent context if you will to how you are coming into this conversation and I want to read an excerpt because it speaks exactly to what you're describing. You said, "I'm going to do this imperfectly. I'm not an expert on social justice, I am a spiritual mentor teacher and healer who feel strongly about sacred activism. If I say something that is inaccurate, presumptuous where that shows my own privilege without acknowledging it, I want to apologize in advance."
Kerri Kelly: "However, just because I'm going to do this imperfectly does not mean that I should not do it at all. This is a problem that I see so many people struggling with. Their fear of speaking out imperfectly or being criticized stops them from saying anything at all. I am not going to allow my fear to do that to me. So my words will be imperfect but I pray that both the intention and impact of my words are of service." And that really touched me as someone who is constantly trying to take risks and also lives in fear of not even just... I'm a recovering perfectionist.
Layla Saad: Same. That's hard to write that.
Kerri Kelly: I work on that every day, but I'm really afraid of causing harm. Whether intentionally or not. And so I wanted to ask you about that because we do exist in a culture where we are calling in people, we're calling out people, we're holding people accountable and I think that's really useful. I'm actually all for all of that. I think we need to hear it, I think we need to interrogate ourselves. I just think that kind of stirring is helpful if we can be resilient and compassionate in the face of it, but I am wondering like how we weigh the risk of showing up and making a mistake and the risk of harming another person and the risk of shutting down and silencing ourselves and being too afraid to act like. How do you navigate that? How should we practice that?
Layla Saad: I think it that's all there, right? And all of those things can happen. I think a couple of things are coming to mind and this point is especially for people with white privilege who may want to begin having these conversations publicly and are scared "what if I mess up" Essentially. I would say a huge part of it is actually that you don't need to jump in straight away if you're just entering the conversation like yesterday because you don't yet know what you don't yet know. And so there is no need to proclaim or to announce or to throw your two cents into.
Layla Saad: Take your time to understand what the issues are, how all of this, this whole system of repression, how you are complicit in it, how it plays on you, how it's showing up. Part of that humility that I spoke about is that holding back on that need to say, "Me too, me too. I have something to say about this." Take a breath, take a moment. Allow yourself to learn, be educated. Immerse yourself in spaces where you can learn not just following people online or reading books but actually putting yourself in courses, classes, places where you can pay black indigenous people of color for your education so that you can have a real visceral experience of that education and that transformation.
Layla Saad: And then from that place, when you're doing that work for a while and on a deeper level, you begin to understand that as a white person your job here is not to be a leader of this work. Your job is to... And when I say a leader of this work, what I mean is your job here is not to recreate once again the female lifestyle empowerment brand. I'm going to be a new white teacher of anti-racist work. That's not where we need white people going.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: Right? Where we need white people really showing up is first of all like supporting the voices of black and brown people, both yourself but also if you have an audience or a platform. And that audience and platform can be your family, your colleagues at work. I get emails all the time from like nonprofits and educational institutes who say someone who works here did your work book, share their experiences with it and now all of us are going to be doing it together. They're not on Instagram, but they're in places where them doing that kind of work is really going to change things in that sphere.
Kerri Kelly: It sounds a lot like relational organizing.
Layla Saad: Right. My friend, Carrie Williams who you should totally interview too because she's amazing. She talks about the power of storytelling. We recently had a conversation about how it's important for people to find where they fit in the story of the social justice work, and how that has to relate to where they're at right now and not them trying to become someone else. Not them trying to become the next voice but actually right here where I'm at with the experiences that I have with the relationships that I have and with what I know and can do, what can I say, who can I talk to, what conversations can I begin or begin to host or be? How can I begin to do it in that way rather than I'm going to write a blog post called I need to speak to spiritual white women about white supremacy that goes viral and then possibly mess up and make a mistake.
Layla Saad: And so again, it's like when I think about the dismantling of white supremacy, white supremacy operates on so many different levels and need so many different kinds of approaches. And so that's why we need teachers and voices who have all different kinds of styles and it's also why we need all different kinds of approaches and so where you are as an individual where can you start. And then also just accepting, "I'm going to mess up and have to come to a place of acceptance about it."
Layla Saad: Because until you do, it's like with anything, any endeavor not to trivialize what we're talking about that any endeavor where you're attempting to do something new because you don't know what you don't know, you are going to mess up. And you have to accept that messing up is not the worst thing that's going to happen to you. And that you mess up and you will still be protected by your privilege.
Kerri Kelly: It's funny but bright, right? And there's still cover.
Layla Saad: Absolutely.
Kerri Kelly: I was going to say the second part of that for me... Because that's the part of humility that I actually love in practice is like embracing the I don't know. I don't know what I don't know and understanding how systems and socialization and conditioning works because I'm really clear that I'm going to be on this path for the rest of my life to unlearn all that I have learned and all of the ways in which I've been indoctrinated. And the second part of that to me is I should have known that. And not from a shameful... It's just a fact. I should have known. It's not okay that I didn't know. Robin DiAngelo said this in her book and it slapped me across the face. She was like, "How is it possible you did not know?"
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: And I was like, for real, how is it possible? So there's two parts to that for me. There's the holy shit, I didn't know and I don't know what I don't know. I can't hide behind that because I've got cover. The second part is how dare me that I didn't know and I need to catch up now.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: I want to give a special shout out to our community of supporters on Patreon who are making it possible for us to do this work. CTZN Podcast was designed for truth seekers, bridge builders and emerging activists who are yearning to make a difference. We're not afraid to ask hard questions and have a radical dialogue about politics and patriarchy, white supremacy and worthiness, and we're serious about showing up for one another and taking action for the well-being of everyone.
Kerri Kelly: But making a good podcast takes a village, and so we're building one on Patreon. By joining our community for as little as $2 a month, you get lots of good stuff from us like early access to our episodes live meetups with guests, ally toolkits and exclusive content. Not only does community support keep us going, but it keeps us accountable and real and pushing the envelope of courageous conversations that are independent, transparent and authentic. You can join us at patreon.com/ctznwell.
Kerri Kelly: I want to get into another muddy area because you talked about this and one of the things that you just named, and I've been reckoning with a lot lately is there does seem to be an appropriation that's happening of anti-racist work amongst white people. That's not dissimilar to cultural appropriation of spiritual practice, and you just described spiritual colonization as taking the essence of a people while discarding the people themselves. And I think that's one of the best articulations I've ever heard that really captures the violence of appropriation on people.
Kerri Kelly: And I say this as a yoga teacher by the way of 15 years who is struggling to find my place in this work. And I know there are other teachers that are listening right now that are also white teachers, that are also contemplating this question and I'm even wondering is there even a place for me in this work? Is it even appropriate for white folks to be in this work and if so how. And so I'm just curious like what are some questions that folks who are engaged in these practices that are perhaps not descendants of that culture can be asking themselves so that they can interrogate their relationship to these practices, so as not to perpetuate any further harm?
Layla Saad: I talked about this in the new updated version of Me and White Supremacy. So I have a list of questions that are there.
Kerri Kelly: Awesome.
Layla Saad: Yeah. So one of the things that I encourage people to do first because I think so often when people like yourself who are white, who are engaged in spiritual practice from a culture that is not their own you become aware of this dynamic. The first question becomes like, "Do I have to give it up? Am I causing harm just by practicing it? What do I do?" And I think the first thing to do actually is to start looking at the bigger history between the culture that you belong to and the culture from which the practice that you are questioning. What is the relationship between those two cultures historically? Because you need to understand not that me, Kerri, I'm doing something wrong right now but that historically the people from which I come from, this is the way that they have interacted with those people.
Kerri Kelly: That's a fascinating perspective yes.
Layla Saad: And so that gives you that bigger perspective so you take yourself and your ego, "But I really like yoga." You take yourself out of it and you begin to look at the violence really on a bigger level.
Kerri Kelly: On a systemic level.
Layla Saad: On a systemic level. So it removes that part that just wants to cling and gets you to get out of it and begin looking at the bigger picture. And as you begin to understand yourself is belonging to the race that has dominated over, discriminated against, marginalize that race and then you begin to look at the now. How does it show up now? How does the race that I belong to? How do we interact now with people from that race? Because we say we really get so much from this practice and we are so thankful for it and it's completely changed our lives, but we continue to discard those people.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: We continue to discriminate against those people and the thing is you can't have that practice without those people.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: Right? And so again though, I don't have this answer if should you do it, should you not do it. So in the case of yoga, no Indian person is going to be the authority on whether or not you can practice yoga, teach yoga, but what you can begin to do is begin to understand this issue on this multi-layer levels which then brings you into, first of all, you have a much better critical understanding of what actually is happening and then you can begin to make different choices around both how you practice that practice and how you interact with the people from that race who originated that practice. Because yoga has helped everyone. It's helped so many people and so it's not about why can't I have this thing?
Kerri Kelly: Right.
Layla Saad: That's not what the issue is. The issue is that in the yoga world who we see overrepresented as the leaders of yoga are white women. And so many times, I've heard so many stories of Indian people who will go into yoga classes that are taught by white women and they don't feel comfortable.
Kerri Kelly: Which is like the ultimate irony.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: And I think about having that critical analysis you talk a lot about needing more critical thinking and spiritual work and then the next step at least in my practice feels like it calls us to be in a different pose just to use like a yoga analogy or a different stance. For me, it's about seating positionality like stamping off the platform, getting out of the way, stepping back, right?
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: Sometimes I think white folks think it's just about including more, but they don't get out of the way.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: And I just think that's tricky... It's like it's so insidious how attached we are to like our position of power. And in my experience as like an organizer, I find the reckoning point the threshold for lots of white folks is actually the point at which they have to give something up. And that's when allyship goes out the window. And some other kind of rationale steps in as to why they need to do what they need to do. And I say we and I including me. I've definitely done that and caught myself. I do think critical critical thinking and new pose like new move. There has to be new behavior, right?
Layla Saad: Yeah.
Kerri Kelly: There is a lot of claiming to be woke and having a really good social media game out there who actually aren't taking a new pose.
Layla Saad: Right. So something comes to mind just now. There was a person last year I remember who had a conversation with, and their account, their social media account if you looked at it was a person who has white privilege. Their social media account was full of pictures of black women. It was all about the allyship, but then the way that they acted behind the scenes it was brought to my attention that they had behaved in a way that wasn't a reflection of what they were putting out into the world, and that actually this wasn't even the first time this had shown up.
Layla Saad: That is not to say this person is a bad person, we need to throw this person away, they need to be canceled. Nothing like that, but it just speaks to once again that you can even change your position which is they weren't even featured on their account. They were putting forward black women and yet those... My friend, Catrice Jackson calls them weapons of whiteness. She calls them weapons of whiteness. They're still there. You come locked and loaded. Anytime you come into an interaction.
Kerri Kelly: Yes.
Layla Saad: Right? That's what she speaks about. I really want to encourage people to read her book, I think it's called Antagonists, Advocates and Allies. And so you might step off the podium, you might back away and still the white gaze itself is harmful because the white gaze says, "I wouldn't do it like that. If you'd only speak in this way..."
Kerri Kelly: There's a better way to do it. I have a better way.
Layla Saad: Right. If you do it that way, then you're going to lose X, Y, Z. So, again, it's like yes it's about changing positionality, but the way in which you're going to be required to change for the entire thing to crumble is so much more dynamic and unfathomable to you than you realize. Most white people I would say are uncomfortable even with the slightest discomfort of the releasing of privilege. The slightest releasing-
Kerri Kelly: Comfort has always been their privilege and their right.
Layla Saad: Right. The slightest releasing feels like a huge burden, and so then what happens is the more they release, more white people release is that desire for, "But will you recognize me for what I'm doing? Will you reward me for what I'm doing? What is the payoff that I'm going to get for this?" And that this brings me back to that spiritual component because for me the payoff is you get to live in a way that honors yourself as a human being and honors other human being. That is the payoff. [crosstalk 00:41:58]
Kerri Kelly: You get to know yourself beyond these constructs.
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: Which are very much at play but aren't real.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: They're really happening and yet they're constructs. They're made up.
Layla Saad: Right. Because if you just imagine it for a moment that it was the reverse that white people are actually globally the minority and black privilege is what rules the world. So you're in a position where you only know white privilege. So you'd be clawing away to get at you need to give us some of that privilege. It's not right that we're living in this way.
Kerri Kelly: Well, white people are the global minority.
Layla Saad: Right. And yet [crosstalk 00:42:38] are the dominant power holders. That's true. They're the dominant power holders. Even to me as a black person is like wild because we don't know that world where [inaudible 00:42:58] people are the power holders. We don't know that world. And so there would be the same rise up that we have now where it's like things need to change. This is not right. This needs to be dismantled. People are dying. Because we're so used to it and the way that it is that we take the small slights and the big ones and there is this work to change things but there is also this heaviness like this gravity to keep everything the same as it is.
Kerri Kelly: Right. You-
Layla Saad: So I have to get the question... Sorry to interrupt you. I have to get the question like do you think it can be dismantled in our lifetime or what do you think? And I'm like, "You're not looking at what's the big picture right now. This isn't a problem that turned up yesterday." This isn't an issue that people have not been working on for centuries and yet we're still here in 2019. The kind of things that you see happening.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: Right? And so release the need for "Okay, we're going to do all these things and then by the end of our lives everything is going to be different." No, we just keep going. We just keep going until it's done. [crosstalk 00:44:23]
Kerri Kelly: And create the new thing. That reminds me of like we in America have such a narcissistic perspective even of like racism and white supremacy and we think white supremacy is 400 years old.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: But white supremacy is not native to America and goes way back. And I think you offer a really unique perspective because you were born in Wales. You've lived in England and Africa, and you now live in Qatar. And I think it's rare that we actually have a global conversation about white supremacy and about how racism thrives around the world not just in America because we're such a navelgazers here, which is I think a symptom of the larger problem we keep talking about. But I'm curious, from your perspective which is global, what is similar or different about the way in which you've experienced white supremacy around the world?
Layla Saad: We have to understand, you're absolutely right, white supremacy is not a localized issue to North America and did not just start 400 years ago. This idea of white dominance is global and has affected the world in all different kinds of ways. So we have to look at you colonization and the impacts of that. We need to look at the slave trade in which it operated in different parts of the world that were in North America. And then we also need to look at culturally, countries will talk about these topics in different ways but it's the same thing. It's just expressed in different ways.
Layla Saad: And so for example in the UK, which is where I'm from and where my brothers live, the conversation around racism it's not held in the same way that it is around in the US. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that it doesn't impact people. A lot of the internal work that I am doing on myself, my own inner healing is directly linked to the internalized anti-black oppression that I learned as a child growing up in the UK.
Layla Saad: That impacted my self-concept around what it meant to be me, a black muslim woman in the world. That even until now, and I speak about this often that even until now, despite all the things I've, quote-unquote, "achieved" or done in the world, that still impacts me and I still continue to work on it. And so just because the conversation isn't held in the same way as it is in the US, doesn't mean it's not happening globally. Even your neighbors, the Canadians often say to me, "Well, we're not like the Americans." Yeah, but you have a history, right?
Kerri Kelly: Big time.
Layla Saad: That has impacted the indigenous folks there as well as impacted people of color, black people there. Same with the UK, same with different European countries. It's easy, I think for, as you said like the USA to think it's only happening here because you are as a country very self-focused, but then it's also see for the rest of the world to say, "Well, that's an American problem. It's not a problem that we have here." And yet I have friends who live in all different kinds of countries and they're like this is how racism affects me. Either we're living in two different worlds or white supremacy just continues to assert itself in different ways.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: I love this. A big part of the spiritual practice that I think you're calling us to do, the inner spiritual practice around who are we and how did we get here, what shaped us which are some of the questions you just mentioned asking yourself feel essential to the reckoning. And you have a podcast called the Good Ancestors Podcast, which is amazing by the way. If you all not listening to it, you should get on it right away. And it's really about... And correct me if I describe it wrong. It's about you know asking your guests to honor and include the ancestors that they carry with them and how those ancestors have shaped them and how they carry that legacy forward.
Kerri Kelly: And I'm excited because I'm going to be in conversation with you in a couple weeks on this podcast. And it's funny because that question was asked of me on a panel a couple years ago at an amazing conference called Amplify and Activate, and the question was something like what are the legacies or what is the lineage that you want to carry forth that your ancestors passed down to you. And I really struggled with it because my answer was none. There's a lot that I don't want to carry forward as the descendant of like colonizers.
Kerri Kelly: I don't know if my family owned slaves, but I know that many of them were racist. I know many of them assimilated. From what I know, it's not a good history. And it's not something that I'm proud of and I am struggling with how to carry, I don't want to call them my bad ancestors, but how to integrate if you will. The many different people that have shaped us that we carry with us, that have blazed the trail in whatever way and in my particular way it wasn't all good on any level. And so I'm curious, given what you've learned in this conversation through your podcast with all of these different people, how do we hold that complexity?
Layla Saad: Yeah. I'm smiling and the reason that I'm smiling is in Good Ancestor Podcast, I mainly interview black people and people of color and then I reserve a few spots per season for white people. So I'm going to be interviewing you soon. I've interviewed-
Kerri Kelly: I'm so grateful for it.
Layla Saad: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I've interviewed Robin DiAngelo. In the past, I've interviewed Glennon Doyle, I've interviewed Lachrista from Guerilla Feminism. And it's really interesting, the difference between the answers that the majority of my guests who are black and people of color give because we have a real sense of resilience and pride, and yet pride is the word I think that really comes forth when we talk about our ancestors because we know what they have gone through especially if the person that I'm interviewing is a descendant of slaves or called enslaved Africans.
Layla Saad: They carried that with a sense of pride whereas the white people I interview really struggle with this question. That discomfort just in a small way, it makes me smile because on so many of the podcasts that we hear, that are very popular, white people are always the ones that I held up as inspirations. This is what I bring to the table and in this question it's been really interesting seeing white people really squirm around this question and we have to really hustle with it because they don't want to express pride and often the question that I ask is who are the ancestors living or transition, societal or familial who've influenced you on your journey? So I'm not just talking about [crosstalk 00:52:21]. But in our world of global ancestors and what often happens is after having that same thing that you just said I really struggle with talking about my own ancestors, but here are the black people who've really inspired me.
Kerri Kelly: Totally.
Layla Saad: Right? Because that's where we're all leaning to. And so I think just like everything else that white people are "struggling," in air quotes [crosstalk 00:52:46] reckoning with, that's a question that you really need to reckon with. Personally, I think there is space for honoring the individual characteristics strengths, traits and achievements that your ancestors may have basically passed down to you which have nothing to do with them as white people which is a funny thing to say because they are white.
Layla Saad: For example, one of the things that I have been passed on from my father from is like he's really good at communicating. He's a really good writer and a really good speaker and it's something that I get from him and it's something that I'm really trying to teach my daughter about now as well. That has nothing to do with us being black or African or Arab or Muslim or anything else, it's just it's his strength. He has passed it down to me, I will pass it on to my children.
Layla Saad: So in that same way where people of privilege are reckoning with themselves, the aim is not to obliterate yourself. In my world at least, the aim is not for white people to fall over in shame, completely like devoid themselves of everything that makes them who they are in an aim to be anti-racist. That you can still honor those parts of yourself and accept, "Yes, I'm racist. I have ancestors who were racist. That is the lineage that I come from. My work as I understand it now is to do the work of changing that. But I can still honor that for my grandmother I got this. From my great-great, whoever, I got this."
Layla Saad: I just think there's a way to hold the both end. Just simply because in my own inner work and on this journey, one of the biggest lessons I have had to learn for myself first is to see myself as a whole human being no matter what the world tells me. No matter what the world that is anti-black and misogynistic and Islamophobic tells me about who I'm supposed to be, I have to learn to see myself as a whole human being and to hold all of my humanity. And so when I hold all of my humanity, I'm better able to see you in all of your humanity.
Kerri Kelly: And there is the spiritual practice.
Layla Saad: And there is the spiritual practice. And again, I just want to emphasize, this is just my journey, this is my path. I'm not saying this is what everyone should be aiming for. This is just the place that I have come to in this is that I have had to learn how to see myself as a whole human being to hold all of my humanity every single part of it especially the parts of it that I don't like or try to hide or don't want people to see, I have to own all of that too. And so when I start to own it within myself then I have to accept it within other people.
Layla Saad: And so I can see you as yes, you're a white person, you hold white privilege. You're not a safe person for me to be around, not because you're a bad person but because of all these things that come with white supremacy white privilege. And you're really good at this, you're really good at that. You really have that. You're really talented at that. You really did that. I have to hold both. That is my journey in this.
Kerri Kelly: That feels radical to me too especially holding the whole of our humanity, especially in a culture that tells us that we can't be whole, that tells us that we need to reject parts of us whether it's our womanhood or our race, or imperfection, or rest. But we have to reject rest. You know what I mean?
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: I do see that as like so significant in the work that you're doing and in the call around the Good Ancestor Podcast is that it's really a call to reclaim the whole of who we are because to me rejecting my "bad ancestors", air quotes is actually to deny where I come from.
Layla Saad: That's right.
Kerri Kelly: Right? And it's more like, "That's not. Why do I have to take responsibility for other people?" And it's like, "No, that's all me. All of that has shaped me. That's a part of who I am. I come from that. The same way that I come from 400 years of slavery in America. The same way that I come from colonizers who came over to this country and took land, and participated in a genocide in an entire group of people." To me, that's part of the inner work is the reclaiming of the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth.
Layla Saad: Right. Not from a place of pride or it's not pride and it's not that other type of humility that we were talking about, but as you said just owning the fact of it, the truth of it.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: And that has shaped who you are, how you see the world, how you interact with other people and that what you are working on now as a living ancestor right now in the world is how do I reckon with that? What do I need to do from there?
Kerri Kelly: That's right. And I'm so grateful that you're in this work and you're calling all of us in this particular way and just to give folks an idea of the impact that you've made after you posted that blog, which was after Charlottesville, you held a challenge called Me and White Supremacy. How many people participated in that Instagram challenge? So many.
Layla Saad: I do know how many people. I think when that challenge started I had around 19,000 Instagram followers. By the time it finished, it was close to 40,000.
Kerri Kelly: That's a good metric.
Layla Saad: Right. And what was interesting about it, and again this goes back to my relationship with God and my spirituality was that that wasn't a planned thing. It wasn't something that I mapped out, it was something that came to me literally the night before in one download, the entire thing. And I just, right before going to sleep said, "We're going to do this tomorrow." And in my mind because my mentor talks about moving at the speed of inspiration, that's what I did. You hear the call and you just follow. You're just taking dictation and you're just following.
Layla Saad: Because of that, I didn't question, "Hey, should there be a registration process for this?" Hey, is this going to be like the safest thing for other black people and people of color to see? Hey, are you thinking about the amount of emotional labor you're about to do?" None of that occurred to me at all. And we started day one and I was like, "Oh, this is what I've done."
Kerri Kelly: Oh, shit.
Layla Saad: And at the same time I could feel the presence of the divine holding it in its entirety, and I knew something bigger than me was going on and I knew that I was held and that I would be led through it. And so it was a huge challenge, it was a 28-day process. I had to take a break midway through.
Kerri Kelly: I remember.
Layla Saad: And my husband often reminds me. He said, "You really like blood, sweat and tears." Because he said, "I remember, you were like I don't know if I can do this."
Kerri Kelly: You were all in. You were all in, and I remember like your whole body, mind, and spirit was in that process. And I remember you saying, "I need to pause and really appreciating the teaching in that, and the honesty and the modeling."
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: What were some of those lessons that you learned? Where there things that you were like, "Oh, I won't do that again."
Layla Saad: Well, I'll never do that challenge ever again. Not like that at least. I learned that to hold back on space is an incredible expenditure of emotional and intellectual labor. And that yes, at the time... I don't regret anything. I don't take back anything, nothing. It was what it was supposed to be and at the same time, it's so easy for people with white privilege to take for granted what it takes to hold that kind of space.
Kerri Kelly: Totally.
Layla Saad: And so I'm very clear in myself that any time I hold space for any kind of education or learning or anything transformational work, it is going to be in an environment which I'm able to make sure that keeps me safe and grounded and honors my labor, honors my time and where my boundaries will not be dishonored or disrespected. Another thing that I learned and this was on day nine, which was the day that we did about you and black women, that was the day that I cried. I hadn't cried up until that point and then we reached that day and it was, for everybody, a really tough day.
Layla Saad: But the reason that I cried was I had to really reckon with this is what white people really think of us and of me. And what did I do to deserve this? And it brought up so many memories of childhood and so many memories of feeling discarded, feeling like an afterthought, feeling like a threat even though I wasn't doing anything wrong. Some of the things that were coming out of people's comments as they were typing about how they really feel about black women, it was the things that I needed to read.
Layla Saad: I really needed to see, I really needed to understand the nature of it. I needed to understand white people when they see black women, this is what they see. They might not even know that they see it until you dig underneath a little bit and then it all comes out. But this is what's going on. So everything that you thought maybe I'm imagining it or maybe I'm reading too much into it, you're not. It's actually the reality. That was a hard slap across the face but I think for me and I know for many black women who also were observing and also found it really triggering and upsetting, and at the same time they were like thank you because it gave them a sense of freedom. Now I know. Now I know so I know that I'm not imagining it and now I can operate from a place of loving myself.
Kerri Kelly: It's funny because you're just making me reflect on the role of truth-telling in this work. And how we've been invested in living in an illusion and not wanting to see. And I say that as a white woman who spent many, many years of my life choosing not to see. And how much I've learned from the radical truth-telling of teachers like you and also just acknowledging the gist sheer generosity of your even willingness to do that knowing the cost.
Layla Saad: Right. Thank you for saying that. And I also really want to drive home that point about the cost because I know so many... Especially white women, white people, but especially white women who follow teachers such as myself and unrighteous such as myself and see us in that work and have that sense of gratitude. There's that support but not realizing the cost. That's right, and it's huge. Following the amount of emotional labor that I did during that challenge, the way that I choose to show up on my social media platform changed after that. And what I mean by that is after that I chose to no longer do free education online for white people.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: And there are teachers that do use this space intentionally in that way, many of whom are my peers and the work that they're doing is really important but they understand that there is a cost to that and they put what they need to in place to be able to hold that and still do their work, but for me personally it's just not a price I'm willing to pay any more.
Kerri Kelly: And I appreciate you saying that because I don't think truth is the end of it. I think reconciliation is required too, and part of reconciliation is acknowledging what you just named that there's a huge burden on like the bodies and beings of folks who choose to do this. Especially folks who are most impacted like yourself, and that reparations has to be a part of this formula, that it's not just about truth, it's about compensating folks for their labor, emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual, all of it.
Kerri Kelly: And I think reparations is part of it too. It's not just a transaction of like I want to pay you for your labor, it's a historical transaction. We need to make good on the lid the legacy of harm that has enabled white people to thrive and benefit for so long. And that it's really up to us to initiate those reparations, and to support, and to celebrate, and uplift, and resource, and appreciate the work of yours and so many others.
Kerri Kelly: It's funny, Michelle Cassandra Johnson was on the podcast recently and she said... And I was talking to her about benefiting and how... I mean I interrogate myself all the time around am I benefiting from being in these conversations, and I finally was like, "Fuck, yes. Of course I'm benefiting. I have benefited. My spirit and my humaneness has completely benefited from saying yes to this work, and from being in relationship in this work.
Kerri Kelly: And I felt guilty for saying that because I was like I'm not allowed to benefit, but oh my god like I've gotten so much for my soul and that's not why I'm in this work, but it would be unfair and untrue for me to not say that, to not admit that I'm a better person. And Rachel Cargle was on the podcast and she says, "You can't be in it for self-improvement," and I'm like, "Yes, I totally agree." It is really true too that I'm a better being because I'm choosing to do this work.
Layla Saad: Yeah, I have so many things that I want to say about that. I completely agree with Rachel and I talk about this as well in my work which is that you will benefit from this work. That is not the reason that you are doing this work.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: But the reason why I put my work together it's not the reason why I'm asking you to do it. If you're seeing it as a self-improvement project or another way for you to achieve some sort of spiritual good person status of enlightenment, then once again you're back in white supremacy. Once again, you found yourself back at square one.
Kerri Kelly: It's about power again.
Layla Saad: It's about power again. So it's not about you, but because it's about the humanity and the dignity of people, every person benefits because it's pure. It's about humanity and it's about dignity, and so everyone benefits. There was another thing I wanted to say. Oh, you were talking about reparations and I completely agree. And I think especially for those of us who are having these conversations on social media which many of us are, that many white people will think if I like your posts, if I comment something nice about you on your post, if I tell you, you look nice or these are all the ways which I can change my post.
Kerri Kelly: If I repost you?
Layla Saad: If I repost you, if I send you a PayPal donation, whatever that those are my ways of paying reparations and no, that is not what reparations are. And I want to make it very clear, I'm not a descendant of enslaved Africans, so the reparations conversation is not one for me to hold space for or talk with any kind of authority or anything about it, but I just want to make it really clear that the exchange for what white people are receiving for what we are giving is not the same.
Layla Saad: It's not the same. And so there is this way in which black women are also held up as these super women and so white women will often say, "Well, you inspire me or you've made me more courageous or you've helped me to use my voice." And that's all well and good, but once again, it's a taking because I haven't been improved by it. I haven't been inspired by it. I haven't found a way to use my voice in the relationship that we are having on the social media platform in this conversation.
Layla Saad: So I just want white people to be really aware of that that it's still a one-way thing. It's why for me I'm very intentional about I will only teach my work in books, in classes, and spaces for which I can be compensated for it. And so it's more clean for me because often we talked about how white supremacy can be really wily. Another way that it can try and show up is if I just love bomb you, just load you with compliments, that is my anti-racism. That is my payment for your labor, and it's not.
Kerri Kelly: And this is not one of those like what's one thing white people can do? That to me is the most absurd thing to ask. This is an everyday like every moment of your life practice as far as I'm concerned to undo this. It's sort of like saying, "What's one thing we can do for climate change at the end of our days?" That's just silly nonsense. But I'm curious about what is that threshold that you're naming that goes beyond the allyship that we talked about, that goes beyond likability and social media engagement that goes beyond taking so that we can be more conscious.
Kerri Kelly: Is it displacement of power? Is it reparations? Is it redistribution of resource? I do feel like we need to move the line a little bit for white folks. We're hanging back and we need to move the line up and we need to get to it a new down, if you will to use a football terminology. And so what do you think that new threshold is that we should be aspiring to?
Layla Saad: I think the danger in... Well, this is kind of shooting myself in the foot because my work is about self-reflection. That's what Me and White Supremacy the book, the process is about. It's the process of the deep reckoning that you spoke about, the individual, and a lot of times people are now doing it in groups and circles that reckoning with what is this thing and how are we complicit in it.
Layla Saad: The danger for me, and it would show me that people are not really doing the work, the danger for me would be it just stops there at the self-reflection stage. I feel so improved by this stage. I feel so much better about myself. I think that threshold is about the redistribution of power. If you are doing this work and you are still comfortable, then not very much has changed. It means that intellectually, you've understood what's going on but you haven't actually lost anything from it.
Layla Saad: Your life hasn't had to change in any significant way. You haven't had to take any risks that put you at a disadvantage so that black conditions people of color can be at an advantage. You get to understand the issues. You get to talk about them with nuance and complexity, but other than that, things have mostly stayed the same in your life, in your day to day life. So I think a lot of times people think it's about being able to use the most, quote-unquote, "woke language" to be able to do the call outs of other white people, to be able to spearhead a new thing that is all about social justice. But your actual life, it's still pretty much.
Kerri Kelly: That's right.
Layla Saad: That means the threshold hasn't been breached. And so white supremacy gets to be understood but it doesn't get changed.
Kerri Kelly: And that reminds me of the spiritual practice because what has inspired me to have skin in the game and throw down has been that I'm invested in another vision of humanity. That's bigger than my individual positionality. And once I reckon with that, I was like, "Oh, this actually feels like I want to make that bet, that collective liberation and well-being, the ability for everyone to thrive, and be their most whole and authentic self is more important and more valuable than whatever attachment I have to my piece of pie."
Layla Saad: Right.
Kerri Kelly: And it's funny because there's that quote that it's... I forget how it goes but something around equal rights is not pie. There's that that meme. And I'm like, but it kind of is. That's not to say that like we don't have an abundance mentality but we need to be willing to give something up in order to correct. My friend, Reverend Jacqui Lewis says, "Justice corrects anything that is in the way of love."
Layla Saad: I love that.
Kerri Kelly: And it's like we need to be all about that correction in our personal lives, in our choices, in our behavior, in our finances, in our politics and in our spiritual practice. This is my last question for you and I feel like this is the right place to end. We had Adrienne Maree Brown on the podcast and she talked about Octavia Butler. And I know that you're a fan as well.
Layla Saad: Thanks to Adrienne Maree Brown.
Kerri Kelly: Oh, yay. So there we go.
Layla Saad: Because I had never heard of Octavia Butler until I started listening to End of the World podcast.
Kerri Kelly: Which is one of my favorite podcasts.
Layla Saad: And they just talk about her constantly, and I was like who is this Octavia Butler. Yeah, she changed my life.
Kerri Kelly: And I love that Adrienne and Octavia Butler use science fiction to imagine the more beautiful world that we haven't known yet and the vision of who we can be together. And sometimes I think we forget to send her that. And for good reason, we're so caught up in unpacking, and dismantling, and unlearning that we leave out the part where we get to actually imagine something better. And the way that I think about that is I think people like you should be imagining that more beautiful world. That allows for everyone to thrive. So I'm just wondering like do you have a vision that you hold that guides your work, that is the true north if you will that keeps you going especially when it gets hard and when you get tired of the more beautiful world that we haven't known yet that we're yet to become.
Layla Saad: I love that we've ended with this question because it brings two things which I'm really passionate about, Octavia Butler and being a good ancestor. So as I said, I was introduced to... I'm looking up here because I've got my stack of Octavia Butler books up there. I was introduced to Octavia Butler through Adrienne Maree Brown's work. And it was during a time that I was doing this work and having these conversations online that was really burning me out. It was before Me and White Supremacy. So it was after I Need to Talk to Spiritual White Women, but before Me and White Supremacy.
Layla Saad: And I was angry as hell every day. I was mad. I mean I look back at pictures of myself from that time and I don't look well. I look like if the virus of white supremacy has infected me, that's what I looked like. And I was really struggling because I was like this is a nightmare that we can't wake up from. And it actually doesn't matter how many times and how many days online I try and educate white people and fight with white people online. Nothing is going to change. This is how it's been and this is how it's going to be and that's it.
Layla Saad: So I had reached a point of defeat essentially and my [inaudible 01:20:29] was shut down. My sense of hope was shut down, everything. And so I decided to buy these books. I started off with the parable series, the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Talents. And the protagonist, not to spoil it for anyone, there's a protagonist called Lauren Oya Olamina. The series chronicles her life from a young girl, all the way up to cronehood essentially. She lives in a dystopian time and she lives in a time where basically everything's gone to shit and the world is falling apart and there is no more hope.
Layla Saad: Everything is gone to shit and yet she starts channeling these verses, and these quotes, and these sayings, and these philosophies which she begins to put together in this book, and her life's mission throughout this story is to basically carry out the mission that she believes that she has been given. And in reading that book, my whole life basically changed. I know that sounds really like cliché, but it really did especially when it came to this work because here was a girl and a woman who lived in a time where there was no hope and where what she was saying sounded wild.
Layla Saad: What she was proposing with the next stages for humanity just didn't make sense within the reality of what the world was right now. But she carried through with it through all the hardships, through all the tribulations, through all the pain. She held on to it. And it gave me a map, it gave me a blueprint and a model for what it looks like to believe so strongly in something that it actually doesn't matter what the reality is on the outside if you have that sense of faith and knowing that you keep going no matter what.
Layla Saad: It woke me up and it became the place from which I began to rebuild a new way of how I was going to show up as a sort of leader in this work and as someone who has a voice and has a platform. That became really pivotal for me that in this world of make-believe, in this world of science fiction I was able to find something that made the most sense to me. And so that is part of what keeps me going and then the other part of it is that as a parent, I just want to help create a world in which my children know that who they are is honored, that who they are matters, that I'm doing my part as person responsible, co-responsible with my husband for making sure that they have everything being made in this lifetime.
Layla Saad: And so it's my duty and it's my responsibility to do that. I would do anything for my children, anything and this is a huge part of that. So those are the two things that really anchor me when I'm like, "What are we supposed to do right now? Where are we supposed to go from here?" I know a lot of people will look at people who are in this work who are seen as leaders and look to us as sort of the guide or where we supposed to go, what is the next step that we're supposed to make and I really just want to remind people that we're human beings too. We're trying to figure it out. We're really trying to figure it out as well and we're really trying to do our best to use what we have to be able to show people."
Layla Saad: But for me, it starts from within and it always has. I want to heal. I don't want to feel less than because I'm a black person and a woman. I don't want to feel like I don't belong so I'm going to work on my healing and then everyone else gets the ripple effect of that and that shows out in the way that I show up in my work is if I'm able to show up from a place of hope and inspiration and faith and compassion, empathy, wisdom any of those things, it's because I work so hard to cultivate it within myself first, for myself first. And then everyone else gets the results of that.
Kerri Kelly: I love that and I just want to say because I really listen to what you are saying, but I really learned from who you are being, and what you are embodying. And so just know that all that you just named, the investment that you're making here-
Layla Saad: And that is what it means to me to be a good ancestor.
Kerri Kelly: Yeah. And that's felt is I guess what I was going to say. And it's not just felt by me. I mean I know that almost a hundred thousand people downloaded the Me and White Supremacy workbook which I'm sure blows your mind, and you have a forthcoming book coming out in February that people can order online now, which is just another way that people can learn from you and your practice, and the way that you're walking the walk right now. I'm just grateful that you're here and I'm grateful that you're you're so compelled by your purpose to keep going.
Layla Saad: Thank you, Kerri.
Kerri Kelly: Thank you for being in conversation with me. I can't believe we haven't before this moment. It kind of blows my mind. We were just saying that before the podcast like, "How is it that we haven't met yet?" But I'm really grateful to know you. I'm grateful for all that I've learned from you, and I know I speak on behalf of a lot of people who have been impacted by you whose spirit has been changed by you being you, just being you. And I just look forward to being on this path with you towards the more beautiful sci-fi vision of humanity that is evolving and emerging.
Layla Saad: That's right. Thank you.
Kerri Kelly: Thank you so much.
Kerri Kelly: Well, this podcast is coming to an end. Our work in the world is just beginning. This episode's call to action is to look at your own personal complicity within the system of white supremacy. You have to begin by looking at yourself and reckoning with your part, your participation and your role in changing it. Big thanks to Layla Saad for joining us today and be sure to buy Layla's book, Me and White Supremacy at meandwhitesupremacy.com. Oh, and her podcast Good Ancestors is not to be missed. You can find it on Apple. You can follow Layla on Instagram at Layla Saad and please support her work on Patreon.
Kerri Kelly: Special thanks to DJ Drez for the amazing soundtrack. You can check out his music at djdrez.com. And to our executive producer who puts it all together and makes it sound great, Trevor Exter. And thank you for being here today. You can stay in the know and engaged by subscribing to our free weekly newsletter, WELLread at ctznwell.org.
Kerri Kelly: CTZN Podcast is community inspired and crowd-sourced. That's how we keep it real. Join our community on Patreon for as little as $2 per month so that we can keep doing the work of curating content that matters for citizens who care. And don't forget to rate us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play, and share the love y'all by telling your friends to check us out.