Going into this book, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from it. I am a white, middle-class, cis, hetero man from the global North and I’ve definitely f**ked up not recognizing the privilege that one or many of those things has given. I’ll also f**k up again (guaranteed) but hopefully I’ll keep learning. Think about the role my ethnicity has played in my life is something I tend to face most days, and for the last decade or so I’ve reflected a lot of the role that the American idea of race plays in the world’s discussion about it. It’s coming from that place that I initially read Saad’s book.
I’m going to confess, it took me a while to overcome that barrier. I feel that the USA’s relationship to its black and other majority-minority population is “unique” in the world, with the exception maybe of South Africa. This isn’t to diminish or restrict using that as a lens to examine the role that white supremacy plays globally, and that was my way in to this book.
I appreciate being challenged and pushed to move outside of my comfort zone. I know I was guilty of saying “I don’t see colour” for a couple of years in the early ’00s. I’ve stayed silent not just in conversation but in my actions although I’m still not sure taking part in demonstrations against the colourism found where I currently live is appropriate for me, but I will certainly ask something I might not have done without this book.
I read this alongside RF Kuang’s Yellowface and I think reading the two together encouraged me to challenge myself more. Seeing the protoganist in that book flinch and pull back from doing any real daylight examination encouraged me to live with the discomfort Saad talks about often in this book.
