When Layla Saad ran a free, month-long Instagram challenge during the summer of 2018, she had no idea it would become an International cultural movement. Thousands of people from around the world were galvanized by the #meandwhitesupremacy challenge. They began examining and owning responsibility for the ways in which they uphold white supremacy. Over 80,000 people downloaded her guide to the movement, “Me and White Supremacy Workbook” in the space of just six months. Eventually, that guide became a published book that quickly become a New York Times Bestseller.
Franciscan Peace Center has organized a series of online discussions about the revolutionary book. Participants are invited to purchase a copy and join weekly sessions at 9:00 a.m., on Fridays, from August 14 through September 11, 2020.
Register in advance by calling the Franciscan Peace Center at 563-242-7611 or emailing Lori Freudenberg at lfreudenberg@clintonfranciscans.com. Those who are not able to attend at 9:00 a.m. are encouraged to get in touch. If there is sufficient interest to hold an additional series at a different time, that can be arranged.
Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy. [The goal is] that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on blacks, indigenous people, and people of color and help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts; sharing moving stories and anecdotes; including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.
Saad describes her book as “a deep, raw, challenging, personal, heartbreaking, and heart-expanding workbook. You will be challenged in ways that you have not been challenged before. But the work begins with getting honest with yourself, getting educated, becoming more conscious about what is really going on and how we are complicit in it. It’s about getting uncomfortable as you question your core paradigms about race.”
Lori Freudenberg, Community Outreach Director for the Franciscan Peace Center, says, “It’s time we ‘woke’ and tried to understand what people of color have endured for centuries and how we have been implicit in it–knowingly and unknowingly. If you are willing to do that, and if we are all committed to doing the work that is ours to do, we have a chance of creating a world and way of living that are closer to what we all desire for ourselves and one another. We have a chance to create the Beloved Community.”
More information is available at www.ClintonFranciscans.com or by calling Sisters of St. Francis, Franciscan Peace Center at 563-242-7611.