Disassemble the way they benefit from whiteness and what she calls good ancestors. People who leave a legacy of liberation and others to follow. Shes a writer, speaker and podcast offer, she earned her bachelor of law degree from Lancaster University in the kingdom. Her husband and two children. We are excited to talk with her tonight. We also are excited to announce this new book has already released on the number one bestseller list. [cheering] number 88 on usa today. With that, layla, welcome. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Are you on . Here it comes. There we go. Can you hear me . No. Sorry about that. That has never happened before. [laughter] i want to ask a question and hand the mic over to layla so she can hear your. Why do start with a fascinating book, a great exploration of a topic that we are all interested to talk about work tonight but in this book, youre asking white people, particularly quite people in the u. S. Like me to confront racism, you say outright this can be an uncomfortable process. Talk about what motivated you specifically to tackle this. Its so interesting, ive been asked this so many times now. If i have known before embarking on this journey, if i had known what was going to be ahead of time, i might not have chosen it. The work i was doing before i was a life and business coach, i wasnt doing any thing controversial, anything that would make people uncomfortable, if anything, i was saying come on, ill take care of you and help you grow your business. But when the charlottesville, the rally happened in charlottesville, as attorney moment for me because i remember seeing the images of the men marching in the streets, we can all remember the racial slurs and everything, it was like a light just clicked over for me that i had things that had been growing up inside of me for many months about things i was observing and for Life Coaching space, spirituality, personal growth space that i could see was white the premises, people who looked like me were the minority, people who look like people in this room for the majority and i wanted you dont wife. My . Is it because people like me didnt do this kind of work. Week being excluded from being seen as incredible people . I wrote a letter called i need to talk to spiritual white women about right to privacy and i was addressing things that would blow 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 you are about love and life, you say you dont see color but racism is running rampant in this space and we need to have a conversation about her. I got through that journey through this letter that went very viral. Fast forward a year later, one night im thinking about what have we learned in that time since we started having this public conversation . I grabbed my phone and said what have you learned about whites pharmacy . I thought well, what is whites pharmacy . What that i experience of it . I started listing out dozens of these things, white silence from a cultural procreation white majority, dozens of these prompts and i quickly realized it wasnt a single post was going to share with my community but rather a journey. So i created this journey. Posted on instagram that night and we begin tomorrow my 28 day journey to explore White Supremacy, sounds fun. [laughter] sounds fun, right . Really thought not many people are going to want to go on this journey because it doesnt sound fun, sounds uncomfortable and hard and i woke up the next day there were so many people who said im scared that im in. We started that challenge and i had 19000 instagram followers by the end of that 28 days, it had more than doubled. People came in every day to do this work. Its been an incredible journey because it came from a place of the angry grief from charlottesville and but are seen and the curiosity of what they have learned. So you started on social media, as you described. If you like its a very millennial way. [laughter] what made you convert that into a book . Is there anybody in this room to take a instagram challenge . It was an incredible experience. It was, for the first time, people having very public conversations around their own unconscious races thoughts and beliefs. Ive never seen it done before in that way, it was behind a payroll or in a private setting, nobody could come on my page and read what was being said. I knew from day one that this is a very special thing was happening and i had to Pay Attention and i knew by the end it had to become a book. Because they were people watching the challenge were too scared to join in and i knew they wanted to do the work but they were afraid and because of the transformations, i knew it had to go beyond a challenge which i knew i would never run again. [laughter] never doing that again. It was so incredible that i had to go beyond that live experience so i decided to turn it into a workbook and the great thing about doing that, i was no longer constrained to instagram, i could write at length. I had learned something, i didnt realize how hard it would be. For me and the people i was asking to go on this journey. What i did with the book was, let me just prepare you for what you are about to experience and let me equip you for journey thats going to be very uncomfortable. So we included extra things in the pdf workbook. Having him through this, the intro pages help get you to the notion that its not quite work, its not something you can do without a real heavy amount of effort because its going to ask you some really hard questions. The exercises that come in the workbook, obviously when you did them online, you did them in a particular order. You had to think about his day one, day two and youre asking different and more challenging questions. [laughter] somebody says im good, im good. Then they start seeing themselves with the complicity into these issues. How did you decide when you are doing it the first time from was the right order and did it change when you put it into a print book . Or did it modify . The night i received the download of what the challenge would be, i wrote dozens of these things down and when you started day one, which was just the next day and i woke up and thought zero no, i was going to do this thing and now i actually have to do it. From day one, i was like let me just choose the easiest one which is White Privilege, i know some have heard of this term sorta starting points. Then i saw the way people were engaged on the post, i was like no, you have to make it make sense. The thing that comes next have to build on what just happened because at first, like you said, it was the night before and spent the next day. My plan had been too just check them in the order i received them in. But it didnt make sense to do that if it was going to be that journey. So i was very intentional each day about what was going to come next. That same order and prompts have remained the same from the challenge from the pdf workbook to the hardcover workbook. You are definitely composing that order as it was happening. Absolutely. And one of the main things was not to do week two, the day eight to 15, thats a hard week. Thats the week we look at racist stereotypes, antiblack, cultural appropriation, things most people who do not want to be associated with racism dont want to admit to it. If i had started that in week one, most people would have shut down. Because consciously, the way many people see themselves is, i am not racist because i know who racist are and they are the bad people, they are the one who marched in charlottesville, im not one of those people so i cant even hear this. Thought when i called the basis. It allows you to understand that White Supremacy is not strange thing that only some people do, it is actually this whole system and belief that all of us have been convinced conditioned to see. Week two, you are more open to the idea that maybe i do have antiblack thoughts because i had all these other things that seemed to resonate the things that i know ive done. On that same line you are talking about how people for speaking and helping guide which challenge you are putting to the max and starting to order things from the other think you mentioned in the book is obviously the difference between the book and the challenge, it wasnt just your voice out there. As you are posting these things, people were responding online and then some people who might have been working through the issues as a white person trying to adjust or confront or deal with it, there were other people chiming in. They were adding to the conversation. How did that influence when you went to create the workbook . The Biggest Surprise to me was that out of nowhere, what i knew and didnt know showed up to help facilitate the work. Voluntarily. We didnt have to do that and my instinct was to say dont look at this, its not nice but they showed up and they helped me facilitate the work. They collectively have been so integral to me, two of my closest friends here who are black women, its that sisterhood and working together thats so integral. When i went from the challenge to the workbook, now i was alone. It was just me. The support they get and the challenge helped me push more as well. There are some places in there that would like no, that bs, go deeper. It helps a lot. To some extent, a book that normally you are writing but a communal support had an influence on it. A very different type. In supporting because nobody does anything alone. Nobody does anything alone. We get to see the legacy, the body of work incredible rights, everything to me. The work they did has informed the work i do. A big part of the book is this notion of journaling, youre asking people to write, engage with these questions and write their responses. My question becomes, why is this more important for them to write their responses than to just have a conversation with someone around these questions or think about it . Why do you want journaling to happen . I have two answers to that question. The first one is when i first started having conversations about race and i wrote that open matter, it was like a straight buckle everyday on social media, trying to convince white women, this is real. You do do this. It was exhausting. Very exhausting. I found when i asked him it flipped things. Made things easier on me and them more open to having the conversation. So that is one part of this. The other part is when we are just thinking about it, think about it and keep things at an intellectual level where you are processing it here but youre not processing it inside so when we talk about racism, its not an intellectual study. Its peoples lives. That has to be matched and embodied experience of trying to understand your own unconscious thoughts and beliefs. They dont see color, they actually harm people of color. Its important to use your whole body to put pen to paper to write out and bring to the surface things that when you just consciously think about them are not there immediately. I agree fully in the power of writing to see things happen and change. In the introduction of the book, we talk about the need to be a good ancestor, can you tell us what that means . Good answers i think saved my life and helped me to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you now in a way im able to have it. When i talked about when i first started doing this work and how hard it was, i went from being somebody who, i guess i was a life coach, i was very optimistic, hopeful, very positive when i wrote that letter and began to experience the very nice women who were in my community suddenly has this reaction of what they call right fragility which is that many white people are not used to having conflicts conversations about race. When is brought up, they have a sometimes violent reaction to it. Defensiveness. They get angry, getting up and walking away, saying things that are never said, they couldnt imagine that would come out of their house. So i want something whose very negative, pessimistic because i couldnt see if this work has been done for the amount of time its been done in the quality for people of color, its been going on for so long and i could read things written and read it and thought she would have written it today. I needed something bigger than what i was seeing to allow me to continue on the journey because i couldnt do it from a place of resentment and hopelessness. This idea of being a good ancestor went beyond me. It became about my children and the people who will come after im gone. So i used that, i have it on the cover, i hope the podcast answers questions because i needed it but whats been really interesting as so many people have resonated with it for themselves and i think the people who have White Privilege in particular, what inspires what it activates within is this idea that i didnt create White Supremacy but i absolutely benefit from it. White people who came before us didnt fix it, didnt dismantle or change it. Perhaps i can do what i can do right now in this lifetime to create a different future for those who come after me. Selfishly, it was for me but it has helped so many people. And you tell me or us, some of those you feel the kind of legacy you want to leave . Thats easy for me. [laughter] the people we all know, the first people are my parents. Their living ancestors today. When i got the news of new york times, just as we were arriving here, i called my husband and fend my mom. Its 2 00 a. M. But i woke them up and told them because everything they poured into me makes me who i am today. Everything. Spirituality, ability to write and speak about everything i get them. They are first. Margaret over there writing and i opened the book and close it with her words. Black feminist women who did this liberation work. In different ways, she was a sciencefiction writer but i spent i think i spent time reading through her entire collection interview read the parable, the character in that book is what inspired me to want to be a good ancestor and she documents everything, this character. It reminds me how important words are, the power of words because they live beyond us. Thats good. So you mentioned theres a months work of content in this book and really, its more because you discussed the idea of people being able to walk through it and 28 days they can easily go back to it. You want them to step through it in the order in which it is the first time. So we can go over all concepts tonight, we all want you to buy the book and do it yourself. [laughter] do the work, as you mentioned, its important for people to do the work if they want to engage. I want to ask you about three. As i read through it, these are ones that hit me, i want see yourself in them. Yes. I want to know how you defined them and how you want someone like myself to respond to these. The first one is white silence. So zoom out a little bit, the aim of this book is for people to understand that White Supremacy conditions and has infiltrated all of us. What racism is, isnt just what we can all. To and say that person is being racist but its unconscious thoughts and beliefs of behavior would you take as normal or its not that bad and understand that no, those things actually perpetuate white the primacy and or maintain it in place. By their non action. So white silence is one of those things. Being silent when you see something racist happening, and again, im not just talking about seeing someone call someone a late racial slur pressing somebody being mistreated, racially addressed in normal situations and just thinking, is it worth it to say anything . Is it my place to say anything . Does anybody notice if i say anything . Than choosing to stay silence, it actively keeps it in place. Its not a neutral behavior to be silent in the face of racism. So i was saying earlier, you didnt create it, you didnt create White Supremacy, nobody alive here created it but you maintain it and its one of the way you maintain it. Scrolling through facebook and you see something from someone you knew in high school or see something from a Family Member and you ask the question, am i going to confront this on social media . You talk yourself into silence. You talk yourself into not saying anything. Making a case, is it worth it . Then moving on. Did anybody actually get harmed . Moving on. For the fact that . Maybe they didnt mean it that way. Theres different ways to talk about white silence. Powers one, he also talked about the concept of white centering. White supremacy, lets define what it means, White Supremacy comes from the root seed of belief that people who are white are superior. Two people of other races and therefore deserve to dominate over those people. If we just look back on history, weve seen that cycle and genocide, enslavement, different ways shown up in violent ways and people can say that happened before but its not happening anymore. White centering is very subtle. When i talked of the beginning about why was it that in a space that i was in Life Coaching, that industry, people who look like me, right centering played a huge part in that. This is this idea that, remember a conversation i had once, i had been podcasting for a while and they made an intentional effort to mimic interview people of color, black women. A question i got once from a white woman was, is this podcast for me . Was mainly for people of color and it said it was interesting because does that mean i need to ask with majority white guests, do i have to ask is it for me . Right centering is this idea that something is prevented by white people to white people, it acquires universally levered through people of color, its only for those people. Another example i was giving recently at a book event, im watching this story but also watching was going on racially. Im not just looking for do they have a certain number of people of color . But how close are those people of color to the role of the protagonist . Said something ive noticed thats really interesting is, if in a story, it doesnt matter if its a romantic story or not, if in a story, one of the partners is a person of color, the other person will not be a person of color unless its seen as a black movie. Right . Unless its seen as a black moving in the audience is black people but most of the time from both romantic partners are white in fact supposed to be a universal story of love we can all relate to. [laughter] so thats what white centering can look like in very subtle ways that doesnt allow people of color to be the center of the story, theres always an assigned character, there always marginalized. Then the other one i thought was rather powerful was your conversation about white saviors and. Was on a plane recently and the man sitting next to me, we were tearing because nobody had come to sit in the middle. [laughter] so we were like yes so we were like what we do . He said, we were assigned to hear and he said this is my short flight, going on a longer flight to