White Women

by Regina Jackson & Saira Rao

In the vein of So You Want to Talk About Race and Me and White Supremacy, a no-holds-barred guidebook aimed at white women who want to stop being nice and start dismantling white supremacy.

It’s no secret that women in contemporary society are conditioned to be “nice,” but did you know that an emphasis on being polite and an avoidance of conflict are characteristics of white supremacy culture? As the founders of Race2Dinner, an organization which facilitates conversations between white women about racism and white supremacy, Regina Jackson and Saira Rao have noticed white women’s tendency to maintain a veneer of niceness, and strive for perfection, even at the expense of anti-racist work.In this book, Jackson and Rao pose tough questions such as, how has being “nice” helped Black women, Indigenous women and women of color? Has being “nice” helped white women in their quest to end sexism? Has being “nice” earned white women economic parity with white men? Beginning with freeing white women readers from a commitment to niceness that upholds oppression, Jackson and Rao deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior–from tone-policing to weaponizing tears–that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live an equitable life.With a radically honest, real-talk style, White Women is a call to action to white women looking to take the next steps in dismantling white supremacy. As Jackson and Rao state, yes, it may be triggering, but without a trigger we have no shot.

Paperback | 224 pages | Penguin Random House | 2022

Saira (NOT Sara) Rao; grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. For forty years, she wasted her precious time aspiring to be white and accepted by dominant white society, a futile task for anyone not born with white skin. Several years ago, Saira began the painful process of dismantling her own internalized oppression. Saira is a lawyer-by-training, a former congressional candidate, a published novelist and an entrepreneur.

Regina Jackson; born in Chicago in 1950 Regina remembers an America where everything was in Black and white. Burned into her memory are; the beatings and horrific treatment of civil rights workers throughout the south, the Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner murders, the murder of Viola Liuzzo, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the murders of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. The violence perpetrated on innocent people going about their lives, by white people. It is these memories that drive Regina to push for real change in America. Which is why she co-founded Race 2 Dinner.