Week 1 lays out the foundations of white supremacy and asks the reader to re-examine their relationship to the ways white supremacy has personally benefitted them. Saad lists characteristics of white supremacy as white privilege, white fragility, tone policing, white silence, white superiority, and white exceptionalism.

The first day focuses on white privilege, defined as “the unearned advantages that are granted because of one’s whiteness or ability to ‘pass” as white’” (34). White privilege happens because of white supremacy and loses its meaning and power without white supremacy to uphold it. Scientists who assert that race is a social construct rather than biological fact have proven this. Race is determined by different expressions of the same genotypes and phenotypes by people around the world. But the fact that racism is a social construct does not diminish its power, nor the real impact that white privilege can have. Despite all the advancements of civil rights movements, the social constructs of race are still deeply embedded at the subconscious level.