Review: Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo
Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash
Synopsis:
From the author of the New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, a history of white male America and a scathing indictment of what it has cost us socially, economically, and politically. After the election of Donald Trump, and the escalation of white male rage and increased hostility toward immigrants that came after him, Ijeoma Oluo found herself in conversation with Americans around the country pondering one central question: How did we get here?
In this ambitious survey of the last century of American history, Oluo answers that question by pinpointing white men’s deliberate efforts to subvert women, people of color, and the disenfranchised. Through research, interviews, and the powerful, personal writing for which she is celebrated, Oluo investigates the backstory of America’s growth, from immigrant migration to our national ethos around ingenuity, from the shaping of economic policy to the protection of sociopolitical movements that fortify male power.
In the end, she shows how white men have long maintained a stranglehold on leadership and sorely undermined the pursuit of happiness for all.
What would a mediocre white man do?
How can white men be our born leaders and at the same time so fragile that they cannot handle social progress?”
Okay, so I’ll admit, I bought Ijeoma Oluo’s first book, So You Want to Talk About Race, last year, but I haven’t actually read it yet. It’s currently sitting on the bookshelf by my bed, mocking me. It’s not that I don’t want to read it, because I do. But I also want to read so many other books. There’s just not enough time! I’m going crazy! The books are winning!
Anyway.
I was on the waitlist for this book at my local library for a while. I finally got it last week, and promptly inhaled it. This book covers a lot of different complex topics, but it’s intensely readable. Oluo is so good at distilling the information down in a very simple, very accessible way. (I also highly recommend listening to The Stacks podcast episode with Oluo, it gives a lot of interesting background information about Oluo’s process.)
Oluo dives deep into the history of America; from manifest destiny and Buffalo Bill’s spectacularly racist Wild West show, to the rise of the Bernie Bros and Colin Kaepernick. The result is a fairly comprehensive record of just how much white male supremacy is embedded into our everyday lives.
“White supremacy is, and always has been, a pyramid scheme.”
I learned so much from this book. And it made me confront some of my preconceived notions, and reframe what I had previously learned about the history of our country. This can be hard to digest, and Oluo covers some hard topics, but I just felt hungry for more.
This book is already so timely, but it’s equally fascinating in the wake of the storming of the Capitol Building early this year. I mean, it’s just insane, because that type of white rage, is exactly the type of danger that Oluo is warning us of. For anyone who is still wondering how the attack on our Capital even happened, I highly recommend reading this book, because that rage and entitlement has always been present in our society. Oluo did so much research, and has a clear understanding about what she’s writing. She masterfully connects the dots throughout history and shows us how we got where we are today.
“It’s the expectation that many white men have that they shouldn’t have to climb, shouldn’t have to struggle, as others do. It’s the idea not only that they think they have less than others, but that they were supposed to have so much more.”
By far, my favorite section in the book was where Oluo discusses Bernie Sanders and the overt misogyny of some of his more rabid supporters. Not to mention his continued refusal to focus on anything beyond class. Honestly, she expanded upon all the misgivings I felt about Sanders during the 2016 election but was never able to verbalize. I could go on, but she sums all this up in one fantastic quote:
“The assumption that women would vote for women for no other reason than their gender is insulting to all women’s intelligence, as is the insinuation that women candidates who focus on ‘women's issues’ are also not concerned about economic or health care issues. In this statement also lies the quieter yet just as harmful assumption that white men only vote for candidates that center their own white male interests.”
Read this book, because things will never change unless we give a name to the problem, and confront it.