Reviews with content warning for Genocide - Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

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Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

8 reviews

bookcasey's review against another edition

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5.0

Required reading for anyone in the United States.

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mads_jpg's review against another edition

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4.5

An amazing and infuriating read, my only issue is one that I have with most nonfiction books, which is that I wish they took a more international approach rather than just America. But I don't blame the author for that, and if you're gonna pick a country to examine white supremacy, America would be the one...

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catapocalypse's review against another edition

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5.0

This is a great treatment of the ways white supremacy and patriarchy in America have built a stranglehold over many of our institutions, and the history of some of the most notable and notorious examples over the last couple centuries in particular. It's somewhere between a primer and a deep dive, whereas I felt <i>So You Want to Talk About Race</i> was more of a beginner's primer to the issues it covered. Though that could be since I knew much of the background on the other book's subject, whereas I learned a lot I didn't know with <i>Mediocre</i>.

Oluo touches on things like "Muscular Christianity" and its role in subjugating minority populations as well as creating the sport of American Football. She follows the messy path from the end of slavery to the Great Migration to struggles with integration (in neighborhoods, universities, the workplace, etc.) to the modern bitterness still retained by working class white men. She examines America's complicated relationship with women in the workplace. She even points out that it permeates all areas of society and politics, not just the white South or the GOP.

Ultimately she demonstrates how white male supremacy only survives on the oppression of everyone else, and yet still fails even many white men quite often.

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maxgdy's review against another edition

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4.0

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rachrreads's review against another edition

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3.5

While I agree with many of the arguments in this book on white male supremacy in America, I found the flow of the book to be hard to follow. This book really just felt like a bunch of essays thrown together with the main points of the argument at the beginning and end.

I learned quite a bit through all these stories/essays though, so that really helped the rating.

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emfass's review against another edition

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5.0

Ijeoma Oluo is simply one of the best writers writing today. In both this and So You Want to Talk About Race, she takes very tough and complex issues and makes them accessible. She is thorough and thoughtful and I honestly could have read another 100 pages or more of this book. It was also incredibly impactful to listen to the audiobook and hear Oluo's words in her own voice.

The introduction and conclusion chapters are vibrant and necessary overviews of the violence and harm caused by white male supremacy in the U.S. The chapters in between cover related topics by way of specific stories throughout American history. I deeply appreciated the unpacking of these important moments, and in particular the historic events I've lived through.

Especially eye-opening to me were:
-the stories of Buffalo Bill and the Bundy brothers (Chapter 1)
-an exploration of Bernie bros (Chapter 2, possibly my favorite section of the book, as it helped put to words so many things I've sensed but didn't know how to say)
-the history of access (or lack thereof) to higher education in the U.S. (Chapter 3)
-the horrific tactics that white people used to try to keep Black people from leaving in the post-Reconstruction South (Chapter 4)
-the "problem" of women in the workforce after World War II (Chapter 5)
-the Squad's political career as women of color in Congress (Chapter 6)
-the racist history of football in the U.S. and the tidal wave of backlash that follows when players (including Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett) try to use their voice for change (Chapter 7)

Throughout the book, Oluo also shares many instances of the cruel, unjust, horrifying abuse she has endured as a Black woman writing very visibly about racial, feminist, and social justice issues. She does it not for pity, but I think as firsthand examples of the lengths white men will go to when they feel threatened.

I highly recommend this to everybody.

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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4.25

I liked this much more than Oluo's previous book. I thought that the premise and execution were well done. Oluo ties a lot of disparate threads together under this theme. I will say, however, that the beginning and ending of the book were stronger and clearer than the middle.

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tachyondecay's review against another edition

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4.0

When I heard Ijeoma Oluo had written another book, there was no question in my mind that I would run, not walk, to NetGalley to request it. Publisher Seal Press made it happen! Medicore: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America is a formidable follow-up to So You Want to Talk About Race. In her first book, Oluo outlines all the ways that white people can move past ignorance and fragility to have authentic dialogue about race and racism. In this book, Oluo explains how white supremacy (particularly in the United States) creates a culture of mediocrity in which white men receive the message that they deserve greatness, even if they haven’t actually done all that much. I’m sure many people will dismiss this book as an attack on white people. But if you go into it with an open mind, the history that Oluo outlines demonstrates incontrovertibly the hostility that the United States has shown and continues to show Black people and people of colour.

At first, I wasn’t sure what Oluo was doing. But soon the picture emerged: each chapter began with the white supremacy of the past, from which Oluo draws a line into th white supremacy of the present. This is a history lesson, one that establishes how today’s racism exists atop a foundation of racism from centuries prior. In this way, Oluo demolishes the myth so often sold by white men to each other—the idea that it is possible to make American great again. America has not been great, especially for Black people and people of colour. The United States has always privileged the feelings of white people over the lives of non-white people.

Now, I am Canadian, so I am slightly outside the target audience for this book. Canada has its own dangerous legacy of colonialism and racism and is also a white supremacist state. I’ll have to seek out pertinent books about anti-Black racism here. Nevertheless, I think non-Americans would benefit greatly from reading this book. First, it will help us understand what the hell is going on in America. A little history lesson goes a long way. Second, although the details are different here, the story arc is the same: white people show up, steal the land, import cheap labour by people of colour, and then marginalize and oppress them when they’ve gone from useful to inconvenient. Oluo’s chapters are illuminating regardless of where you live.

Take her chapter on education, for example. I like how she explains the paradox of post-secondary education for people of colour. Right-wing pundits sometimes insist that post-secondary institutions are bastions of socialism and political correctness gone wrong. In fact, post-secondary institutions are still racist, sexist, classist, etc. Oluo points out, therefore, that attending college or university is simultaneously the best path people of colour have for attaining middle-class stability and one of the worst places to be, in terms of facing discrimination. This paradox is but one of many in American society—and I’m sure it is much the same here in Canada too.

For my fellow white people, this book asks us to examine how we are complicit in white supremacy and patriarchy. And those of us who aren’t men are still complicit. Oluo’s entire thesis is that we cannot allow the conversation to be distilled down to “some white guys are terrible.” Her whole point is that this is not about individuals; this is about systems. So you do not have to be a white man to participate in upholding a system that privileges white men. Additionally, Oluo points out that the system really wants to help rich white men—the system by design punishes poor white men too. This, in turn, motivates them to uphold white supremacy by encouraging them to feel superior to people of colour.

I’ve said this before, and I will say it again: if you want to consider yourself anti-racist, you need to do that work. And that means you need to do more than read books. But Mediocre is a great starting point in your quest for information. What matters going forward is what you do with the information, how you throw around your metaphorical weight to help dismantle the system Oluo exposes here.

I would like to quote at length from this book, but if I did that, this review would contain almost the entire book. Oluo’s writing is just that dense with meaning. This is a book that can be savoured as you explore each chapter, and it is rich with connections and ideas. Mediocre invites you, as I said, to truly consider white supremacy as a four-dimensional system—and when you can see the shape of a thing, through time as well as space, you have a better chance of understanding how to manipulate—or in this case, dismantle it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

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