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

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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shadereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.5

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ireneb2006's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.0

very political, interesting read and very informative

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bayleereads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative tense medium-paced

5.0

Such a powerful and informative book. It really takes "not all men" to a whole new level. I knew a baseline amount of information about white supremacy and male America before listening to this book, but now I understand so much more about our country and the policies put in place to basically paralyze any person in America that isn't a cis male, straight, Christian, and white. Oluo backs up her statements with facts and sources that prove her point even further.

Simply a phenomenal book. I think it should be a required reading for high school or college students in political science courses. But, of course they wouldn't do that, because it's "biased." Can something really be biased though, if it's backed up with immense research and facts? White male supremacy in America is harming pretty much everyone and our country isn't doing a damn thing about it.

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catapocalypse's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

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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perpetualpages's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

CWs: References to sexual harassment, pedophilia, and sexual violence; discussions of white supremacy, racism, police brutality, hate crimes, and (reported) racial and sexual slurs; explorations of genocide, anti-Indigenous violence, war crimes, and chattel slavery; exploration of misogyny, deportation, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism; some descriptions of online harassment, domestic terrorism, suicide, and gun violence

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