Mediocre : : the Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Locations
Call Number: 305.31 Ol, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Oluo, Ijeoma, Black Studies 305.31 Ol
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	305.31 Ol	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	305.31 Ol	4-week checkout	Due 05-07-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Oluo, Ijeoma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Oluo, Ijeoma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Black Studies 305.31 Ol	4-week checkout	Due 05-15-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Oluo, Ijeoma	4-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024

Introduction: Works according to design -- Cowboys and patriots: how the West was won -- For your benefit, in our image: the centering of white men in social justice movements -- The Ivy League and the tax eaters: white men's assault on higher education -- We have far too many Negroes: white America's bitter dependency on people of color -- Fire the women: the convenient use and abuse of women in the workplace -- Socialists and quota queens: when women of color challenge the political status quo -- Go fucking play: football and the fear of black men -- Conclusion: Can white manhood be more than this?
A history of American white male identity by the author of "So You Want to Talk About Race" imagines a merit-based, non-discriminating model while exposing the actual costs of successes defined by racial and sexual dominance.
What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? Oluo shows how, throughout the last 150 years of American history, white male supremacy has wrought devastating consequences for people of color, women and nonbinary people, and white men themselves. She shows that the erasure and oppression of everyone else in America causes racist and sexist behavior, and imagines the possibilities for a new white male identity, free from racism and sexism. -- adapted from jacket

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

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Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Wow submitted by Xris on April 18, 2021, 10:33pm It's going to take a long time to read through this...I only had time to read through the first chapter (and the articles associated with it in the notes) before I had to return it. Definitely going to ask for it again, so I can hopefully finish it. Eye opening about the treatment of indigenous people and the attitudes of the western ranchers. :(

It's editorial, not historical... but that's hard to tell submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 18, 2021, 9:35pm Here’s my likely unpopular viewpoint: I didn’t like this book. Here’s the caveat: I was part of a bookclub that engendered weeks of excellent discussion based on it. I think both can be true.

The good: Oluo excels at engaging discourse on a wide variety of historical and current events that take on race and racism, white supremacy, structural racism, and gender in the United States throughout its existence. She does this in a conversational tone that makes for easy reading. She broaches wide varieties of topics (my book club took on two chapters every two weeks, and easily had enough to talk about to fill 60-90 minutes every time). She makes a reader think.

I struggle with how much of her writing is written without citations or documentation. Yes, to those who will tell me about the endnotes, I see them. There are absolutely sections that are well cited. But Oluo also starts most chapters without them and makes wide and sweeping statements based on large premises that are *not* backed by cited information. She frames this book *as if it is historical, rather than editorial,* and then does not back up a good deal of what she says (or the premises from which she draws conclusions). To cite one example, in a section called “The Other Migration” (p. 130-134) about Whites moving north during the Great Migration, Oluo gives six citations: three quotes, one source of a term, and two statistics. What she does not cite is anything that backs up her general *and powerful* thesis: that Southern Whites went north for economic opportunity and became bitter and angry when they were treated similarly to the Black people they used to be potential-owners of. I’ve never encountered this idea, and it explains SO much. But there is nothing visible backing it up, which leaves it much less strong than it could be. In the chapter “Fire the Women,” from pages 152-154 Oluo talks about the difficult labor women have done, the excellence women have shown, and the way men have shaped workplaces to exclude women. On page 154 she has a paragraph with four different “quotes” about how women don’t belong in the workplace… and doesn’t cite anything, anywhere, in the entire three-page section. Donald Trump used to invent quotes, too. (He’d tweet, “They say quote unattributed thing endquote”) and we all knew that the only one saying it was him.

If a right-wing author wrote an identical book from the other side of the spectrum, I would be deeply critical of the way in which it appeared to be preaching to its choir, and working to stir emotional responses without backing up its claims. One book club member who listened to the audiobook was astounded by statements that sounded factual but were not footnoted.

It’s not that Oluo can’t write this book… it’s that I want it to be better. I want her editor to have said, “Show me where you got this.” I want to be able to point to things she wrote and be able to say, “Because it says so here” and have that be believable and referenced. In the end, she wrote a 300-page editorial that *looks* largely like a history book, and I don’t think that serves nearly as well as it ought to, or as it could. _Mediocre_ sparked a lot of great discussion, but in the end it irritated me more than enlightened me, and there are enough other books on the shelves that I don’t need that.

History that every high school student should know but is not in history books submitted by hiker15 on July 3, 2021, 9:52am 5 stars! They say that history is written by the winners - this is a book published in 2020 that tells the history that is not in high school history books but every student should be aware of. The book is fascinating in addressing how women and black men have been pushed down or to the side in such topics as: college education, the workplace, being elected, stances by Democratic political leaders, college and pro football, the civil rights and women’s movements, etc).

While some of her writing is editorial in nature, there are extensive footnotes and citations to support her writing. When I mentioned the part about Bernie Sanders to my niece, she said she was aware of his stance and one of her older co-workers said he reminds her of the men marching with her in the 70s for women’s rights who after the march would ask her to make the sandwiches and then do the clean up.

All in all a fascinating book that every high school student should read in history class and whether or not you agree with everything Oluo says, it is an eye-opener of just how much your life has been affected by the white men in power and definitely gives you something to think about.