I had such high hopes for this book and overall, it was an enjoyable book that I was grateful to have the opportunity to read. Ijeoma’s last book, So You Want to Talk About Race, was an excellent introduction to issues on race and I was excited to hear what she had to say in this book on toxic masculinity. Ijeoma had so many good clap backs for examples of toxic masculinity that I was saying YES GIRL out loud multiple times throughout the book. “Let me have the strength of a mediocre white man!” However, this book read so much differently than her last. It read more like a stream of consciousness collection of blog posts vaguely related to one another by this big idea of male whiteness in America than a well researched nonfiction book. Additionally there were a few times where her conclusions were a stretch given the evidence she put forth in her arguments. There was little citation for her claims as though much of what she was saying were known truths in the world. She seems to rely on overgeneralizations and individual quotes/experiences to fortify her arguments. These are easy to poke holes in for anyone not looking to reach her same conclusions. While this may get certain people fired up, this book is not going to change any hearts and minds and therefore isn’t as consequential as it could have been in the fight for justice. I did appreciate that she highlighted the negative consequences of white supremacy within “liberal” spheres as well as toxic masculinity in typically conservative groups. I think it is an under exposed problem contributing to mass white male anger as the democratic candidates become more diverse. Overall this is a good read for someone looking for more information to back up existing ideas about misogyny and white supremacy but might not be helpful for people just exploring this topic for the first time or someone who needs convincing that these issues are problems in need of addressing. Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book hits a bit different after that cute little almost-coup the U.S. had last night, where hundreds (if not thousands) of armed white male Trump supporters gained entry to the Capitol building while Congress was certifying election results, looted government buildings including Nancy Pelosi's office, took photos with defaced historical objects, and faced virtually zero consequences. For BIPOC individuals watching this unfold, watching police officers basically open the gates for "protestors" (read: domestic terrorists), watching police officers take photos with these people, seeing a distinct lack of arrests, tear gas, pepper spray, and all of the militarized police violence that protestors marching for racial justice and equality faced - oh boy, does it feel like a slap in the face and a perfect example of what white men can largely get away with, what people of color and anyone without this level of privilege have to suffer.

That being said, this book obviously does not address the events of January 6, 2021, and instead spends a lot of its pages on history much further back - from Buffalo Bill Cody's traveling "scalping" show to men like Eastman and Dell being pseudo-early-feminists to the dismissal of Shirley Chisholm's political work and presidential campaign. Sometimes I felt the book was a little all over the place, organized into "themes" rather than historical timelines, jumping back and forth between the present and the past and general historical movements to specific political trends.

So, I treated these more like a collection of essays. Some of them really caught my attention and made me think/stew/boil - such as the essay on Bernie Bros, almost the whole section on higher education, and almost the whole section on women in the workplace. I felt that some of the other sections were a bit meandering, getting too lost in giving the history and context that it lost the thesis of the book.

My one criticism of this book is that she treats white men as a homogenous bloc, when I think the real two-headed monster is patriarchy and white supremacy, these two plagues that go hand-in-hand and support each other through thick and thin. Something rubs me the wrong way about saying that white men are to blame for every problem in the world, although I kind of know that to be true, there are some white men who aren't like this, and it's not productive/constructive to blame high-level, personless concepts like patriarchy. I don't know.

The epilogue of this book is amazing and leaves you ending on SUCH a high note. Oluo starts by describing an unlikely relationship she developed with a young woman named Carrah Quigley. After the August 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso (committed by a man who murdered in order to address "the Hispanic invasion of Texas"), Oluo tweeted about how we need to do better in addressing white male terrorism. She received an email from Quigley, who said that she's the daughter of a mass shooter and wanted to be of assistance in Oluo's new book. Although Quigley and Oluo have pretty different opinions about this topic, this quote really stuck out to me:

"'So much of what makes a white male angry is the climb and the hierarchy.' But I think it's more than just the climb. It's the expectation that many white men have that they should haven't 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. When you are denied the power, the success, or even the relationships that you think are your right, you either believe that you are broken or you believe that you have been stolen from. White men who think they have been stolen from often take that anger out on others. White men who think they are broken take that anger out on themselves."

If you are a liberal, I think you'll enjoy this book. I'm not sure you'll enjoy it if you don't agree with Oluo's politics (I'm not sure that it's one of those books that can change hearts and minds for people whose hearts and minds need to be changed). Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

I think Ijeoma Oluo's new book, Mediocre, is an absolute must-read. She breaks down how institutions structured around white male mediocrity have affected society for centuries and how this structure is continuing to affect us today.

I was immediately hooked by the introduction when she talks of the phrase "works by design." We say our institutions are broken, but they are working as designed. White men have always been in positions of power, and have built their identity around the oppression of marginalized groups such as women and people of color. And, when white men don't get their way, they immediately place blame on these marginalized groups instead of looking at the institutions they are a part of.

Oluo's writing is clear and meaningful, and includes resonant quotes such as: "We as a society have somehow convinced ourselves that we should be led by incompetent assholes." Through discussion of United States history and institutions such as higher education, Oluo constructs a powerful narrative of how we got to where we are. As I read more non-fiction work, I realize how much racist US history is actually omitted and whitewashed, and it angers me that this is the case.

Oluo did a wonderful job wrapping up the book and talking of how to address white male mediocrity. She mentioned recognizing how complicit we are in our institutions, as well as breaking the cycle of fear and violence that white male mediocrity perpetuates. I would recommend her work to anyone looking to educate themselves more on how we got to where we are, as well as how our institutions are designed to benefit a certain set of people.

Simply put, everyone must read this book. This book asks and uniquely answers "how did we get here?" The formating of this is great and I can't wait to tell everyone I know to read this!

Oluo has done amazing interviews about this book and the question on anyone's mind as to why the focus was on the DT. The reason, because he's a symptom of the mediocre not the cause and I think that gives you a glimpse of the brilliance that you'll find in this book.

Ijeoma Oluo’s writing is so goddamn potent. Mediocre is a strong feminist view of American history and the mediocrity of white men and, whew, is it biting.

Whew! The FACTS in the book!! Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo is a deeply engrossing history of white male supremacy in America and how it has led to the creation of white men that feel entitled to success and wealth. Oluo begins with the quote, “Works according to design,” meaning it should be no surprise when a system created by white men to keep white men in power and Black people and other minorities oppressed will continually do whatever it must to keep white men powerful and everyone else, oppressed. For the past week I have been reading the news and thinking to myself, “Damn, works according to design”. Oluo fearlessly confronts the topics of white masculinity that was pushed on young men in the late 1800s to promote western expansion and the genocide of Indigenous Americans, [College educated] white men attacking the legitimacy of higher education, and white football owners and coaches profiting off of destroying Black men, but then firing those same Black men when they kneel for a cause. Mediocre even touches on the white male rage that has led to countless mass shootings and bombings perpetrated by white men who have become angered and resentful from living in a country they thought promised and even owed them economic prosperity and success.
I swallowed this book whole. Then I went back and reread entire chapters slower so that when need, I will be able to regurgitate the knowledge I’ve learned from Ijeoma Oluo’s relentless dedication and research. Many Americans have not yet learned and grappled with the true history of America. The only person who would not like this book is a person who believes that the success of Black people and women is a direct threat to their own success. A person who believes that they are entitled to power and wealth. A person who has purposefully ignored the true history of a nation that was built by white men, for the prosperity of white men. I am not sure how we teach and spread this information without upsetting people, because somehow it has become inherently “liberal”, “leftist”, and “anti-American” to discuss the FACTS of American history. The only thing I don’t like about this book is that I know the title alone will be a direct hinderance to people purchasing and reading this book, especially the people who really, really could benefit from reading this book. I know this is a white lady thing to say, but I’m an idealist and I want everyone to love and wish for the success of their neighbors and fellow Americans. I wish we were able to attract white men and especially white men who felt represented and heard by Donald Trump to this knowledge so that they can be in on our plan of making America a more equitable place and know that others’ success is not a threat to their own.

Warning: may make you want to punch the white men around you.

But truly excellent, and Ijeoma DOES talk us off that ledge a bit when she writes the conclusion. 😬

Mediocre is another amazing book by Ijeoma Oluo. I read her book So You Want to Talk about Race and really enjoyed it, so I was very excited to hear she was writing another.
Mediocre is about the history of white men and how it has been detrimental to every other group in America. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to learn more about the social issues that stem from years of Mediocre White Men controlling everything.
I learned a lot while reading this book and I think that many others will too.

Insightful and impactful. While I live and work in Canada, Oluo's observations about white supremacist and patriarchal social "norms" that perpetuate (deliberately) inequities can be transposed here. The tradition that grants grace and opportunity to the same people and types of people over and over is very familiar. The research and examples cited in the book make the arguments impactful, and the observations are even more affecting given the excellent, almost lyrical writing. Additionally, Oluo writes of historical events in parallel to her own and her family's experiences. That entree into her life is a generosity that we don't really deserve.

Ijeoma Oluo is a gem of our era, due to enter the canon of widely lauded feminist authors any day now. Mediocre is a perfect book for our moment in time but also captures the historical legacy of white men’s ability to fail upwards.

This is a compelling examination of the grip that white men have on our society, even in ways we may not consciously realize. Even if it's an example that hadn't occurred to me before, every piece of this book was well-researched, well-written, and tied together coherently and elegantly. I haven't read Ijeoma Oluo's first book yet, but if it's anything like this one, I'm excited to pick it up!

This was such an eye-opening and thought-provoking book! It was wonderfully written and informative, though at times it felt more like a series of related essays than a cohesive book. Still, I highly recommend it!

The final chapter discussing football was especially interesting to me. I've struggled with my love of the sport over the past few years, and Ijeoma Oluo only added to my unease about the exploitative nature of both college football and the NFL. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oluo does a fantastic job illuminating what many are already well aware of but is still unknown to many others. While this particular file itself made it very difficult to read (the punctuation and formatting were so all over the place in this ARC that I struggled to physically read it) however it's power did shine through. Recommended reading to all.

I will be finishing this book before bed tonight, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it! In this book, the author explores how mediocre white men continue to hinder the growth America. While the chapters are long, each one is well-organized into shorter sections (or case studies) that illustrate the main idea of the chapter. I appreciate that the author used multiple pieces of evidence to support each point, and the evidence came from a variety of centuries/decades. As a current working-class, woman, PhD student, I found the chapter on higher education especially intriguing. I will definitely be recommending this book to my family, fellow PhD friends, professors, and students!

Mediocre explores the damaging rhetoric of our white patriarchal society where white males are encouraged that being a white and male is achievement enough and they do not need to strive to be better.

Oluo pulls no punches as she takes aim at both historical and current events. I was particularly fascinated with her analysis of Bernie Bros and Biden's political history.

This is a must read for all but most specifically it needs to be on your list of anti-racist literature.

I read So You Want to Talk About Race soon after it's release and adored how Ijeoma Oluo explained things in a way that just really worked with my brain. I was a little nervous going into this one because it seemed like it was going to involve a lot more history and despite loving history as a student, I'm not always good at reading about it now. I am pleased to report that all of my concerns were for naught. Ijeoma Oluo is remarkable at how well she takes this pretty huge idea and cuts it down into very understandable pieces with perfectly chosen illustrative examples. I think this book likely could have spiraled into such a huge project that would have felt overwhelming, but Oluo is deliberate in what she chose to include and discuss. You can tell that her examples were chosen with care and really expanded and shed light on things and people who have a very one-sided positive history most commonly told today. I am still seething over the fact that President Teddy Roosevelt has a reputation of being a conservationist when he just kept ignoring the treaties the US made with Native people and took land that was never meant to belong to this country.

This book was well organized and has section headers that I really appreciated. In the introduction, Oluo talks about how things "work by design" so even when something is infuriating and unjust, but there's "nothing to be done" that it's often a sign of something working just as it was designed. This is a theme that carries through the entire collection and is really powerful. Oluo makes the case that we have to try something different if we are to save the planet and our country and it's a compelling argument. It's also subtle in some ways. She pulls back sometimes on sharing her opinion to give space for the reader to come to their own conclusion. It's the cross-examination method of asking every question but the last one because you want the jury to be forming the answer to that last question themselves. All of the pieces are there and at the very end, in her closing argument, Oluo hammers her points home. She does so effectively in large part because of how beautifully the rest of the book is laid out. Her conclusion introduces us to a new white man and takes a trek down the mass and school shooter line of reasoning. I would have appreciated more time on this topic, but I think it's a brilliant place for her to end with an appeal to readers to do something. To change the design.

Despite not reading my e-arc, I am very grateful to the publisher and Netgalley for providing it to me. I am deeply apologetic that I took my time after spending my audio credit on release day, but, for the record, I highly recommend the audio. Oluo narrates herself and I appreciate her narration.

One final point, y'all may know I mostly read romance novels, and Oluo's last paragraph in the acknowledgements is one of the most romantic things I've ever read and I would like someone to please point me in the direction of any romance novel that sounds similar to her real life love story. I hope Oluo and her partner have many, many years of happiness.

4.5. Oluo is stellar, as always, as she depicts what makes the mediocre white man think that he rules the world. It's an arduous and depressing read, but it's worth your time (especially with the amount of mediocre white men who are wrecking havoc on our world right now). The first several chapters and the conclusion were the strongest for me, but the whole book is well researched.

White people do not deserve the grace, patience, and wit of Ijeoma Oluo, who gives a clear-eyed accounting of America's grotesque history, steeped as it is in unfathomable racism and misogyny, and the white supremacist patriarchy that has brought us to where we are today. Do we dare imagine where we could be now if we treated women and people of color as though they could know or be good at the things we believe white men to be good at?

“How often have you heard the argument that we have to slowly implement gender and racial equality in order to not “shock” society? Who is the “society” that people are talking about? I can guarantee that women would be able to handle equal pay or a harassment-free work environment right now, with no ramp-up. I’m certain that people of color would be able to deal with equal political representation and economic opportunity if they were made available today. So for whose benefit do we need to go so slowly?”

In “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,” Ijeoma Oluo masterfully dissects American history by isolating case studies where white male mediocrity has been mythologized and celebrated at the expense of women and particularly women of colour. Meticulously researched, Oluo crafts her thesis in her deliberate but accessible voice, while at the same time maintaining an ultimately optimistic, redemptive tone that urges all of us to do better.

One of the case studies that I found particularly gripping was her exploration of modern day football. Of course I was familiar with Colin Kaepernick but Oluo fleshes out the inequities in the sport itself, highlighting how it functions as a microcosm of what we see beyond the stadium. As someone who is admittedly not into football, I learned so much from this chapter in particular about the continued exploitation of many Black bodies (and Black minds after all of those concussions) for the sake of entertainment and capital gain.

I particularly appreciated how Oluo recognizes how white patriarchy hurts everyone, including white men. She makes a compelling argument for growth at a crucial juncture in history and I highly recommend this one as your next non-fiction read.