'Mediocre' is an exploration of the way the US was designed to cater to straight white men, first and foremost. Anyone interested in feminism, racism and LGBTQ+ issues will have awareness of this, but here the focus really is on white men as the problem. And it makes for pretty appalling reading. Especially right now as the votes are being counted to decide which mediocre white man will be next to lead the US (don't get me wrong, one option is miles better than the other, but still).

Ijeoma Oluo digs into the history of the US and looks at areas like education, sport and politics to analyse how white men have ensured they have the power and remain top of the pack, at the expense of virtually everyone else. As I progressed through this book, it was evident that this attitude hasn't served anyone, not even the men who are clinging to their privilege like babies to their blankies. It's really sad, infuriating and laughable, all at the same time.

Ijeoma writes with clarity, intelligence and class. I could tell she was really fucking tired, and angry. But throughout she explained things with grace and generosity. It's wrong to call on a black woman to do this labour of education for the guys who created this mess. She mentions what a toll writing this book took on her mental health, and it's completely understandable.

Things don't have to be this way. Can white men please pick up this book and give it a read? Can they come to their senses? Can they learn to listen to other voices, put their egos aside and start working with all the groups they have oppressed for so long? Can they finally show some humility, some acknowledgement of how disastrous their leadership has been? Fingers crossed.

Thank you to Perseus Books and Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

This book reads like a PhD dissertation on white male supremacy and the lengths to which they have consciously worked to maintain this imbalance. It’s dense but well written. Eye-opening and infuriating. Worth the read for changing how I see many of our “institutions” including football.

ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, but the opinions are my own.

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo discusses America's history as a way to highlight 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.

After reading So You Want to Talk About Race by Oluo earlier this year, I couldn't wait to get my hands on her newest book. This book is very informative and I'm glad I read it leading up to the 2020 election in order to help me explain where white male rage comes. This book also helped me better understand how Trump was able to win his first term as president and the historical context of past political leaders that I previously was not aware of. This book used many different methods to make me view American outside of my bubble and explore the biases that exist in my seemingly liberal state. I highly recommend!

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and I'm happy to say that it's absolutely brilliant.

Just like Oluo's last book, this one is a must-read, especially during this time. I highlighted and wrote so many notes in my book. It taught me important parts of history that I still hadn't learned about and offered solutions to a lot of our country's problems, especially in regards to our political system.

I loved what Oluo had to say about cumulative voting, AOC, and the future of America.

You must read this.

Deeply researched, accessibly written, and thought- (and rage- and determination-) provoking. (Will Ms. Oluo be speaking at Midwinter?)

I don’t think it is possible to write a review commensurate with this book. The structure is phenomenal, the writing is both powerful and accessible, and the information is invaluable.

Oluo dives into topics such as the wild west persona, the context behind American football, the perception of liberal arts colleges, and the concept of white male mediocrity that is interwoven into just about about every single aspect of society. It is absolutely shocking how the American education system twists history in a way that quite literally erases the experiences of those are not white and male. One of the many, many things that I admire about Ijeoma Oluo is her ability to continue to have empathy and compassion and truly believe that we CAN change this system. People made this system and people can dismantle this system.

All I can say is read. this. book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advance copy--all opinions are my own!

Admittedly this has been a heavy year and an entire book enumerating the pervasive, systemic nature of white supremacist patriarchy wasn’t always easy to stay in—this is not a reflection of the book in any negative way; in fact, it points to how effective and thorough it is. This book points to so many ways our culture is set up for white male success not as a meritocracy but as a rigged system that does a disservice to all. I’m not sure how many guys comfortable in the system will want to read this but I hope they do, and I hope those who don’t understand how embedded white patriarchy is in our social psyche will read it, too.

This book is chilling and infuriating and incredibly powerful to read, especially as a woman in 2020. Oluo is masterful in the way she articulates her research.

This book is anything but mediocre. Ijeoma Oluo’s first book “So you want to talk about Race,” was a necessary and timely (or more appropriately, about-timely) read for anyone who finds it easy to spot anecdotal injustices in society but doesn’t understand the complexity of the history (and their own partaking in that flawed system) that led to that point.

The inspiration for this book was Sarah Hagi’s , “Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.” With similar poise and restraint, Oluo delves deeper into that which we all know on some level; the realisation that the systems we have in place are flawed and need to be replaced with fairer models.

Life is not fair because the system is horribly flawed. Life could be fair. Oluo does extensive, and personally traumatic, socio-political research into how and why it’s not and proposes a solution. The design is flawed. We need to throw it out and start again. The softly softly approach of not demanding great change - that time has passed.

We all know that mediocre white man. He knows he is mediocre. He’s the guy that lives by the code: “Never apologise, never explain.” He may act like a friend to the feminists and virtue-signals support for Black Lives Matter, but is resentful of his girlfriend when her earnings surpass his. He despises women who outsmart him and will lash out at her appearance, weight, ethnicity, intelligence, anything that he feels will redress the imbalance. He hates that suddenly the world is gone PC mad, that his homophobic, sexist and racist jokes are no longer tolerated. The terrible system which has benefitted him is under threat even though it was terrible for him too. The reason he wants this flawed system to stay in place?

He knows he is mediocre too.

His mediocrity is rewarded by a system that favours him in every instance of his life and yet he still doesn't rise to the top. His fallback is to blame women and people of colour every time he fails.

To be fair, everyone knows men are mostly useless. They are mostly inconsiderate, try walking down any street anywhere. They expect you to get out of their way. They’ll interrupt, or talk over you. They mansplain things to us we already know or interrupt. They think funny women are women that laugh at their jokes. They feel sexually repelled by their partners when their partner outperforms them at work. They don’t do their fair share of childcare. They can’t be relied upon to remember things like anniversaries or what to buy when grocery shopping. They complain about the flu. They are terrible at wearing masks during pandemics.
These are just the minor grievances.

They also have set up a system, which is flawed, which pivots around them at its centre, making them feel entitled. Entitled to women, jobs, the best of everything. Even though they know they didn’t earn this. That doesn’t matter to them. The system got them this. So when everything doesn’t work out perfectly, they lash out at those they’ve already oppressed, like women and people of colour.

But this isn’t a book that explains how to navigate microagressions. It tears open the macro agressions and macro injustices and demands a better future.

The blurb calls this book a “scathing indictment.” I disagree. Once again, despite a myriad of reasons not to be, her tone is calm, if a little resigned and dismayed. The tone has every right to be angry when you read all the atrocities. They are no less than crimes against humanity.

Shockingly, she exposes white supremacy as everywhere, not just in some alt-right corner of some place far away from us. It is more insidious than that, she writes.
The expose of the Bernie Sanders supporters was fascinating. Allies until they are asked to make actual sacrifices. The lip-service allies.

The early social feminists, Dell and Eastman, was a scrap of history I knew nothing about before and it was disappointing but not surprising to see how they exploited the feminist movement to suit themselves. As Oluo puts it: A lot of what seemed to appeal to their vision of a feminist future revolved around their dicks.

I’d never heard of busing and it was very interesting to see olden days Joe Biden’s volte-face on it (1972). Busing is the practise of busing people of colour into white schools to try to end segregation. These black kids were often assaulted by white parents. Biden ended up not knowing whether he was for it or against it. It seemed he was for it when it happened in other states, and was against it on his own doorstep. He spent 8 years fighting busing and but as recently as 2019 only focusses on that one time in 1974 when he supported it.

In the Ivy League chapter, Oluo takes aim at higher education. Again, this is shocking reading. Trump blatantly dog whistles his supporters by claiming he loves the uneducated yet made sure three of his kids went to the same university as him. He hounded AOC and Biden for their transcripts but told Wharton to never release his, under any circumstances.

Woodrow Wilson, ex President, was a total racist. When he was president of Princeton, he refused to let a single black student in. Like Cecil Rhodes, when students complained, they were told: Pfff, everyone was racist back then. Higher education is an escape route but it is still part of that very flawed, very white, very supremacist system. I work in a university and I have seen firsthand how professors will bemoan that such and such candidate was lost due to the need for a gender and geographical balance across the group, thus actively undermining the very reparations set up to repair the damage of the system to minorities.

Olou truly understands the injustices towards black people, and it is only when people of colour and women and other minorities unite to fight off patriarchal oppression will we have a system that is actually fair.

Another must read book for anyone interested in social change.

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America should be required reading for everyone living in the United States. Oluo look at the ways in which power structures are set up in our country to best serve white males. She explores the ways in which white men often enter spaces reserved for women and people of color, perhaps under the guise of “helping”, but in actuality to take over and exert control on these spaces and be expected to receive thanks for doing so. The book looks at these issues through a variety of topics including America’s cowboy legacy, women in politics and sports. This book is well-researched and Oluo makes her points with passion and precision. A well written and necessary book for our times. Thank you to Seal Press and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

I was halfway through reading this eGalley when I became excited at the thought of getting to reading it again once it comes out and I can buy a physical copy. I am a person who enjoys the thought of reading non-fiction, but I have a hard time actually reading non-fiction when I have a stack of fantasy books staring at me. I credit Ijeoma Oluo's writing style for capturing my attention so thoroughly that I had a hard time putting this book down.

Oluo breaks down how American society relies on the myth that white men deserve more than any woman or person of colour. She puts into words how our society has always uplifted the white male voice, and what happens when white men feel they aren't "getting what they deserve." Oluo clarifies why white men can produce mediocre work and be praised for it, but any other demographic is held to an impossibly high standard when producing work in the same area.

Before reading this book, I felt like I had a good general sense of the impact white men have in our society when they believe they deserve all the power and privilege. After reading Mediocre, I realize I never actually questioned how we arrived at this point in history. Mediocre provides a different perspective of the consequences in what uplifting white men for generations has had on populations of women, people of colour, and white men themselves, while showing us what has led white men to believe that they deserve more than other demographics.

This is an incredibly heavy topic but Oluo writes in a way that makes the subject readable and easy to understand. She skillfully boils down complex social topics into their base components, making them easy to comprehend. Oluo makes her point, but then also backs up her point with mountains of evidence to show how she came to her conclusions. I honestly believe that most people will be able to pick up this book and be able to understand exactly why our society is set up to fail almost every single person within it.

This is a book to read, re-read, and re-read again. Mediocre made me boil with rage, but in a way that made me want to tell everyone I know, and even people I don't know, to read this book. This is definitely a book that everyone, especially if they're white and male, should read.

Ijeoma Oluo's books are frequently recced for anti-racist reading, and this is just great and timely with the election coming up. It's an uncomfortable read at times, but it is important to feel uncomfortable.

I picked up this book because I read So You Want to Talk About Race earlier this year. But Mediocre was nothing like it. In this book, Ijeoma Oluo sets out to talk about the dangerous legacy of white male America. I found some of the histories and breaking things down from a perspective that is not white was enlightening. But I felt like I was missing a piece of the main thesis of Mediocre. I also recognize I'm coming at this topic from a white perspective and am very hesitant to criticize the way this book was written because I realize I've missed parts of the story for my entire life. Many parts of the end of this book felt like a rant against institutions. I'm not sure I learned as much from the second half of the book as the first. While I"m open to learning, I'm not sure this book is the most helpful in learning about white male supremacy.

Loved this one! A great book written by an amazing author I will be following for a while.

This book takes us through White (male) supremacy through different topics. From Westerns, to sports, to politics of course. I'd really recommend this one to anyone interested in the topic or who just wants to learn more. As with the first book, the author has a very compassionate voice (at least to me, I'm sure others may disagree) and I really like how honest she is.

It did take me a bit longer to read just because it didn't feel as cohesive as her first book but overall there is a common big picture that relates every chapter.

*The book is available on advance copy now*

With this title and this cover, how do you not pick it up and devour every word the brilliant Ijeoma Oluo writes? I have always enjoyed her writing, but this book is next level brilliant. She boils down the essence of the mediocracy of white men with vignettes from the wild west to now. Tracking white male supremacy seems like a huge undertaking, but focusing on great examples of how the fragile white male ego has given us nothing but grief in the past 100 years was a great way to get her point across. I especially loved the chapter on Bernie Sanders and his bullying supporters. I also learned a lot about the racism within the NFL, which I had never really paid attention to before, as well as the myriad of issues within higher education.

My favorite chapter, though, was on Shirley Chisholm and her bid for the presidency in the 1970s. I wish so many more people knew her story and I'm glad Oluo features her so prominently in the book. Oluo is such a powerful writer, and her calls for change are vital and relevant, especially this year. I am happy her voice as a prominent leader of the Black and feminist social movement is being heard so loudly. My only wish is that we could have her opinions on the pandemic and the BLM movement from this year in the book as well, as so much has changed in such a short amount of time. However, mediocre white men are still taking up all our energy and space as we live through the peak time in the election of our lives, so things haven't changed all that much either.

Author Ijeoma Oluo does an excellent job giving an overview of racist systems present in the United States. There is no white male aspect that is left unexamined, including the racism that comes bubbling up from supposed allies in the social justice movement. I can't say the book was a major revelation to me personally because I was already on board with the premise from before I read the first page. I also don't know if someone who already doesn't agree will be able to get much out of this book, it is more a way for those engaged in dialogue about racism to have some cogent talking points to work off of. I did find the juxtaposition of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in the chapter on politics to be a bit jarring. Biden is definitely a racist, his support of anti-busing legislation and the 1994 Crime Bill are clear indicators he supports systemic racism. The complaint about Bernie is centered around "Bernie Bros", a term that is insensitively reductive to the PoC who make up a large portion of that Leftist movement. I definitely don't see Bernie as a deity, he's a little too moderate for my tastes, but his transgression really falls into the "awkward talking about race in 2016" category as opposed to Biden's "actively legislating racism into society his whole career" column.

“Perhaps one of the most brutal manifestations of white male privileges,” writes Ijeoma Oluo, “is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others.”

Mediocre is a multifaceted antiracist text about the legacies of white supremacy in America, linking historical oppression with their manifestations in the modern day. Using case studies, Ijeoma Oluo alternately gives a theory-focused account of the United States’ racist and colonialist history and balances it against personal essays dissecting the dominant glory-obsessed white capitalist hypermasculine culture in America. The book is narrative and well cited, and read very accessibly.

This is a well researched and structurally excellent historical and political volume, but what sets it apart is the personal nature of the writing. I’m reasonably well read on several of the issues covered by Oluo, but it’s Oluo’s passionate and comprehensive perspective that sell this book. This book is especially good for anyone with a solid foundation in American history, news, or politics who would benefit from fleshing out their knowledge on those topics through a compassionate, comprehensive, and antiracist lens.

My main critique is that the conceit of the book sometimes created one-sided arguments. In the chapter exploring the shortcomings of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic nomination campaign, the lens of the book implies that Clinton would have been more uplifting to the people Bernie Sanders’ campaign most alienated: women and people of colour. Clinton’s close corporate ties and weak social policy aside, her aggressively imperialist foreign policy and silence on the very prescient Dakota Access pipeline protests at Standing Rock speaks volumes about her interest in uplifting marginalized peoples. The book is about critiquing specifically cis white male supremacy, under which banner HRC doesn’t fully fall, so no substantial critique of HRC’s policy is offered, despite a systematic takedown of Sanders’. I’m no Bernie Bro—I’m not even American—but it was disorienting to see such a thorough (and good!) takedown of Bernie with no mention of Clinton’s policy shortcomings.

A final note is that, though language inclusive of trans people was present, it was often an afterthought, at times literally parenthetical. This book isn’t about gender variance; as Oluo herself points out, this book should be celebrated for centering her experience and outlook as a Black woman. But a critical consideration of masculinity without significantly accounting for trans genders creates a weaker consideration of gender in general. Similarly, Indigenous peoples' histories were not significantly included in the book, again something Oluo may not have felt entirely qualified to address thoroughly in a volume aiming to centre a Black woman's perspective, but the elision felt notable in several places.

Nevertheless, this is a great read that achieves what it set out to do with sharp, passionate writing that is well researched, well organized, and persuasive.

I was very excited to read this book after all of the positive reviews around “So you want to talk about race” book. I love this book and can relate to it a lot in my personal life as a Black woman. I appreciate the social commentary and would recommend this book to others.

Mediocre is an incredible book about how the systems around us are built to reward white men for the bare minimum, and the impact it's had on everyone else throughout history and today. With a blend of research, current pop culture references, and optimism, Ijeoma Oluo wrote a must-read!

Oluo is writing such important literature during this time and more people need to take note of this. Mediocre is no different and opened my eyes to so many systemic issues we deal with on a daily basis.