Quote for the Day: December 19th, 2021

*Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America* (Audiobook) by Ijeoma Oluo

Now, as we reach the apex of hyper-capitalism that makes it harder and harder for white men to hold out hope that all they’ve been promised will actually be theirs, we see their desperation lead to terrorism, self-harm, and the catastrophic destruction of our environment. How many more mass shootings will we be able to endure? How many more economic recessions? How much more climate crisis? How many more wars? How many more pandemics? How many more people can live in poverty? How many more of us can go without healthcare? How many more can be locked away in prisons? I don’t think we can withstand much more. I don’t think we are withstanding what is happening right now. We are coming apart as we grow increasingly polarized and as our power structures work to further insulate themselves from any responsibility to the people they claim to serve. We are running out of time to fix this. I have to believe that it’s not too late and I hope you believe that too because we have so much to do.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

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Quote for the Day: December 18th, 2021

We must ask ourselves what we are willing to give up in order to be free.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 17th, 2021

There is a segment of the white American population that has always viewed Black dissent as a threat to white safety and security. Since the election of Obama and the increase in protests around the country over the killing of unarmed Black people by police, white anxiety over Black empowerment had increased to a level that many of us had not seen in our lifetimes. Trump gave his angry crowds a prime target against which to vent their fury and anxiety by painting Black Americans as simply ungrateful for the opportunities they had been granted.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 15th, 2021

Black women who make history are often written out of it.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

I especially love this chapter in Ijeoma Oluo’s book because she talks about one of American history’s oft-neglected public servants, Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005). She was the first Black woman elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving New York’s 12th congressional district from 1969 to 1983. She was also the first Black American to run for President of the United States. She sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 1972 presidential election and while she did not get the nomination, she changed the landscape of American politics forever.

Hers was a grassroots activism centering the interests and issues of all Americans, especially those occupying marginalized identities and living in communities disenfranchised by the white male elite. She was able to bring together a broad coalition of people to fight toward a more just and perfect Union, the one idealized by the Founders who failed to see people who looked like Chisholm as fully-human.

Hers [Chisholm’s] was a grassroots activism centering the interests and issues of all Americans, especially those occupying marginalized identities and living in communities disenfranchised by the white male elite.

The legacy of Shirley Chisholm reverberates throughout American politics. She paved the way for other BIPOC women who wanted to run for public office by providing them with a framework showing it was possible. Yvonne Brathwaite. Barbara Jordan. Maxine Waters. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ayanna Pressley. Kamala Harris. Shirley Chisholm paved the way for all of them.

Quote for the Day: December 14th, 2021

It is not simply that many white Americans do not care, it is that many white Americans are so invested in the political exclusion of people who are not white men that they will actively work against any political change that would meaningfully enfranchise women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people, even when they are aware of the potential cost to their own well-being. Many have decided that the psychological benefit of looking at government and seeing a roomful of white men is worth the very real cost to their financial and physical welfare. Somehow, even though history has shown that it is not the case, many white Americans are still able to convince themselves that listening to the same people they’ve always listened to will pay off for them in the end.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 13th, 2021

It is psychologically damaging to never see yourself reflected in positions of leadership in your own country. It limits our feeling of citizenship and it limits the possibilities we see for ourselves and our children. It creates a feeling of unsafety.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 12th, 2021

Even if we can’t guarantee that every woman promoted to CEO will outperform her male counterpart in company growth or profitability, the important benefits for workplaces and the broader society of elevating women to positions of power will always be worth the risk.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 11th, 2021

Workplaces that devalue traits and skills like empathy, communication, and cooperation, which women are more likely to be socialized to have, almost always overvalue traits like hyper-competitiveness, aggression, and impulsiveness, which men are more likely to be socialized to have, even when those characteristics harm a work environment.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Quote for the Day: December 10th, 2021

The thing about anger is that it needs a home.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Sadly, the home of so much white cishet male anger is the bodies of the marginalized. When the powerful feel threatened, when the powerful are angry, they act as aggressors toward people and groups who have less power than they do so they can reaffirm their status as masters of the universe, if only in their own eyes.

That’s why Donald Trump was the answer to Barack Obama. That’s why Jim Crow was the answer to emancipation. That’s why for every inch gained in equality by a marginalized group, the privileged group forced to give up a modicum of their social superiority attempts to reclaim back a mile. Their anger, their vitriol, makes Black, brown, and queer bodies the sites of violence of an unspeakable magnitude. But this should not stop us from fighting for justice. If anything, it should galvanize us to press harder, to stand in the gap of our siblings’ oppressions.

We are all of us complicit in systems which oppress, malign, and disenfranchise our fellow citizens, and it is high time we surrendered our comfort for accountability and our silence for truth and justice.

I once read somewhere on Twitter that the place at which your privilege intersects with another person’s oppression is the part of the system you have the power to destroy. The work of dismantling white supremacy and toxic patriarchy is work that belongs to all of us, but especially to those of us who hold the most privilege. We are all of us complicit in systems which oppress, malign, and disenfranchise our fellow citizens, and it is high time we surrendered our comfort for accountability and our silence for truth and justice.

Quote for the Day: December 9th, 2021

If we are going to continue to make progress on issues of race and gender, and if liberal white men want to be on the right side of history, they have to address their personal issues with race and gender.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America