It is a deft and thought-provoking book that contextualizes public discourse on race, class, and gender in America.'- Tressie Mcmillan Cottom, author of the National Book Award Finalist Thick Oluo deftly balances the cultural history of white western male myth-making with contemporary cultural criticism of the aggrieved white American man. 'In her illuminating new book, Ijeoma Oluo unpacks how 'mediocrity' is a privilege created and perpetuated by our obsession with white male superiority. It cuts to the heart of white male supremacy, a system that is life-destroying for people of color and even for white men ourselves.'- Matt McGorry, Actor, How To Get Away With Murder and Orange is the New Black, Activist, and Co-Founder of Inspire Justice ' Mediocre offers profound truth in service of liberation. It's just that damn good.'- Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair But first, I need to read this book again. 'Oluo is one of our great voices and Mediocre not only educates us, but it inspires us all to act and change the world for the better. Mediocre serves as a call to action for every person, regardless of race or gender, to actively resist white male mediocrity's hold.'- Kimberlé Crenshaw, Executive Director, African American Policy Forum, and Professor, UCLA and Columbia Law Schools

'Oluo masterfully diagnoses the pervasive plague of white mediocrity. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.Īs provocative as it is essential, this book will upend everything you thought you knew about American identity and offers a bold new vision of American greatness. Through the last 150 years of American history - from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics - Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments?

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, an “illuminating” ( New York Times Book Review) history of white male identity.

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo