Luckily for us, Brian was a distant relative we only had to endure him at weddings, funerals, and occasional Christmas celebrations that brought the extended family together. You could be talking about your new cell phone and everyone would be commenting on what a nice phone it was, and suddenly Brian would interject with how his cell phone provider was better than yours and how the reason you were with such and such company was because of a vast liberal news conspiracy designed to “fuck you over.” Brian was pretty sure that a lot of things were trying to fuck us all over-cell phone companies, banks, car companies, universities-and somehow it was all liberal media’s fault. You didn’t have to be talking about politics in order to suddenly find yourself dragged into a convoluted political debate. Sometimes he didn’t seem to have a point beyond “I disagree loudly with whatever it is you are saying.” He would spout conservative talking points that he heard on cable news, and when he ran out of memorized semifactoids, he would make up arguments to defend his point. Brian was one of the rare Fox News viewers in the family. For our family it was someone I’ll call Brian. The one relative who is always quick to offer inappropriate commentary, in his outdoor voice, at the dinner table. W e all have that one relative, the one whose name is never said without a sigh of frustration or a groan of dread.

Read ExcerptĬHAPTER 1 COWBOYS AND PATRIOTS How the West Was Won 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