PDF Summary:Mediocre, by Ijeoma Oluo

It started as an internet meme: “God give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude.” But in her 2020 book Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo takes the joke seriously, asking why many white men in US society attain powerful positions despite unimpressive qualifications and results. She also contends that this pattern of privilege hurts everyone including the white men it supposedly favors. By tracing this pattern’s historical roots in white supremacy and some of its present manifestations—most notably the numerous racial controversies in American football—Oluo seeks to explain what she sees as the failings of this system and to inspire readers to fight for a more equitable society.

Our commentary will provide additional details and perspectives on white supremacy. We’ll also examine the efforts some organizations and governments have made to address the imbalance of power in society and the mixed results those efforts have had.

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(Shortform note: Though Oluo presents the Bundys and their followers as a relatively isolated fringe interest, the 2014 Bundy standoff was influential in spreading anti-government extremism beyond the American West. According to a former member of the Oath Keepers—a paramilitary group that was heavily involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol—the 2014 standoff inspired increasingly radical and violent behavior by the group and others like it.)

A Monopoly on Power

Oluo says that in addition to claiming power by force, white male supremacy guards its power by excluding anyone other than white men from political and economic institutions. Oluo argues that this exclusion comes not necessarily from prejudice against other groups, but rather from a desire to keep white men at the center of society by eliminating competitors. For that reason, she says, when women—especially women of color—make headway in male-dominated institutions, the white male establishment meets them with ridicule and blame, accuses them of narrow self-interest, and may subject them to outright abuse and threats.

Tactic #1: Ridicule and Blame

According to Oluo, when women achieve (or seek) power in politics or the workplace, white men often respond by refusing to take these women seriously. For instance, Oluo gives the example of Congress member Shirley Chisholm, who in 1972 became the first Black candidate (and one of the first women) to run for a major party’s Presidential nomination. Oluo says that although Chisholm was an accomplished politician, some of the press dismissed her as a distraction from serious (male) politics and critiqued her appearance and dress. Oluo argues that these basic tactics persist today, when female politicians of color such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are criticized for their appearance, youth, speech, and supposed political naïveté.

(Shortform note: According to classics scholar Mary Beard, Western culture has a long history of treating women as unfit to participate in politics and of denigrating their voices (literal and figurative) when they do so. She argues that women who speak up in political settings are often described as whiny or strident or have their speech likened to meaningless animal noises. These attacks, Beard says, stem from a cultural belief that only men are capable of serious, logical, authoritative speech—a belief that may explain why even current female politicians like Ocasio-Cortez are dismissed as meddlers or distractions.)

Similarly, Oluo says, women who break into male-dominated spheres like politics and business often become scapegoats. For example, during the Great Depression, some observers blamed record unemployment on an increased number of women in the workforce, implying that women had supplanted male workers—even though most of these women held “female” jobs like teaching and housekeeping.

(Shortform note: The tendency to scapegoat women isn’t confined to the political or business worlds or even to the US. Other commentators point out that women have historically been blamed for everything from social unrest in Napoleonic France to rising crime rates in the 1990s to male sexual violence against women.)

According to Oluo, this tendency to blame women continues today: She says that frequently, when companies appoint women as CEOs, they often do so only out of desperation when the company is already foundering. And when the companies’ woes continue or worsen, the business world blames the female executives who, in reality, were set up to fail.

(Shortform note: Former Facebook executive and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg argues that women themselves play a partial role in the underrepresentation of women in high-powered corporate positions. Sandberg argues, for example, that many women hold back in their careers because of impostor syndrome—a specific kind of insecurity in which people doubt their abilities and believe their achievements are the result of luck alone. However, other experts argue that the focus on impostor syndrome is a smokescreen that obscures the fact that many women just feel like they don’t belong—and are treated like they don’t.)

Tactic #2: Accusations of Narrow Self-Interest

Furthermore, Oluo claims that white male society guards its power by claiming that women and people of color are only interested in representing their own demographic groups and aren’t capable of looking out for the majority (meaning white men). For example, she explains that Chisholm built her presidential campaign on a platform of popular, mainstream progressive stances—yet she was dismissed as a candidate only for Black and/or female voters. Oluo says that a similar trend occurs in the business world when non-white, non-male executives are hired in part to make companies more diverse and inclusive—only to be vilified for their attempts to change company culture.

(Shortform note: The assumption that women and people of color are only capable of representing their own demographic interests may be another byproduct of historical norms around speech and politics. According to Beard, in classical societies, women were barred from political speech at large, but they were allowed to speak in public if they were speaking specifically about women’s issues—that is, issues that affected women, the household, or the family. Beard points out that even today, many of the celebrated speeches by women are about topics such as feminism and gender inequality—as though women’s voices don’t count when it comes to any other subject.)

Tactic #3: Abuse and Threats

One final way Oluo says white male supremacy guards its position is by verbally abusing and threatening women and people of color who seek power. For example, Oluo relates that early in Chisholm’s campaign, a staffer going through airport security had a bundle of campaign flyers handed back with a racial slur written across them along with the admonition to “go home.” Sometimes, this kind of hate speech turns into intimations or threats of violence. For instance, Oluo cites an email sent to US Representative Rashida Tlaib (who is Muslim) celebrating a recent act of anti-Islamic terror and calling for more such attacks.

(Shortform note: The kinds of attacks Oluo describes aren’t just meant to intimidate, they also send a clear message that the victim isn’t welcome in mainstream society. In Stamped From the Beginning, Kendi argues that this message comes from the idea, relatively common in the 19th century, that Black people didn’t share white American values and should therefore be removed from American society. Other commentators point out that this sentiment is still around today and can be seen, for example, in then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 tweet suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and two other women of color in Congress should “go back to their own countries”—although three of those four women were born in the US.)

Part 3: How White Male Identity Reacts to Social Progress

Now that we’ve discussed how white male supremacy seeks to grab and hold onto power, we’ll examine how it reacts when women and people of color gain a foothold in the arenas that were once exclusively the domain of white men. In this section, we’ll look at three historical and contemporary cases that, according to Oluo, demonstrate how white male identity attempts to maintain its prominence in the face of social change.

Case #1: Housing Segregation

Oluo argues that one way white supremacy pushes back against social change is by seeking to limit the scope of that change, as happened when Black people began competing for industrial jobs in the Northern US after the end of the Civil War. Following the abolition of slavery, much of the South’s Black population migrated north to escape growing attempts to suppress their newly won civil rights. Oluo says that white Northerners resented this influx of new job competitors and initially reacted with racist violence, as when a series of anti-Black riots swept through a number of cities in 1919.

(Shortform note: This rash of violence in 1919 was only the latest in a long line of tactics—some violent, some legislative—designed to restrict Black people’s rights following the Civil War. In fact, the period ranging from roughly the late 1870s through the early 1920s is sometimes referred to as the “nadir” of race relations in the US because of the prevalence of voter suppression, lynchings, Jim Crow segregation laws, and mainstream racist propaganda during this time.)

Eventually, Oluo says, to protect their sense of white identity and to limit Black wealth and influence, many cities began adopting racially restrictive housing covenants—rules that prevent the sale or rental of a given property to people of color. According to Oluo, these covenants have had several long-term effects:

• They prevent many Black people from buying homes, which limits their prospects for building long-term, inheritable wealth and contributes to a racial wealth gap that persists today.
• They segregate cities into white and Black neighborhoods. Typically, Black people only have access to poorer, more crowded areas with fewer municipal services. This imposed poverty leads to worse outcomes and limits Black economic and political power.
• They make cities’ Black populations less visible, which allows white residents to benefit from Black economic contributions without having to encounter Black people much of the time—thus preserving the illusion of white exclusivity so central to white identity.
• They subject Black neighborhoods to racist policing that sometimes results in the needless deaths of Black citizens.

(Shortform note: In Stamped From the Beginning, Kendi adds that housing segregation also leads to a new racist belief: the myth of the pathological Black family. According to this myth, social and economic problems in Black communities result from Black people’s inability to form cohesive, functional family units—and so they live in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods because they’re incapable of anything else. Not only does this myth elide the role that racist policies like housing segregation play in creating problems like poverty, but it also exacerbates these problems by subjecting Black communities to further forms of discrimination such as redlining (being denied important services such as mortgages, insurance, and grocery stores).)

Case #2: Disavowal of Higher Education

Another way Oluo says white male supremacy reacts to social change is by disavowing institutions that were once (but are no longer) the exclusive domain of white men—as happened with higher education. Oluo says that American higher education was initially formed for the benefit of white men from wealthy backgrounds. She notes that these institutions made explicit efforts to exclude women as well as racial and religious minorities—efforts that extended into the 20th century until civil rights gains and affirmative action policies in the 1960s forced colleges to integrate.

(Shortform note: Oluo highlights that many schools discriminated against or outright excluded applicants from racial, religious, and other minority groups. But some universities went beyond racist admissions policies to advance segregation in their surrounding communities. For example, in the mid-20th century, administrators at the University of Chicago helped devise the sort of housing covenants discussed above in order to “protect” the neighborhoods surrounding the campus. Later, the school took steps ranging from raising rents for campus housing to organizing a lobbying group with other universities—all in the name of maintaining white college communities.)

Oluo says that once higher education stopped being the exclusive domain of white men, it in turn became less of a marker of higher social status. She suggests that this loss of exclusivity is the real reason why many of today’s conservative politicians deride higher education for what they allege are its excessive costs and liberal bias.

(Shortform note: Another explanation for why conservative politicians speak out against college education is that it often acts as a catalyst for students to develop more progressive viewpoints. This is not due to “liberal bias” in education, but simply because college campuses bring together individuals from many different cultural, economic, and social backgrounds. For many students, college is their first time outside of whichever cultural bubble they grew up in%20Insularity,-At%20work%20here). This exposure to diverse individuals tends to promote increased empathy and understanding of different perspectives, which aligns closely with progressive ideals of empathy and cooperation—the same effect is observed in people who live in urban areas as opposed to rural areas.)

Case #3: Co-opting of Marginalized Voices

One final way Oluo says white men react to social progress is by co-opting movements that seek equity for marginalized groups. She argues that white men are so used to being the center of attention that they balk at not being that center, which leads them to hijack social movements in order to reassert their significance. Oluo says that this hijacking typically occurs when white men join a social cause as allies only to push their own interests, exploit the people they purport to help, and eventually turn against the cause.

(Shortform note: Co-opting social movements for personal benefit isn’t a new phenomenon; companies learned long ago that tying their brands to social justice issues can be an effective way to turn a profit. For instance, Nike’s ad campaigns promote issues like gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights. However, critics argue there’s a disconnect between the company’s messaging and its actual practices, such as the lack of paid maternity leave for the female athletes Nike sponsors. This suggests that, for companies like Nike, the real concern is always for their bottom line and not for the people they claim to support—and they won’t hesitate to withdraw that support once it stops being profitable, such as cutting off sponsorships to women on maternity leave.)

Oluo says that this pattern of join-undermine-abandon recently re-emerged during the 2016 US Presidential election in the form of “Bernie Bros,” a certain type of white male supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Oluo argues that Bernie Bros were white men who felt threatened by the growing prominence of people of color (such as outgoing President Barack Obama) and women (such as Sanders’s main Democratic rival Hillary Clinton). In Sanders, she says, these men saw someone who advanced progressive values while deliberately sidelining feminist, Black, and other minority viewpoints by insisting that the “real” problems facing the country had to do with class inequality.

Oluo argues that Bernie Bros’ dogmatic focus on class inequality—along with a pattern of bullying and aggressive behavior—constituted a hijacking of the progressive political movement in an attempt to re-center white male issues. She points out that most women and people of color were quite aware of socioeconomic inequality and didn’t need white men to point it out to them. Moreover, she argues that focusing exclusively on socioeconomic class dismissed problems facing women and people of color, such as reproductive rights and police violence.

(Shortform note: Although “Bernie Bros” gave progressive movements a reputation for racism and sexism, in the years following Sanders’s candidacy, it's become clear that class-based politics are not the exclusive domain of young white men. Since then, diverse Democratic candidates running on policies similar to Sanders’s—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other members of the “Squad,” for example—have gotten the same kind of vehement support from a broad spectrum of genders and races. It’s also worth noting that white men who supported Barack Obama during his 2008 run against Hillary Clinton faced accusations that were nearly identical to what Oluo says about Bernie Bros here.)

Part 4: American Football as a Microcosm of White Male Mediocrity

Oluo ends by arguing that American football encapsulates the dynamics of white male mediocrity. She charts the sport’s evolution from a game for elite white college students to a multibillion-dollar industry (in the form of the National Football League, or NFL) that she says exploits and silences Black athletes. Along the way, Oluo suggests, white men have employed many of the tactics we’ve discussed to maintain their control over a sport increasingly dominated by Black stars.

Preserving a White Monopoly Over the Game

Originally a collegiate sport, football was for a while a strictly white male pursuit. But as Black stars gradually won spots on college teams, Oluo says, the white male football establishment resorted to a familiar set of tactics intended to keep the game exclusively white. In particular, Black players faced racially motivated verbal and physical abuse. Oluo details several examples of early Black players who were deliberately targeted by excessive on-field violence—two of these men were hospitalized and a third was killed.

When Black players persisted in the face of these violent assaults, they were sometimes simply barred from playing. Oluo explains that some teams—particularly from schools located in the South—simply refused to play against teams with Black players, going so far as to voluntarily sit out their own star players in exchange for opponents leaving their Black players out of their lineups.

(Shortform note: Not only did Black players face more violence on the football field, they often found it more difficult to get properly compensated for career- and life-affecting injuries. For instance, until 2021, the NFL’s cognitive tests used an explicitly racist practice called “race norming,” which assumes that Black people naturally have lower cognitive abilities than white people. As a result, if a Black player and a white player suffered the same head injury, the Black player would receive less compensation, because the racially biased test would show that the Black player had less loss of function.)

Similarly, although there were a few Black players in the early NFL, Oluo argues that the league established an unofficial color line between 1934 and 1946. She says the ban on Black players during this period was the brainchild of George Preston Marshall, the openly racist owner of the franchise formerly known as the Washington Redskins—“Redskin” being a racial slur against Native Americans.

(Shortform note: Marshall’s racist legacy has followed the Washington team even to the present day. Washington’s team didn’t drop their offensive name until 2020—the same year that Mediocre was published. Even that change happened slowly and with great resistance from then-owner Dan Snyder. Snyder only agreed to change the name when some of the team’s biggest financial sponsors threatened to withdraw their support in the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests and the increased national attention to racism that came with those protests. The team officially became the Washington Commanders in 2022, but even in late 2023 there were still viral petitions demanding that the name be changed back.)

Oluo says that Marshall pressured the rest of the NFL’s coaches and owners to exclude Black players from the league. The league gradually integrated in spite of his efforts, though Oluo says it took competition from the already-integrated American Football League and (in Marshall’s case) pressure from the federal government to make that happen.

(Shortform note: Contrary to what Oluo writes here, the NFL credits its integration to efforts from Black sportswriters and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission. An article on the official NFL site says that both its own team the Rams, and a team from the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC), agreed to hire Black players as a condition of leasing the Memorial Coliseum.)

Stifling Progress by Marginalizing Black Players

As noted earlier, Oluo suggests that whenever women or people of color establish a foothold within what was an exclusively white male domain, the white male establishment looks for ways (such as housing covenants) to limit and undermine that progress. Since the NFL integrated, Oluo says, a similar pattern has emerged in football: Instead of trying to exclude Black players, the white football establishment now attempts to limit their political power within—and beyond—the sport.

For one thing, although the NFL now accepts Black players within its ranks, it seldom offers them coaching or front office positions, instead reserving that power for white men. Oluo points out that while the majority of the league’s players are Black, few of its coaches, fewer of its GMs, and none of its team owners are. Oluo argues that this racial imbalance contributes to an exploitative labor environment in which Black people are allowed to do the dangerous physical work of playing the game, but are rarely allowed to help administrate the sport or otherwise represent their own interests.

(Shortform note: The NFL’s “Rooney Rule,” implemented in 2003, was designed to promote diversity in head coaching positions by requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for these roles. However, the league’s enforcement has been inconsistent, leading to a regression in diversity among the NFL’s head coaches. In 2017, the league saw a high point with eight Black head coaches out of 32 teams. However, by 2022, this number had drastically decreased to just three Black head coaches, and only six non-white head coaches in total. This significant backslide raises questions about the Rooney Rule’s effectiveness and the league's commitment to its stated diversity goals.)

Furthermore, Oluo says that the football establishment has sought to limit Black political power beyond the game itself. She argues that the league’s response to Black-led political activities—such as kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence, which got former quarterback Colin Kaepernick blacklisted—is an attempt to silence Black players’ political expression in order to protect white identity and power.

Additionally, she says that the NFL’s opposition to a peaceful Black political movement is just one demonstration of how much the white male establishment (in football and elsewhere) fears Black advancement.

(Shortform note: The NFL—and other businesses—are reluctant to advance Black interests not just because of their own racism, but also because they fear racist backlash from their customers. When President Trump escalated tensions in 2017, team owners briefly displayed solidarity with Kaepernick and other protesting players, making a show of hearing their concerns and supporting their cause. However, this gesture may have been motivated by owners’ irritation at Trump’s interference in league affairs more than by genuine concern for Black issues. But as Trump continued to criticize the kneeling players, owners abandoned these unity efforts due to concerns about losing business from Trump supporters.)