Oluo claims that "we have all contributed to the status quo, all races, gender, and creed. Oluo aims to show what white male mediocrity looks like and how it perpetuates itself in our social and private institutions. When progress is halted because advancement for minorities would shake the white male psyche too much, Oluo asks, "for whose benefit do we need to go slowly?" (Oluo, 2020) Why take a risk if you might fail when keeping your head down automatically grants you success? Even if the American dream is fiction, why would you give up your mediocre status for being a ladder rung below the "better than" status that you have now?" Working is for people of color and women. It is an identity that clings to mediocrity." (Oluo, 2020)īy making white male success a given, society disincentives white males from actually working towards anything. Instead, this status becomes a birthright detached from actual achievement. "Elite white men don't need actual competition from rising and striving white men. White Men think that their loss is the cost of opportunities for others. White men have assumed this "Inborn greatness" by erasing minorities and women's accomplishments from history books, excluding their heroes from television and movies, and restricting the applicant pool to their social networks. Success for white men is only measured by how white men are doing compared to people who are not white men. In this text, Oluo argues that for white men, aggression equals leadership, and arrogance equals strength. A mediocrity where we cannot imagine a world where women do not get sexually harassed at work, black boys and girls aren't funneled into poor schools and prisons because this would rob white men of their myth that they are and should be the center of our country. We automatically agree that white men are the group to bring us prosperity when their wealth was stolen from black people's labor and indigenous people's land.
She can even be downright sarcastic, but she is not wrong. Oluo is blunt in her description in this book. White men are conditioned to believe that hate and ignorance are their birthrights they should fight enlightenment at all costs. Oluo describes mediocrity as cultural complacency with systems of oppression and hatred and dedication to ignorance. And, the impact of this harms everyone else, including white males. Oluo argues that white males become conditioned to believe not only that they can hope to accomplish superiority but that white male superiority over women and people of color should be automatically granted to them. Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man has become a part of the lexicon of many women and people of color on social media.
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