This post contains affiliate links; if you use these links to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. Thanks for reading!
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
Published by Seal Press on December 1, 2020
my rating: ★★★★ (4 stars)
Goodreads avg: 4.46 (as of 2022-01-16)
Spoiler-free review
The people who need to read this the most are those whose minds will be most closed to its message. That being said, I appreciated the macro-to-micro approach Oluo took with each chapter of this. She chose a topic, spoke about it on a broad scale, and shared individual instances of each. I learned SO much through this; from the storied history of football to the origins of the SATs. Oluo’s writing is conversational and easy to follow; this isn’t a dry history book by any means. I think its greatest downfall will be its lack of hand-holding — if you don’t already understand the downfalls of white supremacy to some extent, Oluo’s unapologetic and self-assured tone (fully warranted, by the way) is unlikely to convince you. Sadly, the truths in here will seem impossible to many, who will run away with their fingers in their ears finding it impossible to believe there could be this level systemic racism even though segregation just barely ended.
Sarah Ames-Foley 
1 thought on “Mediocre [review]”