So You Want to Talk About Race

The overarching aim of Oluo’s book is to facilitate discussions about race and racial oppression in America. The material is both conceptually challenging and highly charged. Oluo overcomes these hurdles by starting each chapter with a personal anecdote. Her emphasis on lived experience clarifies complex issues through the use of concrete examples. In Chapter 1, for example, Oluo describes a conversation she had with a White friend who attempted to sidestep the issue of race by focusing on the related but separate issue of class. He reasoned that improving the plight of the poor though increases in minimum wage and stronger unions would automatically improve the plight of minorities.

The anecdote both sheds light on the limits standard poverty solutions have for people of color and illustrates the push-back advocates of racial parity face, even when conversing with friends. Chapter 2 similarly opens with a personal encounter, this time between Oluo and a coworker who expressed racist opinions about welfare recipients online. The episode illustrates the pervasiveness of racism in the United States. Even more telling is the reaction of one of Oluo’s White friends, who refused to call the incident racist. For this friend, the term racism should be used judiciously and only to describe extreme examples of racist behavior.

The opening anecdote of Chapter 3 demonstrates that even parents of Black children can be racially insensitive in some circumstances. During a fraught phone conversation, Oluo’s mother, who is White, relayed an encounter she had with a Black colleague who called her out for telling a joke with a Black punchline. (She specifies that the joke was not at the expense of people of color, but for them). The ensuing discussion lays bare an essential fact: White people, no matter how well-meaning and empathetic, can never fully understand what it is like to be a Black person “who experiences the full force of a White supremacist society firsthand” (43).

This is true even for those who live with and love Black people. The anecdote in Chapter 4, which describes a social event for Black artists, professors, musicians, and tech leaders, demonstrates that some people of color also have privilege (in this case, education and professional success), which can lead to exclusionary behavior. In an interview with Evette Dionne for Bitch Media (18 January 2018), Oluo explained that her use of personal stories in her writing stems from her desire to reach people and to foster understanding across racial divides (Dionne, Evette. “Ijeoma Oluo is still speaking truth to power.” Bitch Media, 18 Jan 2018, https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/bitch-interview/ijeoma-oluo).  

Oluo’s opening chapters introduce readers to a critical concept that anchors the rest of the book: systemic racism. Most people would agree that racism constitutes discrimination based on a person’s skin color, but relatively few understand the various systems of power that reinforce racism. As Oluo argues in Chapter 2, failing to take systems of power into account reduces racism to individuals and their racist thoughts and actions. Oluo’s goal is not to win over or even call out individual racists, many of whom have little real power and operate on the fringes of society. Rather, she takes aim at the racism built into America’s institutions, including its schools, police forces, and political apparatus. Her definition of racism implicates every White person living in the US:

What is important is that the impotent hatred of the virulent racist was built and nurtured by a system that has much more insidiously woven a quieter, yet no less violent, version of those same oppressive beliefs into the fabric of our society. The truth is, you don’t even have to ‘be racist’ to be a part of the racist system […] Systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and by just letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces. We have to actually dismantle the machine if we want to make change (28-30).

While Chapter 2 defines and describes systemic racism, Chapter 4 offers concrete examples of how it operates by tackling the issue of privilege. Advantages are often ascribed to particular social groups based on race, physical ability, gender, and class. Other kinds of privilege relate to sexuality, body type, and neurological ability. Addressing systemic racial discrimination requires understanding the full impact of White privilege and the varied ways in which the deck is stacked against people of color. As Oluo observes, privilege based on race and other criteria is a threatening topic because it challenges ideas of fairness that are deeply engrained in American culture: “The concept of privilege violates […] everything we’ve been told about the American Dream of hard work paying off and good things happening to good people” (63).

Painful as it is, addressing privilege is a prerequisite to dismantling discrimination of all kinds. The key lies in individuals identifying where their privilege converges with someone else’s oppression. These points of convergence provide opportunities for change. An able-bodied person, for instance, might question why there are no disabled people in their workplace. Similarly, a White person might ask their elected officials how they plan to address issues disproportionately affecting people of color, such as food deserts and racial income inequality. A person who reaped the benefits of an expensive private school education might lobby for more funding for public schools, while someone with a flexible work schedule might support efforts for employer-funded childcare. There are myriad ways to leverage privilege to engender measurable change, but the first step is recognizing that privilege exists.

Oluo’s opening chapters underscore the emotional toll of writing about and discussing race, even with family and friends. This aspect of being Black in America is often superseded by other, more imperative facets of racial discrimination, such as income disparity, police brutality, and the mass incarceration of Black men. However, Oluo’s Introduction and first four chapters reveal that confronting and discussing racial oppression on a daily basis wears on people of color, even those whose job it is to engage with the topic. In her Introduction, for example, Oluo reveals that having conversations about race is never easy. She also calls the process of writing her book “grueling” and “heart-wrenching.” In Chapter 2, she recalls a heated and ultimately fruitless discussion with a co-worker about mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients that she describes as “emotionally draining.” The following day, Oluo was left “angry” and “heartbroken” after relating the exchange to a close friend, who refused to label the incident racist.

In Chapter 3, Oluo describes how she has “cringed’ her way through countless conversations about race, and how discussing the topic continues to impact her. During a call with her mother, for example, Oluo held the phone six inches away from her ear to make the conversation less painful. (She also wished that the earth would open up and swallow her). Despite the emotional toll, Oluo continues to talk and write about race. She spells out her reasoning in Chapter 3: “I’d love to not have to talk about race ever again. I do not enjoy it. It is not fun […] But I have to talk about race, because it is made an issue in the ways in which race is addressed or, more accurately, not addressed” (45).

Racial oppression is an emotional topic for White people as well. As Oluo observes, White people take an emotional risk every time they investigate their role in upholding systemic racism. Conversations can quickly become uncomfortable, leading to feelings of frustration, defensiveness, and guilt (in addition to doing real damage to people of color). An important strategy for White people is to shift the emphasis away from personal feelings: “If you find yourself frequently referring to your feelings and viewpoint, chances are, you are making this all about you” (53). Understanding racism should always be the top priority. This goal should not be superseded by emotions, nor should it be set aside simply because it is difficult. Talking about racial oppression raises unpleasant emotions, but these emotions should not be misplaced. As Oluo notes, the topic should always induce anger: “As long as racism exists to ruin the lives of countless people of color, it should be something that upsets us. But it upsets us because it exists, not because we talk about it” (51).