I want everyone to see what this costs us and to investigate how we each support these harmful norms and systems. Oluo: I want everyone who reads this book to see that we aren't just talking about a few bad dudes, we are talking about deliberately constructed identities and systems of power. What do you want people to take away from the book? We will not only see a lot of our history in this book, but also recognize what we have had to struggle against in the violent protection of white male power.

Oluo: This book illustrates clearly how this country must sustain the exploitation and oppression of Black people in order to protect white male power and white male mediocrity. Is “Mediocre” related directly or indirectly to the struggles of people of African descent? This book comes amid racial unrest and protests demanding change. But I love the book so much, I think it's a great book and I'm so proud of it. I already knew that it was going to be a more complicated book than my first, but I didn't know I would be writing it while being targeted by white supremacists, or during a pandemic, or during a global uprising for Black lives. This book really stretched me as a writer. Oluo: When the inspiration for “Mediocre” hit, I immediately knew I was going to write this book. Then when people were like, “Whoa, that's a provocative title,' I was like, 'Oh, are we not calling it this anymore?'’

So when the title came to me it was pretty instant. I've always tried to call a thing a thing. As a Black woman, I and my peers are very familiar with it. The idea of mediocre white men and the harm that they cause is not new. Ijeoma Oluo: It didn't feel very provocative to me at the time. How did you come up with what some might say is a very provocative book title? Image: Ijeoma Oluo (Courtesy Ijeoma Oluo) We must start asking what we want white manhood to be, and what we will no longer accept.” We also have to imagine a white manhood that is not based in the oppression of others. We need to do more than just break free of the oppression of white men.

In one passage, Oluo writes: “I do not believe that white men are born wanting to dominate. Now comes “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,” (Seal Press) which examines white male supremacy and its impact on America for generations. Moreover, the presidency of Donald Trump had exposed deep fissures around race, social justice and inequity that exploded this year in the streets of America and beyond.

Still, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner and a long line of Black people had already lost their lives to police and vigilante violence in recent years. When the author Ijeoma Oluo’s first book “So You Want to Talk About Race” was published in 2018, the world did not know the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery, nor the fates that would befall them.

White male mediocrity book