Ijeoma Oluo

thumb|"If there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don't deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place." Ijeoma Oluo (born 1980) is an American writer and speaker whose work focuses on racism, feminism, social justice, and intersectionality. She is the author of So You Want to Talk About Race (2018) and Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (2020). Quotes So You Want to Talk About Race (2018) On systemic oppression Racism is any prejudice against someone because of their race when those views are reinforced by systems of power. If you live in this system of white supremacy, you are either fighting the system of you are complicit. There is no neutrality to be had towards systems of injustice, it is not something you can just opt out of. The truth is, we live in a society where the color of your skin still says a lot about your prognosis for success in life. This is still the reality right now, and ignoring race will not change that. We have a real problem of racial inequity and injustice in our society, and we cannot wish it away. Racial oppression should always be an emotional topic to discuss. It should always be anger-inducing. 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. Our police force was not created to serve black Americans; it was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans. You are racist because you were born and bred in a racist, white supremacist society. White Supremacy is, as I’ve said earlier, insidious by design. The racism required to uphold White Supremacy is woven into every area of our lives. There is no way you can inherit white privilege from birth, learn racist white supremacist history in schools, consume racist and white supremacist movies and films, work in a racist and white supremacist workforce, and vote for racist and white supremacist governments and not be racist. And if you are white in a white supremacist society, you are racist. If you are male in a patriarchy, you are sexist. If you are able-bodied, you are ableist. If you are anything above poverty in a capitalist society, you are classist. You can sometimes be all of these things at once. Over four hundred years of systemic oppression have set large groups of racial minorities at a distinct power disadvantage. If I call a white person a cracker, the worst I can do is ruin their day. If a white person thinks I’m a nigger, the worst they can do is get me fired, arrested, or even killed in a system that thinks the same—and has the resources to act on it. On intersectionality Intersectionality, the belief that our social justice movements must consider all of the intersections of identity, privilege, and oppression that people face in order to be just and effective, is the number one requirement of all of the work that I do. I’m not capable of cutting away my blackness in order to support feminism that views the needs of women of color as divisive inconveniences. I’m not capable of cutting away womanhood in order to stand by black men who prey on black women. I’m a black woman, each and every minute of every day—and I need you to march for me, too. Intersectionality decentralizes people who are used to being the primary focus of the movements they are a part of Disadvantaged white people are not erased by discussions of disadvantages facing people of color, just as brain cancer is not erased by talking about breast cancer. They are two different issues with two different treatments, and they require two different conversations. What keeps a poor child in Appalachia poor is not what keeps a poor child in Chicago poor—even if from a distance, the outcomes look the same. And what keeps an able-bodied black woman poor is not what keeps a disabled white man poor, even if the outcomes look the same. On privilege Privilege, in the social justice context, is an advantage or a set of advantages that you have that others do not Being privileged doesn't mean that you are always wrong and people without privilege are always right. It means that there is a good chance you are missing a few very important pieces of the puzzle. When we are willing to check our privilege, we are not only identifying areas where we are perpetuating oppression in order to stop personally perpetuating that oppression, but we are also identifying areas where we have the power and access to change the system as a whole. Where I benefit most from being able-bodied is where I have the most power and access to change a system that disadvantages disabled people … When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else's oppression, we'll find our opportunities to make real change. Tone policing is when someone (usually the privileged person) in a conversation or situation about oppression shifts the focus of the conversation from the oppression being discussed to the way it is being discussed. Tone policing prioritizes the comfort of the privileged person in the situation over the oppression of the disadvantaged person. This is something that can happen in a conversation, but can also apply to critiques of entire civil rights organizations and movements. Other topics If there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don't deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. We can broadly define the concept of cultural appropriation as the adoption or exploitation of another culture by a more dominant culture Poor people shouldn’t have to prove how much they deserve to have a roof over their heads and feed their children. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. External links http://www.ijeomaoluo.com/ Ijeoma Oluo Substack Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Political authors from the United States Category:Essayists from the United States Category:American feminists Category:American atheists Category:LGBT people Category:African-American feminists Category:Women activists from the United States Category:Women from the United States