So You Want to Talk About Race

by Ijeoma Oluo

Like many people, most of my days were spent just trying to get by. Life is busy and hard.

I hope that if parts of this book make you uncomfortable, you can sit with that discomfort for a while, to see if it has anything else to offer you.

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.

It has you believing in trickle-down social justice.

We are all products of a racialized society, and it affects everything we bring to our interactions.

Racial oppression is a broad and cumulative force, it is not a system that puts all its eggs in one basket.

As I said earlier, just because something is about race, doesn’t mean it’s only about race.

We like to filter new information through our own experiences to see if it computes. If it matches up with what we have experienced, it’s valid. If it doesn’t match up, it’s not. But race is not a universal experience.

There are a lot of individual, unapologetic racists out there. They’re easy to spot—they’re the people sharing the Obama = monkey memes. They are the people sewing swastikas to their jackets and talking about “White Genocide.” This book is not for them and they are not my primary concern. This book will not tell you how to get unabashed racists to love people of color. I’m not a magician.

never in and of itself simply the subjugation of people of color. The ultimate goal of racism was the profit and comfort of the white race, specifically, of rich white men.

Our kids do not get to fuck up the way other kids get to; our kids will not get to look back fondly on their teenage hijinks—because these get them expelled or locked away.

Nothing lets you know that you are going to die alone like when you try to find a seat in a school cafeteria and everyone avoids eye contact like you are walking flatulence.

The remark that seems harmless on the surface? The small sting that comes out of nowhere and is repeated over and over, for your entire life? That is what racial microaggressions are like, except instead of a passive-aggressive parent, it’s the entire world, in all aspects of your life, and very rarely is it said with any misguided love.

Microaggressions are cumulative. On their own, each microaggression doesn’t seem like a big deal. But just like one random bee sting might not be a big deal, a few random bee stings every day of your life will have a definite impact on the quality of your life, and your overall

relationship with bees.

These microaggressions help hold the system of White Supremacy together, because if we didn’t have all these little ways to separate and dehumanize people, we’d empathize with them more fully,

Also, please take the lead of the person of color who is being directly harmed by the microaggression. If it seems like they do not want the issue addressed, do not decide to come to their rescue anyway—people of color have very good reasons for why they choose to speak out and why they choose not to, and you don’t want to remove that agency from them.

Our focus on allowing “good” people of color to join the ranks of “good” whites has allowed a criminal justice system to swallow up an entire generation deemed “bad.”

And this is important to remember, for all of us. No matter what our intentions, everything we say and do in the pursuit of justice will one day be outdated, ineffective, and yes, probably wrong. That is the way progress works.

When we think about race in America most of us (with the notable exception of many Asian Americans) think in terms of black and white, and maybe brown Latinx and white, and maybe—just maybe—American Indians and white. But we rarely talk about the model minority myth and how it affects Asian Americans. And if we do talk about it, we rarely talk about it as a problem.

As of 2017 there is only one Asian American in the US Senate, and only eleven Asian Americans in the House of Representatives.

And finally, Asian and non-Asian people of color must stop believing the hype: we are not in competition for the biggest slice of the white supremacist pie. We will never be free until we are all seen and valued for our unique culture, history, talents, and challenges.

For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet.

Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please.

Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.

To refuse to listen to someone’s cries for justice and equality until the request comes in a language you feel comfortable with is a way of asserting your dominance over them in the situation.

Be aware of the limits of your empathy. Your privilege will keep you from fully understanding the pain caused to people of color by systemic racism, but just because you cannot understand it, that does not make it any less real. Don’t distract or deflect. The core issue in discussions of racism and systemic oppression will always be racism and systemic oppression. Remember your goal. Your main goal, if you consider yourself an ally, should always be to end systemic racism. Drop the prerequisites. That goal should not have any preconditions on it. You are fighting systemic racism because it is your moral obligation, and that obligation is yours as long as systemic racism exists, pure and simple. Walk away if you must, but don’t give up. If you simply cannot abide an oppressed person or group’s language or methods, step aside and find where you can help elsewhere. Build a tolerance for discomfort. You must get used to being uncomfortable and get used to this not being about your feelings if you plan to help and not hinder people of color in their efforts for racial justice. You are not doing any favors, you are doing what is right. If you are white, remember that White Supremacy is a system you benefit from and that your privilege has helped to uphold. Your efforts to dismantle White Supremacy are expected of decent people who believe in justice. You are not owed gratitude or friendship from people of color for your efforts. We are not thanked for cleaning our own houses.

But if you live in this system of White Supremacy you are either fighting the system, or you are complicit. There is no neutrality to be had towards systems of injustice—it is not something you can just opt out of. If you believe in justice and equality, we are in this together, whether you like me or not.

You are racist because you were born and bred in a racist, white supremacist society.

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.

The question is: do you want to look like a better person, or do you want to be a better person?