Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

by Ijeoma Oluo

As I looked back through our history, I started to see patterns. I started to see how time and time again, anything perceived as a threat to white manhood has been attacked, no matter how necessary that new person or idea may have been to our national progress. I started to see how reliably the bullying and entitlement we valued in our leaders led to failure. These are traits that we tell our children are bad, but when we look at who our society actually rewards, we see that these are the traits we have actively cultivated.

Crowley’s seeming inability to consider Ocasio-Cortez as a serious competitor didn’t seem to faze her. When he was a no-show to their first scheduled debate, she gamely debated an empty chair.

Legend

But I think it’s more than just the climb. It’s the expectation that many white men have that they shouldn’t have to climb, shouldn’t have to struggle, as others do. It’s the idea not only that they think they have less than others, but that they were supposed to have so much more. When you are denied the power, the success, or even the relationships that you think are your right, you either believe that you are broken or you believe that you have been stolen from. White men who think they have been stolen from often take that anger out on others. White men who think they are broken take that anger out on themselves. There were 47,173 suicides in 2017. Of those, 70 percent were white men, and the rate of white male suicides is rising.5 Across the country, people are mourning the losses of sons, fathers, husbands, and friends who have chosen this particularly devastating way out.