Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

by Ijeoma Oluo

When I think about the trajectory our social progress is supposed to take—the way we’ve been taught in school that it should work—and I look at how little it tracks with how we treat women of color who dare challenge the political status quo, I am dismayed. I’m dismayed not only because it appears that women of color currently working in politics are treated with the same, if not more, disdain, blatant racism and sexism, and outright hatred that Shirley Chisholm faced—but also because the status quo they are blasted for challenging has remained so unchanged. We celebrate progress, and we talk about increased diversity within our government. Yet our Congress is still overwhelmingly white and male; our presidency is still overwhelmingly white and exclusively male. And the important advances that Shirley Chisholm fought for in 1972—issues like environmental protections, protection from government surveillance and invasion of privacy, campaign finance reform, and equal pay for women—are all changes we still fight for today. It’s as if when we continuously pass up the opportunity to listen to those most affected by the shortcomings of our systems, and instead continue to reward those who benefit most from those systems, we end up making no progress at all.