Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

by Ijeoma Oluo

we condition white men to believe not only that the best they can hope to accomplish in life is a feeling of superiority over women and people of color, but also that their superiority should be automatically granted them simply because they are white men.

The rewarding of white male mediocrity not only limits the drive and imagination of white men; it also requires forced limitations on the success of women and people of color in order to deliver on the promised white male supremacy. White male mediocrity harms us all.

When I talk about mediocrity, I talk about how we somehow agreed that wealthy white men are the best group to bring the rest of us prosperity, when their wealth was stolen from our labor.

White men have assumed inborn greatness, and they are taught to believe that they alone have seemingly infinite potential for greatness. Our culture has shaped the expectation of greatness exclusively around white men by erasing the achievements of women and people of color from our histories, by excluding women and people of color as heroes in our films and books, by ensuring that the qualified applicant pool is restricted to white male social networks.

Those who profited off that labor did little more than be born with a whip in their hand. But nevertheless we crafted a story of greatness around them. We say that they earned greatness, and that if we emulate them, these cruel and powerful white men, we will one day rise to where they stand.

Too many women and people of color have experienced the rage of a white man who had been patiently waiting in line to be the next president or CEO. When he finally realizes that his turn may never come, he looks around to see who is to blame for taking his place—he thinks his loss is the cost of opportunity for others. But he never looks up at the elite white men he has been striving to emulate. If we look under the feet of many of the white men to whom we grant so much power, we will see the masses crushed by their failures—including other white men.