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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in So You Want to Talk About Race, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Privilege, and White Supremacy
Confronting Racial Pain
Intersectionality, Oppression, and Social Justice
Cultural Appropriation
Summary
Analysis
Oluo tweets about a famous black male musician who hasn’t been arrested for sexual crimes. Her tweets go viral, and she receives a lot of hate responses accusing her of hating black men. People accuse Oluo of siding with white oppressors. She’s frustrated because people are so concerned with the oppression of black men that they forget about the oppressions faced by black women. Oluo feels that she often faces situations where people deny her oppression in her day-to-day life. She knows that online harassment can get ugly very quickly, and she feels like Twitter is a crucial resource for voices like hers in a white male-dominated media industry, so she tries to contain the damage from her tweet.
So far, Oluo has worked various examples into her arguments to show that people are oppressed and privileged for many different reasons that overlap and intersect to make everyone’s situation unique (including gender, sexuality, class, race, ability, nationality, and more). Now, she’s going to explicitly address this phenomenon. She begins by highlighting the emotional impact of confrontations that are overgeneralizing (too binary, or not intersectional enough).
Themes
By the next day, the crisis is averted, but Oluo is “overcome with sadness.” She thinks that black women on social media feel “very alone and very abused.” White women praise her attack on patriarchy but also call her “divisive” for bringing up race. Black men applaud her for calling out white supremacy but also call her a “feminist tool of slave masters.” Oluo feels that black women have been integral to every feminist movement in U.S. history, yet nobody marches for them.
Oluo continues signaling the emotional burden of oppression by communicating her feelings of “sadness,” isolation, and abuse. Oluo also feels that sometimes, the fight for racial justice overlooks the way black women are oppressed within black culture. Sometimes, the fight for feminism overlooks the way black women are oppressed by white women, which is what leads black men to accuse Oluo of being a “feminist tool of slave masters.” All oppression is painful, so people, like black women, who are oppressed in multiple ways feel an extra burden—and they often feel more isolated or overlooked within social movements (or among people who are supposed to be their allies).
Themes
Oluo defines intersectionality as “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.” She’s interested in the concept because it applies to her so much. Oluo says she can’t suppress her blackness to support women’s rights, and she can’t cut away her womanhood to support black rights. She implores people to march for her too—as a black woman.
Oluo gives an explicit definition of intersectionality here, focusing on the idea that social justice only happens when everybody who’s oppressed gains equality. Oluo won’t escape oppression until her womanhood and her blackness are accepted by others. This means that black women should have the same opportunities as white women, black men, white men, and every other individual in U.S. society, regardless of their demographic.
Themes
Oluo explains that identity is shaped by a lot more than race, and there are many forms of oppression beyond racial oppression. Oluo is a black, queer woman—so when she’s harassed on the street, she doesn’t know if it’s because she’s black, because she’s queer, or because she’s a woman. For Oluo, the source of the problem is “unexamined privilege,” as this leads to activism that overlooks the needs of vulnerable people in society, such as “disabled Latinx trans women.” For instance, Oluo cites black activism that prioritizes heterosexual men of color’s needs; feminist activism that prioritizes “the needs of white women”; or LGBTQ activism that prioritizes white, gay, cisgender men’s needs.
Oluo stresses that people tend to over-simplify: they tend to assume that their situation is exactly the same as others, and they forget ways in which they have specific privileges (or, as Oluo puts it, they don’t examine their privilege). In a feminist movement that isn’t intersectional, it’s main participants (for example, “white women”) might focus on eradicating the oppressions they face (assuming that all women are in the same boat). But straight, white women have privileges that minority, non-heterosexual, trans, and disabled women don’t have. This means their feminist movement will help straight, white women achieve equality, but it leaves the others (like “disabled Latinx trans women”) behind, which is unjust.
Themes
Get the entire So You Want to Talk About Race LitChart as a printable PDF.
Race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989 when addressing the unique oppressions faced by black women. Scholars subsequently expanded the concept to include other causes of oppression, including class, mental and physical ability, and sexual orientation. Yet, Oluo argues, intersectionality hasn’t gotten much traction in social justice movements. She offers some reasons for why this is the case.
Oluo argues that although race scholars have been dealing with intersectionality since the 1980s, activist movements still lag behind, and they often fail to achieve their aims because they’re insufficiently intersectional (they don’t tackle all the forms of oppression when fighting for people’s rights, which leaves some people behind).
Themes
Oluo argues that intersectionality makes activism more complicated: it’s much harder to figure out the needs of a diverse group than a homogenous group, so people often focus on the needs of the majority to make things easier. Second, intersectionality forces people to people face their own privilege, which many find uncomfortable. Third, intersectionality shifts focus away from the needs of people who are used to being at the center of a movement (such as white women in feminism). Fourth, intersectionality forces people to consider people they don’t usually interact with. This is uncomfortable because people like to form groups with people they feel are similar to them.
Once again, Oluo argues that one of the core reasons why well-meaning activists are slow to embrace intersectionality is because they don’t like to confront the shame and guilt of their own privilege or put themselves in uncomfortable situations like talking with other women who live very different lives. While this is understandable, Oluo stresses that it’s not acceptable—avoiding uncomfortable feelings or situations leaves some people out of the conversation.
Themes
Oluo believes that most people who want to fight oppression aim to improve society for all people. This means that they must embrace intersectionality to make sure they don’t oppress some people while fighting for the rights of others. Oluo suggests that you can include intersectionality in discussions about race by asking yourself some questions.
Oluo again stresses that activists don’t like to think of themselves as oppressors within their own groups. But if they use their power to only help a certain demographic—say, straight, white women—then they are actively oppressing other women by fighting some systemic power imbalances in society and leaving others in place.
Themes
First, Oluo suggests that people ask themselves how factors like race, gender, ability, class, and sexuality impact the subject they’re dealing with. She then advises seeking out the perspectives of diverse groups of people with different intersectional needs. She also suggests taking stock of who’s writing the books and articles that champion a cause: are they writers from diverse backgrounds? Oluo also asks people to consider who their activism leaves out or ignores and ask themselves how they’re making safe spaces for underrepresented or marginalized people to join the conversation.
As before, Oluo argues that the importance of checking one’s privilege becomes imperative. If the goal of feminism is to help all women, it’s important to recognize that some women have privileges because other women don’t. White women have more privilege in a white supremacist society because they’re white—this isn’t their fault, it’s a problem with the system. But the system needs to be changed, nonetheless. Again, the goal of identifying such privileges isn’t to trigger guilt or shame, but to identify pockets of power and use them to make space for others whose needs and perspectives are underrepresented.
Themes
Oluo continues with some pointers for increasing attention to intersectionality in conversations. Most people don’t know what intersectionality is, and this might make them defensive. It often helps to start with real-life examples: orient the discussion toward thinking about ways to do more (rather than ways your movement is failing). In day-to-day contexts, Oluo suggests asking yourself questions like who gets to speak at company meetings? Who developed your child’s curriculum? Whom did you vote for? Oluo things that everything can be made more inclusive when we think about intersectionality and confront our privilege.
Oluo’s practical tips also emphasize that the point of identifying power imbalances within a movement isn’t to shame the most privileged people or denigrate the movement. The aim is to identify areas where a person can use their power (or privilege) to make the group more inclusive, and therefore to help the movement achieve its goal of social justice. This, admittedly, demands confronting difficult or uncomfortable feelings of privilege, but it’s necessary.
Themes
