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In So you wanna talk about race, Oluo compares systemic racism to a machine that churns out racists and oppresses people of color just by functioning. Oluo says that people who know the machine is running but do nothing to stop it are complicit in the damage the machine causes. Using this metaphor, she argues that people who are complacent about racism or ignore the issue altogether are not being neutral—they are being actively racist because they are allowing a system that oppresses people to continue. This means that everybody has an ethical obligation to dismantle the machine (the systems of society that cause people to become racist), even if they didn’t build it. In other words, silence about systemic racism allows violence against people of color to continue, and Oluo believes that this is inherently unjust.
Machine Quotes in So You Want to Talk About Race
The So You Want to Talk About Race quotes below all refer to the symbol of Machine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
Systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and just by letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces.
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Machine Symbol Timeline in So You Want to Talk About Race
The timeline below shows where the symbol Machine appears in So You Want to Talk About Race. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Is it really about race?
...shouldn’t ignore it either. They need to think about race like one piece of a “machine.” Oluo says that the world often tells people color that they’re wrong about what they’re...
(full context)
Chapter 2: What is racism?
...the system in the way it was designed. She argues that “systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not,” and that by passively allowing it...
(full context)
