So You Want to Talk About Race Themes

In So You Want to Talk about Race, author Ijeoma Oluo argues that white supremacy is deeply entrenched in American culture. Oluo sees the United States as systematically centered on privileging the needs of white people at the cost of people of color. She finds this agenda so pervasive that it shapes every aspect of U.S. society, including education, law enforcement, politics, and the media. She argues that individual racists are the product of…

Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk about Race is a moving account of the deep emotional burden of racism in the United States. Oluo shows how racist encounters trigger feelings of hurt, shame, and anger in people of color, which compound old wounds that never have a chance to heal. She thinks that insensitivity to racial pain is one of the biggest reasons why conversations about racism go wrong or end in disaster…

In So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo looks at how borrowing, or appropriating, from other cultures can be a form of oppression. While many people think of the U.S. as a “melting pot” of cultures that all influence one another, Oluo argues U.S. society is set up to privilege white culture. This means that when white people borrow the trappings of marginalized culture (like their music, hairstyles, or food), their…