I AM A WHITE MALE AND I AGREE WITH OLUO’S THESIS. WHITE MALE SUPREMACY IS EVERYWHERE, IT’S EVERYWHERE ON PURPOSE, IT’S A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM AND WHEN THREATENED, THE WHITE MALE CAN BECOME A DANGEROUS CREATURE.
This just isn’t a very good book. How does one become a cultural critic? Does one anoint oneself? What makes someone a good cultural critic? What are the standards? Expectations? Based on this one book of hers that I’ve read, it can’t be good writing.
The scholarship here is slapdash – erratic, inconsistent. There are massive leaps in logic. When all else fails, Oluo resorts to profanity to demonstrate the strength of her feelings on a topic.
I thought some sections were better than others. For example, the sections on higher education, the GI Bill, and the Squad were, for her, relatively well-reasoned.
So is this a white male questioning the credentials of a Black female writer? No. She clearly has the credentials. She got the book published. It’s not her first one. She talks about regular speaking engagements. She’s clearly earned her ethos as a speaker / writer / thinker on the topic and again, I AGREE WITH HER THESIS (as pretty much outlined in the title). With a few exceptions, she really didn’t make me think about white male supremacy in a new way or point to many key turning points. She’s in no way obliged to offer solutions, but perhaps a cross-cultural comparison would have been useful? Certainly, there are countries that contain white man that have less of an issue with this issue?
So who really picks up this book? I tend to think this is yet another book we pick up because we already agree with it and want to be told we’re right. But if we want to learn the why’s or alternatives, there’s just not very much here.
bookreviewsbycharles 