Top 150 Ijeoma Oluo Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Sometimes it may seem like justice is disadvantaging you when the privileges you’ve routinely enjoyed are threatened. But you have to do it anyway, because you believe that women and people of color are human beings and that we deserve to be free from oppression, even when that means you personally have to give some things up.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

52. “As long as racism exists to ruin the lives of countless people of color, it should be something that upsets us. But it upsets us because it exists, not because we talk about it. And if you are white, and don’t want to feel any of that pain by having these conversations, then you are asking people of color to continue to bear the entire burden of racism alone.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

53. “Race was not only created to justify a racially exploitative economic system, it was invented to lock people of color into the bottom of it. Racism in America exists to exclude people of color from opportunity and progress so that there is more profit for others deemed superior. This profit itself is the greater promise for nonracialized people – you will get more because they exist to get less.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

54. “Intersectionality slows things down. The simple truth is, when you are only considering the needs of a select few, it’s a lot easier to make what looks like progress than when you have to consider the needs of a diverse group of people. This is where you often hear people say things like, “Well, let’s just work on what the majority needs first and we’ll get to the rest later.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

55. “I know that it’s hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I’m not lying and I’m not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

56. “In the South, through the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement, it was well known locally that many police officers were also members of the Ku Klux Klan.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

57. “Poor people shouldn’t have to prove how much they deserve to have a roof over their heads and feed their children.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

58. “But the important question is, why would a well-meaning white person want to say these words in the first place? Why would you want to invoke that pain on people of color? Why would you want to rub in the fact that you are privileged enough to not be negatively impacted by the legacy of racial oppression that these words helped create?”

— Ijeoma Oluo

59. “No matter what our intentions, everything we say and do in the pursuit of justice will one day be outdated, ineffective, and yes, probably wrong. That is the way progress works. What we do now is important and helpful so long as what we do now is what is needed now.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

60. “Most women and people of color have to claw their way to any chance at success or power, have to work twice as hard as white men and prove themselves to be exceptional talents before we begin to entertain discussions of truly equal representation in our workplaces or government.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

61. “Push your mayor and city council for police reform.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

62. “1. It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race. 2. It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color. 3. It is about race if it fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

63. “Disadvantaged white people are not erased by discussions of disadvantages facing people of color, just as brain cancer is not erased by talking about breast cancer. They are two different issues with two different treatments, and they require two different conversations.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

64. “White women will heap praise on my words calling for the destruction of the patriarchy, and then turn around and ask why I have to ‘be so divisive’ or say dismissively that I ‘sound like Al Sharpton’ when I dare bring up race.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

65. “Women who lead with a more “male” style do not fare any better. Women are often punished for the same personality traits that men are praised for.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

66. “Race is everywhere and racial tension and animosity and pain is in almost everything we see and touch. Ignoring it does not make it go away. There is no shoving the four hundred years’ racial oppression and violence toothpaste back in the toothpaste tube.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

67. “For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

68. “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.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

69. “At every college I went to – every single one – at least one teacher of color broke down in tears describing their struggle to advocate for their students of color in such a hostile environment. Higher education is not the racial utopia that Republicans are scared of. It is not some bizarro world where students of color wield power over white students and faculty. It is a white supremacist system at its core, like all our other systems are.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

70. “Trump and others on the right want to make sure that working-class white men don’t want to go to college and distrust those who do, and conservative educators want to make sure that people from marginalized communities don’t want to go either.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

71. “Racial oppression should always be an emotional topic to discuss. It should always be anger-inducing. As long as racism exists to ruin the lives of countless people of color, it should be something that upsets us. But it upsets us because it exists, not because we talk about it.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

72. “How do the advantages in your life contribute to your opinions and actions, and how does the lack of disadvantages in certain areas keep you from fully understanding the struggles others face, and may contribute to those struggles?”

— Ijeoma Oluo

73. “Speak up in your unions. I’ve watched with pride these last few years as my mother has leveraged her privilege at her union to help make her workplace more inclusive.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

74. “It is psychologically damaging to never see yourself reflected in positions of leadership in your own country. It limits our feeling of citizenship, and it limits the possibilities we see for ourselves and our children.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

75. “Mediocre white men who want to be heroes too often feel the need to fabricate villains to justify their imagined role – even if that means vilifying entire populations of people. Their dreams of grand adventures are mere whims and fantasy, but the violence such white men visit upon others is often very, very real.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

76. “Because you have been racist, and you have been anti-racist. Yes, you may now be insisting that you do not have a racist bone in your body, but that is simply not true. You have been racist, and will be in the future, even if less so. You are racist because you were born and bred in a racist, white supremacist society.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

77. “We live in a society where race is one of the biggest indicators of your success in life. There are sizable racial divides in wealth, health, life expectancy, infant mortality, incarceration rates, and so much more. We cannot look at a society where racial inequality is so universal and longstanding and say, ‘This is all the doing of a few individuals with hate in their hearts.’ It just doesn’t make sense.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

78. “We find racism in our systems when we look at what the system produces. When we find systems with outputs that negatively affect people of color in a way or to a degree that they do not affect white people, we have a racist impact that can be tied to a racist cause.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

79. “If we are going to continue to make progress on issues of race and gender, and if liberal white men want to be on the right side of history, they have to address their personal issues with race and gender.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

80. “It seemed far more important to him that the white people who were spreading and upholding racism be spared the effects of being called racist, than sparing his black friend the effects of that racism.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

81. “The image of the ideal white man – the bold and confident ones we end up idolizing, giving promotions to, electing to office – that image is often the epitome of mediocrity. And when entrusted with these positions of power, such men often perform as well as someone with mediocre skills would be expected to: we see the results in our floundering businesses and in our deadlocked government. Rather than risk seeming weak by admitting mistakes, white men double down on them.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

82. “Tying racism to its systemic causes and effects will help others see the important difference between systemic racism, and anti-white bigotry.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

83. “Give money to organizations working to fight racial oppression and support communities of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

84. “When you instead shift your focus to getting people of color to fight oppression in a way in which you approve, racial justice is no longer your main goal – your approval is.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

85. “What keeps a poor child in Appalachia poor is not what keeps a poor child in Chicago poor – even if from a distance, the outcomes look the same. And what keeps an able-bodied black woman poor is not what keeps a disabled white man poor, even if the outcomes look the same.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

86. “Intersectionality decentralizes people who are used to being the primary focus of the movements they are a part of.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

87. “Our police force was not created to serve black Americans; it was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans. This is why even when police were donning white hoods and riding out at night to burn crosses on the lawns of black families, white families could still look at them with respect and trust.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

88. “We have to find where we have been bonded to these systems, both individually and collectively, and we have to sever those bonds.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

89. “So, when a person of color comes to you and says “this is different for me because I’m not white,” when you run the situation through your own lived experience, it often won’t compute.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

90. “And while it may seem that people of color always need to “put race in everything,” it’s the neglect of the specific needs of people of color, which exist whether you acknowledge them or not, that necessitate it in the first place.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

91. “We like to think of our character in the same way it is written in our obituaries.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

92. “Race has also become alive. Race was not only created to justify a racially exploitative economic system, it was invented to lock people of color into the bottom of it.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

93. “Instead of seeing humanity as a competition for status, we could all have faith that full equality can allow for esteem and respect to be spread universally.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

94. “But I have never had the luxury of shunning everything in our society that does not appear to be built 100 percent for me.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

95. “My education has served me well in this career, even if it was not what I originally imagined for myself. It also, like a job as an analyst likely would have, fits my introverted yet very opinionated personality. I spend a lot of time observing, thinking, commenting. I do not have to compromise my principles or soften my message to make friends or keep a job.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

96. “This right here, the realization that we may be a part of the reason why the deck is stacked against others, that we may have been contributing to it for years without our knowledge, is why the concept of privilege is so threatening to so many.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

97. “Get in schools. Do you know what the racial achievement gap is in your school district? Find out, and then ask your school board, principals, and teachers what they are doing to address it.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

98. “Boycott businesses that exploit workers of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

99. “Vote for diverse government representatives. Help put people of color into the positions of power where they can self-advocate for the change that their communities need. Support candidates of color and support platforms that make diversity, inclusion, and racial justice a priority.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

100. “We must start asking what we want white manhood to be, and what we will no longer accept. We must stop rewarding violence and oppression. We must stop confusing bullies with leaders. We must stop telling women and people of color that the only path to success lies in emulating white male dominance.”

— Ijeoma Oluo