Top 150 Ijeoma Oluo Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 3 of 4

101. “He went on to discuss how his grandma, for example, said some racist things, but she was a kind person and it would be cruel to call a harmless old lady racist and would only make her more racist. 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

102. “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

103. “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

104. “My mom has shifted her focus on race from proving to black people that she is “down” to pressuring fellow white people to do better.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

106. “As white men saw that their degrees no longer put them as far ahead of women and people of color as the degrees once did, they began to question whether a diploma was worth the cost.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

107. “These microaggressions help hold the system of White Supremacy together, because if we didn’t have all these little ways to separate and dehumanize people, we’d empathize with them more fully, and then we’d have to really care about the system that is crushing them.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

108. “Does this sound like too large a task? Too monumental a shift? I can see that. But I can also see how much work it has taken to create and maintain a system of white male mediocrity in this country.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

109. “The thing about anger is that it needs a home.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

110. “But we live in a society where if you’re a person of color, a disabled person, a single mother, or an LGBT person, you have to be exceptional. And if you are exceptional, by the standards put forth by white supremacist patriarchy, and you are lucky, you will most likely just barely get by. There’s nothing inspirational about that.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

111. “After sitting for two games, Kaepernick met with a military veteran. The man asked Kaepernick to kneel instead of sitting for the anthem, as a way to protest injustice against Black people in America while still showing respect for US military vets. Kaepernick took the veteran’s advice and began kneeling in protest instead of sitting.34.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

112. “Support POC-owned business. Economic exploitation is one of the cornerstones of racial oppression. You can help preserve financial independence for people of color by working with and spending your money with POC businesses.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

113. “Fear of violent black and brown youth, compounded by high-profile school shootings primarily perpetrated by white youth, led to the rise of zero-tolerance policies in schools beginning in the ’90s.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

114. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

116. “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

117. “Bear witness. If you are a white person and you see a person of color being stopped by police, if you see a person of color being harassed in a store: bear witness and offer to help, when it is safe to do so. Sometimes just the watchful presence of another white person will make others stop and consider their actions more carefully.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

118. “In introducing the legislation, Pressley argued, “For far too long, those closest to the pain have not been closest to the power, resulting in a racist, xenophobic, rogue, and fundamentally flawed criminal legal system,” adding, “Our resolution calls for a bold transformation of the status quo – devoted to dismantling injustices so that the system is smaller, safer, less punitive, and more humane.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

119. “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

120. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

122. “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

123. “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

124. “If you are constantly assumed to be great just for being white and male, why would you struggle to make a real contribution? Why take a risk or make a determined effort that might fail when you can be rewarded for keeping your head down? Societal incentives are toward mediocrity.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

125. “Because your opponent isn’t a person, it’s the system of racism that often shows up in the words and actions of other people.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

126. “Perhaps one of the most brutal of white male privileges is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

127. “A swagger is not intent, baggy jeans are not intent, a bandana is not intent. This is culture, and any suggestion otherwise is racist.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

128. “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

129. “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

130. “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

131. “White male identity is in a very dark place. White men have been told that they should be fulfilled, happy, successful, and powerful, and they are not. They are missing something vital – an intrinsic sense of self that is no tied to how much power or success they can hold over others – and that hole is eating away at them.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

132. “I have had to find a way to enjoy movies and television even when the script is not written for me and the only characters that look like me are peripheral to the main action because I would like to see more than a few movies in my lifetime. I have had to find a way to work in offices that don’t see me as management.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

133. “In order for a police force to be effective, it has to earn the trust of its people. But to those who only scratch the surface, to those who do not investigate their simplistic opinions about the root cause of crime in inner cities and the animosity between police forces and communities of color, the answer is simply more policing. But what we need is different policing. Policing not steeped from root to flower in the need to control people of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

134. “So I did what most of us do, I tried to make the best of it. I worked 50 percent harder than my white coworkers, I stayed late every day. I dressed like every day was a job interview. I was overpolite to white people I encountered in public. I bent over backwards to prove that I was not angry, that I was not a threat.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

136. “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

137. “It should be enough that this is hurting us. It is insulting that I have to point out the ways in which these issues also hurt white Americans in the hopes that I might get more people to care.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

138. “We have to investigate the way in which all of us, regardless of race or gender, have been conditioned to uphold white male supremacy.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

139. “Banks that sell bad loans to people of color should not get your business.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

140. “Filipino Americans, on average, have a low poverty rate of 6.7 percent – more than 3 percentage points lower than white Americans. But Cambodian, Laotian, Pakistani, and Thai Americans have a poverty rate of around 18 percent. Bangladeshi and Hmong Americans have poverty rates between 26 and 28 percent, matching or surpassing that of blacks and Hispanic Americans.1 Pacific Islanders have the highest unemployment rate of any racial or ethnic group in the US.2.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

141. “Women and people of color who advocate for diversity and equity are often punished for their efforts in peer, team, and management evaluations. Ironically, the people who are not penalized in their evaluations for their diversity and equity efforts are – say it with me – white men.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

142. “Note: ‘people like you’ is a good warning that a conversation is about to head into pretty racist territory.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

143. “The ultimate goal of racism was the profit and comfort of the white race, specifically, of rich white men. The oppression of people of color was an easy way to get this wealth and power, and racism was a good way to justify it.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

144. “But then, a funny thing happens when a woman or a person of color is promoted to the head of the company. White male managers stop collaborating with their coworkers – especially their women coworkers and coworkers of color. Why do white men decrease their level of performance when a woman or person of color becomes CEO? Because suddenly they feel less connected to the company.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

145. “Intersectionality and the recognition and confrontation of our privilege, can make us better people with better lives.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

146. “Each day he sat quietly outside and refused to join his classmates at lunch. After three days, Ryan’s mother relented and began making lunches from home again. Nothing says “American” like a boy making a woman struggle so that he can seem independent.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

147. “When we consider the privilege hierarchies of race, gender, and class, it’s clear that some of us have played a larger role than others in perpetuating this harmful image of white maleness. But I also think that all of us, regardless of demographic, have played a part in upholding white male supremacy. We are all told to aspire to the largest bite of our piece of the pie – no matter how meager our piece may be.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

148. “It could be a place that dares to believe that the world does not revolve around white men.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

149. “Support music, film, television, art, and books created by people of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

150. “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