Top 150 Ijeoma Oluo Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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

102. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

104. “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

105. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

107. “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

108. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

110. “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

111. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

113. “Vote local. Your vote will never have more power than in local elections. This is where politicians and city and state officials have to work for your vote. And so often, this opportunity to flex local power is flushed away by those who only vote in big, sexy, national elections.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

115. “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

116. “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

117. “Remember: it’s not just this one incident. This incident is the continuation of a long history of microaggressions for people of color. Racial trauma is cumulative, and you cannot expect a person of color to react to each situation the way that you would having encountered it for the first time. It may not seem fair that you would take some of the blame for what has happened in the past, but what is truly unfair is the fact that people of color have to endure this every day.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

118. “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

119. “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

120. “Note, if you are a white person in this situation, do not think that just because you may not be aware of your racial identity at the time that you did not bring race to your experience of the situation as well. We are all products of a racialized society, and it affects everything we bring to our interactions.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

121. “We are expected to support white male supremacy in order to get a promotion, to be respected by our peers, for our children to succeed in school.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

122. “Conversations on racism should never be about winning.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

123. “While in 2013 Asian Americans had the highest college graduation rate of any racial group in America by far with 53 percent, as with overall numbers of economic success, this number hides a wide disparity based on country of origin: 46 percent of second-generation Cambodian and Laotian Americans have only a high school degree or less, compared to only 6 percent of second-generation Chinese Americans.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

124. “Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

125. “The stereotype of the “meek” Asian American, combined with social pressure to stick to science and technology fields, has discouraged many Asian Americans from seeking political leadership and activism roles and prevents those who do seek those roles from being seen as “strong enough” leaders for the task.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

126. “Our police forces were created not to protect Americans of color, but to control Americans of color.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

127. “A lot of people want to skip ahead to the finish line of racial harmony. Past all this unpleasantness to a place where all wounds are healed and the past is laid to rest.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

128. “They have to battle to push forward every change they were brought in to make, no matter how incremental.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

129. “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

130. “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

131. “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

132. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

134. “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

135. “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

136. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

138. “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

139. “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

140. “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

141. “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

142. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

144. “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

145. “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

146. “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

147. “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

148. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

150. “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