Top 150 Ijeoma Oluo Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 3 of 4

101. “So let’s all get a little uncomfortable.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

102. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

104. “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

105. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

107. “But often these men are completely unaware of their hypocrisy because they are not doing anything out of the ordinary by centering themselves when they’ve always been centered, or by taking advantage of those who have always been taken advantage of – they’re just living according to the norms of society.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

108. “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

109. “At some point the silence is a sin against God – because you are required to be the person you want to be, you are required to speak up,” he explained.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

111. “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

112. “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

113. “Do not make this about your pain at being called out.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

114. “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

115. “How can white men be our born leaders and at the same time so fragile that they cannot handle social progress?”

— Ijeoma Oluo

116. “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

117. “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

118. “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

119. “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

120. “And while the arguments around affirmative action often come down to race, white women have been by far the biggest recipients of the benefits of affirmative action.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

123. “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

124. “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

125. “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

126. “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

127. “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

128. “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

129. “Racism is any prejudice against someone because of their race when those views are reinforced by systems of power.”

— Ijeoma Oluo

130. “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

131. “I live in a world where if I have a ‘black sounding’ name, I’m less likely to even be called for a job interview. Will I equally benefit from raising minimum wages when I can’t even get a job?”

— Ijeoma Oluo

132. “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

133. “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

134. “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

135. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

138. “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

139. “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

140. “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

141. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

143. “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

144. “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

145. “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

146. “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

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

— Ijeoma Oluo

148. “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

149. “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

150. “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