July 31, 2023 • 32 mins
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Join us on an enlightening odyssey with the remarkable Ijeoma Oluo, acclaimed writer and speaker, as we traverse the terrain of race, identity, and systemic racism. As the author of the New York Times bestseller "So You Want to Talk About Race," Ijeoma uniquely illustrates her journey from impoverishment to an influential voice in America. Listen to her candid recap of being the lone black person in numerous rooms and how these experiences, coupled with the harsh reality of systemic injustices, sparked her fervor for understanding and shedding light on race, identity, and systemic racism.
We delve into the world of black women, often navigating societal structures with minimal support. We unravel the unequal burden they bear, reflect on the strength of their resilience, and emphasize the urgency of creating space for healing and self-investment. Ijeoma then guides us on a journey of understanding racism, offering invaluable insights on intersectionality and privilege — two pivotal yet frequently misunderstood subjects (Parts 1 & 2). You will become more equipped to engage these matters with clarity and better understanding.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Grantley Martelly (00:09):
Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at
the intersection of faith, raceand reconciliation, and I'm your
host, Grantley Martelly.
My guest today is Ijeoma Oluo,a mom, writer, and speaker on
(00:31):
race and identity in America.
She is the author of the numberone New York Times bestseller,
"So You Want to Talk About Race,a book that I highly recommend
and which we'll be talking aboutin this episode, and, most
recently, "Mediocre thedangerous legacy of white male
America.
Among her many awards, Ijeomawas named to the 2021 Times 100
(00:54):
next list and has twice beennamed to the Route 100.
I'm excited about ourconversation today.
I had the privilege of meetingIjeoma and getting to know her a
little bit, and you will enjoythis conversation.
It will be very enlightening inits two parts.
I encourage you to enjoy it, toshare it with your friends,
(01:15):
because it will really help usbecome rooted in these
conversations that we have beentalking about faith, race, and
reconciliation and get us abetter understanding of what
these terms mean and how toapply them in our daily
conversations.
So, Ijeoma, welcome to theAbove The Noise podcast this
(01:36):
morning.
It is my pleasure to have youhere.
I am excited that I actuallyget to talk to you in person.
I've heard you speak and readyour books, but talking to you
in person to me is exciting.
I know my listeners are goingto be excited to hear what you
have to say because I've startedpromoting this episode already.
(01:56):
So thank you for joining me.
I know you're very busy and Iappreciate it.
Ijeoma Oluo (02:01):
Thank you, it's a real pleasure.
Grantley Martelly (02:03):
Thank you.
So let's begin by just tellingour audience who you are, where
you were born, how you grew upand those early years of your
life before you became aprofessional.
Ijeoma Oluo (02:16):
Sure, yeah, I'm Ijeoma Oluo and I am a writer
and speaker on the issues ofrace and identity in America,
and I was born in Denton, Texas.
My father was Nigerian, camehere for school and my mother is
a white lady from Kansas.
My brother likes to say we'rethis close to having the Obama
(02:40):
story, but neither of us endedup becoming president and
shortly after my brother wasborn and I was around two years
old, we moved to the Seattlearea.
My father went back to Nigeriaduring the coup in 1982 and
(03:01):
stayed there until he died, andI was raised in the Seattle area
with my brother and then latermy sister with my mom, and the
family we had here was mygrandparents and a few cousins,
and we grew up in a majoritywhite area.
(03:23):
Seattle is in general, but wegrew up in the north end, which
is even more so a very workingclass area, and we were
incredibly poor.
We didn't have electricity fora lot of our childhood, didn't
have a phone for most of thechildhood ate at soup kitchens.
(03:44):
We're homeless occasionally.
We kind of grew up with thisgeneral sense of otherness a lot
and then being the only blackperson in pretty much every
classroom I was in and usuallybeing the poorest of my
classmates, made me veryobservant.
(04:05):
You have to become really,really observant because you're
being treated differently andthe rules are different for you
and no one says anything in aplace like Seattle.
And so I kind of grew up havingto really watch and see what
was unspoken.
And it also made me veryoutspoken because I had to say
(04:26):
things that other people weren'tsaying, if I was going to get
to the bottom of things and if Iwas going to be able to survive
.
And so I was known from a youngage as the person that would
always say something.
But I loved school.
I didn't love my peers, Ididn't have very many friends.
I loved learning and so I wentto Running Start in middle
(04:50):
school I mean, sorry, in highschool, my junior and senior
year and that was a program thatallowed you to take free
college classes at the localcommunity colleges and not to
actually when academia and mypath, I think, kind of started
to open up for me.
I was taking a class in my highschool proper on European
(05:12):
History.
At the same time, I was takinga class in American Government
at the college and I wasimmediately able to see patterns
.
I was like, wait a minute,we're talking about something
that happened in Europeanhistory 150 years earlier and
I'm seeing the exact same thinghappening in my American
Government class now and Istarted to realize that people
(05:32):
are very predictable, especiallywhen it comes to systemic
issues, and there's a lot ofpower in understanding.
And we had been harmed a lot bynot understanding and I just
became fascinated.
I had always been kind ofpolitically minded, but that's
where I started to recognizelike there's real power in
understanding how systems workand that these systems have been
(05:53):
often weaponized against peopleand fell in love with that area
of study around high school.
Then, when I became an adult, Idid not go straight to college.
I had that neurodiverse I haveADHD burnout of graduation and
(06:15):
was going to take a year off.
And I took a year off and gotpregnant and had my son when I
was 20.
Then I went back to school at25.
I packed my son up and moved toBellingham and finished my
degree in political science.
That was actually a reallybeautiful time of my life, but
(06:39):
my day-to-day life was aboutworking and paying bills and not
being as broke as I was as akid and taking care of my family
.
I didn't start writing actually, until I was in my 30s.
I worked in tech, like so manyother people in the Seattle area
do, and it absolutely paid mybills, and then I realized that
(06:59):
I needed to try to give myselfmore than just survival in the
world, and that's really when Istarted writing.
Grantley Martelly (07:08):
Yeah, so that's good.
I appreciate the history andthe story there.
In your story about working intech, I think in your book, So
You Want To Talk about RAce" andalso in the last time that I
was in the audience hearing youspeak, you talked about some
experiences while working intechnology that were eye-opening
(07:31):
to you or things that causedyou to realize that your life
was going to go in a differentdirection.
You remember any of those?
You mind talking about one ortwo of those experiences?
Ijeoma Oluo (07:42):
Oh sure, I mean.
I think that we don't talkabout how toxic tech really can
be if you aren't a white man.
It's a space where we built inthe image of white men and I
entered into this space reallywith a mind that adapted well to
the work and immediatelyencountered a lot of real
(08:04):
systemic barriers.
You know, I'm a six-foot-tallfat black woman and I was
immediately coded as mean andangry, too opinionated, and
worked in spaces where peopleabsolutely loved what I had to
say because it was right, butalso didn't want me to say it,
and I would always be pulled infor planning and never for
(08:26):
presentation.
It was always that mix ofpeople felt, quote unquote,
intimidated by me and werealways surprised to find out
that I was funny or lightheartedor kind, cooperative, all of
these things.
They were always surprised bythat and time and time again I
(08:48):
found that I was eitherexceptionalized and weaponized
against other black employees orevery bit of progress I made it
was assumed it was some sort oflike a affirmative action
program, even though I alwayshad the work to back up every
promotion I fought for.
You know, I was always giving150%.
(09:09):
I was always the best performerin every space I was in and,
being a black woman, of course Ifaced regular sexual harassment
in these spaces as well and thekind of hypersexualization of
black women and lack of respectfor my bodily autonomy.
I've had managers touch my hairin meetings and ask if it was
(09:32):
real.
I've had people ask me, makereally horrific assumptions
about my parenting, about myparentage, and I'll assume that
my father was one of those quoteunquote stereotypical black
fathers who vanished and that'swhen you know went back to his
(09:54):
home country because of a warand died.
It was a regular reminder Iwasn't safe and I would start to
feel comfortable and thensomething would pop up and it
wouldn't be safe and I wasconstantly having to monitor
myself, monitor how peoplereceived me, monitor my
reputation and walk that linebetween not wanting to create
(10:16):
more stress and pain for myselfand having to defend myself from
things that may well end upgetting out of control and
harming my ability to do thework I wanted to do and to feed
my family.
Grantley Martelly (10:29):
It sounds so familiar.
I mean, you're talking aboutthat.
I have pictures running throughmy mind about similar
experiences and conversations.
And just when you think you'recomfortable, something pops up
that says, ah, you're just beingtolerated here, you know,
necessarily belong here, right?
(10:51):
My guest today is Ijeoma Oluo,the author of Mediocre: The
Dangerous Legacy of White MaleAmerica, and the one that we're
talking about today, the NewYork Times bestseller, So You
(11:11):
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You said something also that Iread in the book that I thought
(12:32):
was really interesting thatblack women are treated
differently in society and eventreated more different by other
black people than black men.
And could you talk a little bitmore about that, because I
thought that was reallyinteresting, how you came to
that realization and how itaffected how you had to shift,
(12:54):
how you moved through societybecause you were a black woman?
Ijeoma Oluo (12:58):
Yeah, I would say there are a few people in our
society less cared for and lessprotected than black women, and
that was something that wasalways really difficult for me
because, as trying to navigatethe world, we are absolutely
always expected to buildsolidarity with all black people
(13:20):
and to support black men, and Iwould gladly do so.
But time and time again in myprofessional life and honestly
now even in my activism work, Iwas repeatedly thrown under the
bus by black men.
If it would benefit them oringratiate them to white
(13:41):
supremacy, and we would see that.
We would see how my progresswas considered threatening If I
tried to address gender issues.
It was considered distractionfrom talking about how black
people were being treated.
I was told regularly, even inworkplaces and still in my
activism work, that the priorityis always about how black men
(14:01):
are being treated.
But the truth is that we sufferevery bit as much of racism in
our day-to-day lives.
The violence looks different,right, the violence of the state
comes upon us looks different,but we are also often the ones
left to hold everything together.
(14:21):
Right, when we talk aboutwhat's happening in our
communities, we're talking about.
Everyone talks about how blackwomen are most likely to be
college educated.
But when you talk about whatthat means, right?
?
?
Taking on that immense amountof debt, being less likely to
have family resources, beingmore likely to be caring for
multiple family members, and youhave to go to college, you have
(14:45):
no choice because you have tobe able to do these things we're
not necessarily talking aboutprivilege, right?
We're talking about this unequalburden that black women often
hold and are never appreciatedfor, and it's frustrating to
feel like no one has your back.
You have to hope that anotherblack woman who is just as
(15:06):
stressed and just as strained asyou are can come together with
you and we're like, we're sotired, and it's just something
I've encountered so many timesand I'm always shocked by people
who I know are so well read.
And I'll be talking to a blackman I've known for years and
he'll say well, you know what?
(15:27):
I don't really worry aboutblack women the way I worry
about black men, but we're dying.
We're dying in childbirth, weare being rapidly discriminated
against at work, we're beingsexually assaulted, we are
suffering from fibroids and allthese other health issues.
Grantley Martelly (15:45):
Having to raise your children and other
people's children.
Ijeoma Oluo (15:48):
Exactly, it is our sons that we send out into the
world and worry about and thatwe have to care for.
We are doing all of thesethings while also being at the
forefront of racial justicetheory, at the forefront of
movement work.
You know, caregiving for ourelders, you don't worry about us
(16:09):
.
Grantley Martelly (16:12):
Yeah, I have come to that.
I was raised by a single mom.
There were eight of us, fivesisters and two brothers, many
aunts and nieces.
I've got a very strong,powerful wife.
I've got a very strong,powerful daughter.
You remind me of her in manyways Very outspoken, very
brilliant, very articulate, andI've come to really appreciate
(16:38):
and start promoting the power ofwhat I call strong black women.
Strong black women, and I tellmany people, much of our society
today would not be intact asmany of the struggles we have,
it would not be as good as it isif it was not for the power and
the strength of strong blackwomen holding it together.
Ijeoma Oluo (17:01):
But we would love to not have to be.
Grantley Martelly (17:05):
I really want to say that that's what you
were saying in the book, right?
Yeah, you know I have to dothat, right, exactly, you know
because there is always asacrifice.
Ijeoma Oluo (17:13):
We have the same capacity as anyone else, right?
So often it's our own care, ourmental health, right?
Our own joy.
So many black women I knowdon't even know what their
talents are that give them joy,because everything they do has
been dictated by this.
And you know, I'm fortunateright now to be partnered with
someone who just creates spacefor me to rest and recoup, right
(17:35):
, who is so dedicated to mysupport.
But this is the first time inmy life I've ever had that and
what that has meant for me.
Like I can actually go totherapy now, I can actually work
on my mental health, I can workon my healing, I can develop my
skills and my hobbies in a waythat I have never been able to
do in my life, because I havethis little bit of safety, this
(17:57):
little bit of care where I canbe soft and I can cry and I can
be silly and I can do all ofthese things.
But often we are denied and so Ireally want people to recognize
, like, if you appreciate whatblack women do, you also have to
appreciate who they are and youhave to say what do I owe?
(18:18):
What is the obligation of that,because I do feel like often
people want to say black womenare good at it, so let's just
keep them doing it.
And what would all this talentbe?
You know, what would thistalent be if it didn't have to
constantly go into other peopleand correcting other people's
(18:41):
mistakes?
What would it be if we got togo into, you know, if we got to
invest it in ourselves and ourjoy?
You know, I think that would befar more beneficial to society.
In all honesty.
Grantley Martelly (18:52):
That's great.
I would love to continue thistopic, but I want to get us to.
So you came to this realizationfrom your working in tech that
you needed to do somethingdifferent.
You need to make a change inlife, a different trajectory.
Tell us about that and how youmade that change and how you
came to be doing what you'redoing currently.
Ijeoma Oluo (19:10):
Yeah, it was really organic.
Honestly, it was unexpected forme.
I was working in tech andactually just got a huge
promotion I had worked reallyhard for, and then Trayvon
Martin was murdered and thatreally was a turning point for
me.
I was absolutely devastated.
(19:32):
There's so many people in ourcommunity were, as a mom, as a
sister, as a black person I wascrying every day.
I was just.
It gutted me and I worked inthis space.
I was looking around at thisthing that was impacting so much
of my life and there was noreaction from the people around
me.
You're like, oh yeah, that'ssad, you know, and I was like we
(19:53):
need to talk about this,because I'm looking at this and
seeing how unsafe my childrenare, how unsafe my brother is,
how unsafe I am in this world,and people were getting upset
with me for saying we need totalk about this, and it was so
confusing for me.
In a way, I had known, on onelevel, of course, what it means
(20:15):
to navigate white spaces, butSeattle really loves to gaslight
you by saying we vote thisparticular way.
We all think these particularthings and, watching how hostile
this island was, I becamereally desperate.
Really desperate to find realconnection and to know that I
actually had community, to knowthat there were people in my
(20:37):
life invested in all of oursafety.
And I remember begging peoplelike, can we just have this
conversation?
And honestly, only two peoplein my life were willing to at
the time and they are stillfriends to this day.
I will love them till the daythat I die.
And so I started writing.
I was like, ok, if I can't findpeople here and then we want to
(20:59):
have this conversation, I'mgoing to start writing.
And so I started writing on myFacebook page.
I had a little food blog and Istarted writing in there and it
was really me pouring out mypain and pouring out this fear
and desperately trying to make aconnection.
It wasn't me going.
I'm a writer now and what endedup happening is, I think,
because it was so authentic, itwas so real, because I wasn't
(21:24):
trying to actually build a thing.
People connected immediately tohow honest I was being, and so
I started hearing from people.
And then I started hearing fromnewspapers.
I started hearing from New YorkTimes saying can we repost
these tweets that you put out?
And I was like, what do youmean?
You know, I had no idea.
(21:44):
Then people started asking meto just write my thoughts for
particular websites, so Istarted gingerly doing that and
it was really scary, but I justneeded to talk.
Then the real shift where Iknew I had to leave was I was
working in this particular spacethat was very toxic.
(22:05):
I was the only woman in mydepartment and I was the only
black person in my department.
Every day I was entering thisvery misogynistic space.
It was just pulling me apartand it was a space that didn't
require much of my intellect.
Then I had this space outsideof work where I was talking
(22:27):
honestly and having these reallyopen conversations, more open
than I've ever had in my life.
What I learned was you can'topen up that part of you and
then spend 10 hours a day in aspace where you have to shut it
back down.
I was suddenly feeling thethings I had been putting away.
People would say things to methat were racist or sexist and I
was like I can't believe.
(22:48):
I'm here, I just quit, and Ididn't have a plan.
I didn't have a job lined up.
I had just bought a house, Ithink six months earlier, and
being the first person in myfamily to own a home.
I just couldn't do it.
One day and I decided to trust.
I had spent a whole lifetimelearning how to survive and I
(23:11):
just had to trust I could.
I did and it was scary at first.
I almost lost my house.
I did lose my car, that did getrepossessed, and I was just
scrambling, hustling, writingessay after essay after essay
for $100 bucks here, $50 buckshere, and I built an audience to
(23:34):
the point where I got my bookdeal.
When I got my book deal, I paidfour months of back mortgage
payment.
I paid cash for a veryinexpensive car so I could get
around, and the rest is history.
I really dedicated myself.
(23:55):
I was like I have to make thiswork, I don't want to go back to
my cubicle.
I did and it was moresuccessful than I ever could
have dreamed and it has been anamazing adventure.
Grantley Martelly (24:07):
How did you arrive at the decision to write
the book?
So you want to talk about risk.
I know you talk a little bitabout your interaction with your
mom because, wow, how did youcome to that point that that's
the topic you wanted to write onthe first time.
Ijeoma Oluo (24:25):
Yeah, it actually wasn't the topic I wanted to
write on at first and it wasactually a suggestion of my
agent.
Because when my agentapproached me and said, have you
ever thought of writing a book,I said no.
Like I said I do have ADHD,right, so writing essays works
great for me.
I'm fired up a lot, somethingthat's all we can think about.
I'm going to write about itquickly, publish, done.
(24:47):
A book is a very different beast.
You're talking multiple yearsof being dedicated to the same
thing.
That's an ADHD nightmare, andso I didn't ever consider
writing a book, at least not inmy adult life.
As I was thinking about it, shesaid you know, I think you
should write something that'smore of like a guide around race
.
You know, she said, I'm such ahuge fan of your work.
(25:10):
I think you explain things in away that other people can
really understand and in a waythat's unique.
And I was like, oh, let methink about it.
And so once it was kind of inmy brain, what I started
noticing first of all was that Iwas still being asked to write
basically the same essay.
It's over and over, Over andover.
Something would happen relatedto race.
Can you write about this andI'm like, but you guys, this is
(25:30):
basically the same thing thathappened last week when I was
writing.
Like just different geography,Exactly exactly Different actors
, same script, you know.
And it was like you can tellthat even the people asking me
to write didn't have thatfoundational understanding of
the systems at play.
And I didn't want to begenerating outrage, I wanted
(25:54):
people to understand so that wecould do something.
And then I noticed how oftenpeople would email me privately
to admit that they just didn'thave this basic understanding,
you know, and they would be like, please don't tell anyone.
But do you know what privilegereally means?
Cause I don't, you know, and itwas obvious to me that people
(26:15):
were having these conversations,these arguments that were
stopping us from actually comingup with solutions and no one
really knew what they weretalking about and no one really
knew how to get past go.
And I was like, okay, you knowwhat?
So this is actually maybesomething I could do, and maybe
if I had this book that peoplecould have, I wouldn't have to
keep writing the same essay overand over again and maybe people
(26:36):
could have these realconversations that get past the
first initial sentences.
And so I sat down and I triedto think what are the things
that, what are the questions I'mgetting all the time and what
are the questions I wish I wouldget, and from that I kind of
came up with the chapter outlinefor the book and started
working my way through.
Grantley Martelly (26:57):
Which is a series of small chapters, like
writing essays, that you put alltogether.
At the end it's got back to youhow you thought right, I can be
with this at a time.
This and this and this yeah,each of them in that light,
let's talk about a few of thosethings that people don't seem to
understand right.
Let's begin with racism.
So what is racism?
Ijeoma Oluo (27:21):
So, and that is the fundamental question I'd say,
especially right now, thedefinition of racism I work with
is bias against people becauseof their racial identity, skin
color features.
That is backed up by systems ofpower, and the reason why I add
that and that's the part thatpeople often don't like is
(27:43):
because we're talking about theways in which it impacts
people's lives.
So when we're just talkingabout people who have bias
against people because of theirracial identity, we're talking
about feelings, right.
So we're talking about oh, youmade me sad, oh, you don't like
me.
Okay, you know what that mightruin your afternoon.
It's not gonna ruin your life.
When we're talking aboutsystems of power, we're talking
about a fear of you because yourskin color has been instilled
(28:07):
in me and now I can call thepolice and you might die, right,
and that is a very differentthing, and so the reason, the
thing that I always tell peopleif they have trouble with
sticking to this definition, iswhat is the problem you're
trying to solve?
Are you trying to solve hurtfeelings or are you trying to
save lives?
Because if you're trying tosave lives, then we need to
(28:28):
focus on these systemicallygenerated and supported biases.
Grantley Martelly (28:36):
That's part one of my conversation with
Ijeoma.
Join us next time as wecontinue discussions on what is
racism, what isintersectionality, what is
privilege and other topics.
Conversations are much moreproductive and we can become
more authentic when weunderstand the terms of what
(28:56):
we're discussing and things thatwe battle around many times,
and each person may be coming atit from a different direction.
Ijeoma does a masterful job inhelping us do that by providing
a beautifully organized manualfor anyone who wants to address
problems on race and racism.
It's a discussion worth having.
(29:17):
You can reach Ijeoma at Ijeoma@IjeomaOluo.
com, or you can send us an emailto abovethenoise24@ gmail.
com.
Remember to subscribe and leaveus a rating.
(29:42):
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.
Email us your comments atabovethenoise24@gmail.
com, abovethenoise24@gmail.
(30:03):
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Thank you for listening.
Please share this episode witha friend.
Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at
the intersection of faith, raceand reconciliation, and I'm your
host, Grantley Martelly.
My guest today is Ijeoma Oluo,a mom, writer, and speaker on
(00:31):
race and identity in America.
She is the author of the numberone New York Times bestseller,
"So You Want to Talk About Race,a book that I highly recommend
and which we'll be talking aboutin this episode, and, most
recently, "Mediocre thedangerous legacy of white male
America.
Among her many awards, Ijeomawas named to the 2021 Times 100
(00:54):
next list and has twice beennamed to the Route 100.
I'm excited about ourconversation today.
I had the privilege of meetingIjeoma and getting to know her a
little bit, and you will enjoythis conversation.
It will be very enlightening inits two parts.
I encourage you to enjoy it, toshare it with your friends,
(01:15):
because it will really help usbecome rooted in these
conversations that we have beentalking about faith, race, and
reconciliation and get us abetter understanding of what
these terms mean and how toapply them in our daily
conversations.
So, Ijeoma, welcome to theAbove The Noise podcast this
(01:36):
morning.
It is my pleasure to have youhere.
I am excited that I actuallyget to talk to you in person.
I've heard you speak and readyour books, but talking to you
in person to me is exciting.
I know my listeners are goingto be excited to hear what you
have to say because I've startedpromoting this episode already.
(01:56):
So thank you for joining me.
I know you're very busy and Iappreciate it.
Ijeoma Oluo (02:01):
Thank you, it's a real pleasure.
Grantley Martelly (02:03):
Thank you.
So let's begin by just tellingour audience who you are, where
you were born, how you grew upand those early years of your
life before you became aprofessional.
Ijeoma Oluo (02:16):
Sure, yeah, I'm Ijeoma Oluo and I am a writer
and speaker on the issues ofrace and identity in America,
and I was born in Denton, Texas.
My father was Nigerian, camehere for school and my mother is
a white lady from Kansas.
My brother likes to say we'rethis close to having the Obama
(02:40):
story, but neither of us endedup becoming president and
shortly after my brother wasborn and I was around two years
old, we moved to the Seattlearea.
My father went back to Nigeriaduring the coup in 1982 and
(03:01):
stayed there until he died, andI was raised in the Seattle area
with my brother and then latermy sister with my mom, and the
family we had here was mygrandparents and a few cousins,
and we grew up in a majoritywhite area.
(03:23):
Seattle is in general, but wegrew up in the north end, which
is even more so a very workingclass area, and we were
incredibly poor.
We didn't have electricity fora lot of our childhood, didn't
have a phone for most of thechildhood ate at soup kitchens.
(03:44):
We're homeless occasionally.
We kind of grew up with thisgeneral sense of otherness a lot
and then being the only blackperson in pretty much every
classroom I was in and usuallybeing the poorest of my
classmates, made me veryobservant.
(04:05):
You have to become really,really observant because you're
being treated differently andthe rules are different for you
and no one says anything in aplace like Seattle.
And so I kind of grew up havingto really watch and see what
was unspoken.
And it also made me veryoutspoken because I had to say
(04:26):
things that other people weren'tsaying, if I was going to get
to the bottom of things and if Iwas going to be able to survive
.
And so I was known from a youngage as the person that would
always say something.
But I loved school.
I didn't love my peers, Ididn't have very many friends.
I loved learning and so I wentto Running Start in middle
(04:50):
school I mean, sorry, in highschool, my junior and senior
year and that was a program thatallowed you to take free
college classes at the localcommunity colleges and not to
actually when academia and mypath, I think, kind of started
to open up for me.
I was taking a class in my highschool proper on European
(05:12):
History.
At the same time, I was takinga class in American Government
at the college and I wasimmediately able to see patterns
.
I was like, wait a minute,we're talking about something
that happened in Europeanhistory 150 years earlier and
I'm seeing the exact same thinghappening in my American
Government class now and Istarted to realize that people
(05:32):
are very predictable, especiallywhen it comes to systemic
issues, and there's a lot ofpower in understanding.
And we had been harmed a lot bynot understanding and I just
became fascinated.
I had always been kind ofpolitically minded, but that's
where I started to recognizelike there's real power in
understanding how systems workand that these systems have been
(05:53):
often weaponized against peopleand fell in love with that area
of study around high school.
Then, when I became an adult, Idid not go straight to college.
I had that neurodiverse I haveADHD burnout of graduation and
(06:15):
was going to take a year off.
And I took a year off and gotpregnant and had my son when I
was 20.
Then I went back to school at25.
I packed my son up and moved toBellingham and finished my
degree in political science.
That was actually a reallybeautiful time of my life, but
(06:39):
my day-to-day life was aboutworking and paying bills and not
being as broke as I was as akid and taking care of my family
.
I didn't start writing actually, until I was in my 30s.
I worked in tech, like so manyother people in the Seattle area
do, and it absolutely paid mybills, and then I realized that
(06:59):
I needed to try to give myselfmore than just survival in the
world, and that's really when Istarted writing.
Grantley Martelly (07:08):
Yeah, so that's good.
I appreciate the history andthe story there.
In your story about working intech, I think in your book, So
You Want To Talk about RAce" andalso in the last time that I
was in the audience hearing youspeak, you talked about some
experiences while working intechnology that were eye-opening
(07:31):
to you or things that causedyou to realize that your life
was going to go in a differentdirection.
You remember any of those?
You mind talking about one ortwo of those experiences?
Ijeoma Oluo (07:42):
Oh sure, I mean.
I think that we don't talkabout how toxic tech really can
be if you aren't a white man.
It's a space where we built inthe image of white men and I
entered into this space reallywith a mind that adapted well to
the work and immediatelyencountered a lot of real
(08:04):
systemic barriers.
You know, I'm a six-foot-tallfat black woman and I was
immediately coded as mean andangry, too opinionated, and
worked in spaces where peopleabsolutely loved what I had to
say because it was right, butalso didn't want me to say it,
and I would always be pulled infor planning and never for
(08:26):
presentation.
It was always that mix ofpeople felt, quote unquote,
intimidated by me and werealways surprised to find out
that I was funny or lightheartedor kind, cooperative, all of
these things.
They were always surprised bythat and time and time again I
(08:48):
found that I was eitherexceptionalized and weaponized
against other black employees orevery bit of progress I made it
was assumed it was some sort oflike a affirmative action
program, even though I alwayshad the work to back up every
promotion I fought for.
You know, I was always giving150%.
(09:09):
I was always the best performerin every space I was in and,
being a black woman, of course Ifaced regular sexual harassment
in these spaces as well and thekind of hypersexualization of
black women and lack of respectfor my bodily autonomy.
I've had managers touch my hairin meetings and ask if it was
(09:32):
real.
I've had people ask me, makereally horrific assumptions
about my parenting, about myparentage, and I'll assume that
my father was one of those quoteunquote stereotypical black
fathers who vanished and that'swhen you know went back to his
(09:54):
home country because of a warand died.
It was a regular reminder Iwasn't safe and I would start to
feel comfortable and thensomething would pop up and it
wouldn't be safe and I wasconstantly having to monitor
myself, monitor how peoplereceived me, monitor my
reputation and walk that linebetween not wanting to create
(10:16):
more stress and pain for myselfand having to defend myself from
things that may well end upgetting out of control and
harming my ability to do thework I wanted to do and to feed
my family.
Grantley Martelly (10:29):
It sounds so familiar.
I mean, you're talking aboutthat.
I have pictures running throughmy mind about similar
experiences and conversations.
And just when you think you'recomfortable, something pops up
that says, ah, you're just beingtolerated here, you know,
necessarily belong here, right?
(10:51):
My guest today is Ijeoma Oluo,the author of Mediocre: The
Dangerous Legacy of White MaleAmerica, and the one that we're
talking about today, the NewYork Times bestseller, So You
(11:11):
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You said something also that Iread in the book that I thought
(12:32):
was really interesting thatblack women are treated
differently in society and eventreated more different by other
black people than black men.
And could you talk a little bitmore about that, because I
thought that was reallyinteresting, how you came to
that realization and how itaffected how you had to shift,
(12:54):
how you moved through societybecause you were a black woman?
Ijeoma Oluo (12:58):
Yeah, I would say there are a few people in our
society less cared for and lessprotected than black women, and
that was something that wasalways really difficult for me
because, as trying to navigatethe world, we are absolutely
always expected to buildsolidarity with all black people
(13:20):
and to support black men, and Iwould gladly do so.
But time and time again in myprofessional life and honestly
now even in my activism work, Iwas repeatedly thrown under the
bus by black men.
If it would benefit them oringratiate them to white
(13:41):
supremacy, and we would see that.
We would see how my progresswas considered threatening If I
tried to address gender issues.
It was considered distractionfrom talking about how black
people were being treated.
I was told regularly, even inworkplaces and still in my
activism work, that the priorityis always about how black men
(14:01):
are being treated.
But the truth is that we sufferevery bit as much of racism in
our day-to-day lives.
The violence looks different,right, the violence of the state
comes upon us looks different,but we are also often the ones
left to hold everything together.
(14:21):
Right, when we talk aboutwhat's happening in our
communities, we're talking about.
Everyone talks about how blackwomen are most likely to be
college educated.
But when you talk about whatthat means, right?
?
?
Taking on that immense amountof debt, being less likely to
have family resources, beingmore likely to be caring for
multiple family members, and youhave to go to college, you have
(14:45):
no choice because you have tobe able to do these things we're
not necessarily talking aboutprivilege, right?
We're talking about this unequalburden that black women often
hold and are never appreciatedfor, and it's frustrating to
feel like no one has your back.
You have to hope that anotherblack woman who is just as
(15:06):
stressed and just as strained asyou are can come together with
you and we're like, we're sotired, and it's just something
I've encountered so many timesand I'm always shocked by people
who I know are so well read.
And I'll be talking to a blackman I've known for years and
he'll say well, you know what?
(15:27):
I don't really worry aboutblack women the way I worry
about black men, but we're dying.
We're dying in childbirth, weare being rapidly discriminated
against at work, we're beingsexually assaulted, we are
suffering from fibroids and allthese other health issues.
Grantley Martelly (15:45):
Having to raise your children and other
people's children.
Ijeoma Oluo (15:48):
Exactly, it is our sons that we send out into the
world and worry about and thatwe have to care for.
We are doing all of thesethings while also being at the
forefront of racial justicetheory, at the forefront of
movement work.
You know, caregiving for ourelders, you don't worry about us
(16:09):
.
Grantley Martelly (16:12):
Yeah, I have come to that.
I was raised by a single mom.
There were eight of us, fivesisters and two brothers, many
aunts and nieces.
I've got a very strong,powerful wife.
I've got a very strong,powerful daughter.
You remind me of her in manyways Very outspoken, very
brilliant, very articulate, andI've come to really appreciate
(16:38):
and start promoting the power ofwhat I call strong black women.
Strong black women, and I tellmany people, much of our society
today would not be intact asmany of the struggles we have,
it would not be as good as it isif it was not for the power and
the strength of strong blackwomen holding it together.
Ijeoma Oluo (17:01):
But we would love to not have to be.
Grantley Martelly (17:05):
I really want to say that that's what you
were saying in the book, right?
Yeah, you know I have to dothat, right, exactly, you know
because there is always asacrifice.
Ijeoma Oluo (17:13):
We have the same capacity as anyone else, right?
So often it's our own care, ourmental health, right?
Our own joy.
So many black women I knowdon't even know what their
talents are that give them joy,because everything they do has
been dictated by this.
And you know, I'm fortunateright now to be partnered with
someone who just creates spacefor me to rest and recoup, right
(17:35):
, who is so dedicated to mysupport.
But this is the first time inmy life I've ever had that and
what that has meant for me.
Like I can actually go totherapy now, I can actually work
on my mental health, I can workon my healing, I can develop my
skills and my hobbies in a waythat I have never been able to
do in my life, because I havethis little bit of safety, this
(17:57):
little bit of care where I canbe soft and I can cry and I can
be silly and I can do all ofthese things.
But often we are denied and so Ireally want people to recognize
, like, if you appreciate whatblack women do, you also have to
appreciate who they are and youhave to say what do I owe?
(18:18):
What is the obligation of that,because I do feel like often
people want to say black womenare good at it, so let's just
keep them doing it.
And what would all this talentbe?
You know, what would thistalent be if it didn't have to
constantly go into other peopleand correcting other people's
(18:41):
mistakes?
What would it be if we got togo into, you know, if we got to
invest it in ourselves and ourjoy?
You know, I think that would befar more beneficial to society.
In all honesty.
Grantley Martelly (18:52):
That's great.
I would love to continue thistopic, but I want to get us to.
So you came to this realizationfrom your working in tech that
you needed to do somethingdifferent.
You need to make a change inlife, a different trajectory.
Tell us about that and how youmade that change and how you
came to be doing what you'redoing currently.
Ijeoma Oluo (19:10):
Yeah, it was really organic.
Honestly, it was unexpected forme.
I was working in tech andactually just got a huge
promotion I had worked reallyhard for, and then Trayvon
Martin was murdered and thatreally was a turning point for
me.
I was absolutely devastated.
(19:32):
There's so many people in ourcommunity were, as a mom, as a
sister, as a black person I wascrying every day.
I was just.
It gutted me and I worked inthis space.
I was looking around at thisthing that was impacting so much
of my life and there was noreaction from the people around
me.
You're like, oh yeah, that'ssad, you know, and I was like we
(19:53):
need to talk about this,because I'm looking at this and
seeing how unsafe my childrenare, how unsafe my brother is,
how unsafe I am in this world,and people were getting upset
with me for saying we need totalk about this, and it was so
confusing for me.
In a way, I had known, on onelevel, of course, what it means
(20:15):
to navigate white spaces, butSeattle really loves to gaslight
you by saying we vote thisparticular way.
We all think these particularthings and, watching how hostile
this island was, I becamereally desperate.
Really desperate to find realconnection and to know that I
actually had community, to knowthat there were people in my
(20:37):
life invested in all of oursafety.
And I remember begging peoplelike, can we just have this
conversation?
And honestly, only two peoplein my life were willing to at
the time and they are stillfriends to this day.
I will love them till the daythat I die.
And so I started writing.
I was like, ok, if I can't findpeople here and then we want to
(20:59):
have this conversation, I'mgoing to start writing.
And so I started writing on myFacebook page.
I had a little food blog and Istarted writing in there and it
was really me pouring out mypain and pouring out this fear
and desperately trying to make aconnection.
It wasn't me going.
I'm a writer now and what endedup happening is, I think,
because it was so authentic, itwas so real, because I wasn't
(21:24):
trying to actually build a thing.
People connected immediately tohow honest I was being, and so
I started hearing from people.
And then I started hearing fromnewspapers.
I started hearing from New YorkTimes saying can we repost
these tweets that you put out?
And I was like, what do youmean?
You know, I had no idea.
(21:44):
Then people started asking meto just write my thoughts for
particular websites, so Istarted gingerly doing that and
it was really scary, but I justneeded to talk.
Then the real shift where Iknew I had to leave was I was
working in this particular spacethat was very toxic.
(22:05):
I was the only woman in mydepartment and I was the only
black person in my department.
Every day I was entering thisvery misogynistic space.
It was just pulling me apartand it was a space that didn't
require much of my intellect.
Then I had this space outsideof work where I was talking
(22:27):
honestly and having these reallyopen conversations, more open
than I've ever had in my life.
What I learned was you can'topen up that part of you and
then spend 10 hours a day in aspace where you have to shut it
back down.
I was suddenly feeling thethings I had been putting away.
People would say things to methat were racist or sexist and I
was like I can't believe.
(22:48):
I'm here, I just quit, and Ididn't have a plan.
I didn't have a job lined up.
I had just bought a house, Ithink six months earlier, and
being the first person in myfamily to own a home.
I just couldn't do it.
One day and I decided to trust.
I had spent a whole lifetimelearning how to survive and I
(23:11):
just had to trust I could.
I did and it was scary at first.
I almost lost my house.
I did lose my car, that did getrepossessed, and I was just
scrambling, hustling, writingessay after essay after essay
for $100 bucks here, $50 buckshere, and I built an audience to
(23:34):
the point where I got my bookdeal.
When I got my book deal, I paidfour months of back mortgage
payment.
I paid cash for a veryinexpensive car so I could get
around, and the rest is history.
I really dedicated myself.
(23:55):
I was like I have to make thiswork, I don't want to go back to
my cubicle.
I did and it was moresuccessful than I ever could
have dreamed and it has been anamazing adventure.
Grantley Martelly (24:07):
How did you arrive at the decision to write
the book?
So you want to talk about risk.
I know you talk a little bitabout your interaction with your
mom because, wow, how did youcome to that point that that's
the topic you wanted to write onthe first time.
Ijeoma Oluo (24:25):
Yeah, it actually wasn't the topic I wanted to
write on at first and it wasactually a suggestion of my
agent.
Because when my agentapproached me and said, have you
ever thought of writing a book,I said no.
Like I said I do have ADHD,right, so writing essays works
great for me.
I'm fired up a lot, somethingthat's all we can think about.
I'm going to write about itquickly, publish, done.
(24:47):
A book is a very different beast.
You're talking multiple yearsof being dedicated to the same
thing.
That's an ADHD nightmare, andso I didn't ever consider
writing a book, at least not inmy adult life.
As I was thinking about it, shesaid you know, I think you
should write something that'smore of like a guide around race
.
You know, she said, I'm such ahuge fan of your work.
(25:10):
I think you explain things in away that other people can
really understand and in a waythat's unique.
And I was like, oh, let methink about it.
And so once it was kind of inmy brain, what I started
noticing first of all was that Iwas still being asked to write
basically the same essay.
It's over and over, Over andover.
Something would happen relatedto race.
Can you write about this andI'm like, but you guys, this is
(25:30):
basically the same thing thathappened last week when I was
writing.
Like just different geography,Exactly exactly Different actors
, same script, you know.
And it was like you can tellthat even the people asking me
to write didn't have thatfoundational understanding of
the systems at play.
And I didn't want to begenerating outrage, I wanted
(25:54):
people to understand so that wecould do something.
And then I noticed how oftenpeople would email me privately
to admit that they just didn'thave this basic understanding,
you know, and they would be like, please don't tell anyone.
But do you know what privilegereally means?
Cause I don't, you know, and itwas obvious to me that people
(26:15):
were having these conversations,these arguments that were
stopping us from actually comingup with solutions and no one
really knew what they weretalking about and no one really
knew how to get past go.
And I was like, okay, you knowwhat?
So this is actually maybesomething I could do, and maybe
if I had this book that peoplecould have, I wouldn't have to
keep writing the same essay overand over again and maybe people
(26:36):
could have these realconversations that get past the
first initial sentences.
And so I sat down and I triedto think what are the things
that, what are the questions I'mgetting all the time and what
are the questions I wish I wouldget, and from that I kind of
came up with the chapter outlinefor the book and started
working my way through.
Grantley Martelly (26:57):
Which is a series of small chapters, like
writing essays, that you put alltogether.
At the end it's got back to youhow you thought right, I can be
with this at a time.
This and this and this yeah,each of them in that light,
let's talk about a few of thosethings that people don't seem to
understand right.
Let's begin with racism.
So what is racism?
Ijeoma Oluo (27:21):
So, and that is the fundamental question I'd say,
especially right now, thedefinition of racism I work with
is bias against people becauseof their racial identity, skin
color features.
That is backed up by systems ofpower, and the reason why I add
that and that's the part thatpeople often don't like is
(27:43):
because we're talking about theways in which it impacts
people's lives.
So when we're just talkingabout people who have bias
against people because of theirracial identity, we're talking
about feelings, right.
So we're talking about oh, youmade me sad, oh, you don't like
me.
Okay, you know what that mightruin your afternoon.
It's not gonna ruin your life.
When we're talking aboutsystems of power, we're talking
about a fear of you because yourskin color has been instilled
(28:07):
in me and now I can call thepolice and you might die, right,
and that is a very differentthing, and so the reason, the
thing that I always tell peopleif they have trouble with
sticking to this definition, iswhat is the problem you're
trying to solve?
Are you trying to solve hurtfeelings or are you trying to
save lives?
Because if you're trying tosave lives, then we need to
(28:28):
focus on these systemicallygenerated and supported biases.
Grantley Martelly (28:36):
That's part one of my conversation with
Ijeoma.
Join us next time as wecontinue discussions on what is
racism, what isintersectionality, what is
privilege and other topics.
Conversations are much moreproductive and we can become
more authentic when weunderstand the terms of what
(28:56):
we're discussing and things thatwe battle around many times,
and each person may be coming atit from a different direction.
Ijeoma does a masterful job inhelping us do that by providing
a beautifully organized manualfor anyone who wants to address
problems on race and racism.
It's a discussion worth having.
(29:17):
You can reach Ijeoma at Ijeoma@IjeomaOluo.
com, or you can send us an emailto abovethenoise24@ gmail.
com.
Remember to subscribe and leaveus a rating.
(29:42):
Ratings are very important tohelping our podcasts succeed in
the podcast universe and helpingit become known to other people
.
Email us your comments atabovethenoise24@gmail.
com, abovethenoise24@gmail.
(30:03):
com, and follow us on Instagramand Facebook at abovethenoise24.
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