
Mediocre
The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
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Narrated by:
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Ijeoma Oluo
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By:
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Ijeoma Oluo
About this listen
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, an “illuminating” (New York Times Book Review) history of white male identity.
What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments?
Through the last 150 years of American history—from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics—Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.
As provocative as it is essential, this book will upend everything you thought you knew about American identity and offers a bold new vision of American greatness.
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Critic reviews
"Ripped, tragically, from yet another and another and another set of headlines, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America breaks ground and forces a bold, startling, and necessary conversation about the implications of institutional supremacy, and its crushing impact on people of color and women." (Patrisse Khan Cullors, cofounder, Black Lives Matter, New York Times best-selling author of When They Call You a Terrorist, joint recipient of The Sydney Peace Prize)
"Once again, Ijeoma Oluo uses her elegant voice to speak directly to the root issues at the core of the United States' seeming inability to reconcile who we have been with who we had hoped to be. This book goes beyond how we got here, and digs into where we are, what we're going to do about it, and what's at stake if the people with the most power refuse to do better." (Ashley C. Ford, writer)
"Oluo is one of our great voices and Mediocre not only educates us, but it inspires us all to act and change the world for the better. But first, I need to read this book again. It's just that damn good." (Phoebe Robinson, New York Times best-selling author of You Can't Touch My Hair)
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Story
With Be A Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too, Oluo aims to show how people across America are working to create real positive change in our structures. Looking at many of our most powerful systems—like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more—she highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity.
By: Ijeoma Oluo
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White Feminism
- From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind
- By: Koa Beck
- Narrated by: Koa Beck
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Addressing today’s conversation about race, empowerment, and inclusion in America, Koa Beck, writer and former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragists to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. She also examines overlooked communities - including Native American, Muslim, transgender, and more - and their ongoing struggles for social change.
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Visionary!
- By J. F. Beck on 01-06-21
By: Koa Beck
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The Situation Room
- The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis
- By: George Stephanopoulos, Lisa Dickey - contributor
- Narrated by: George Stephanopoulos, Peter Ganim, Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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George Stephanopoulos, the legendary political news host and former advisor to President Clinton, recounts the history-making crises from the place where twelve presidents made their highest-pressure decisions: the White House Situation Room.
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A must read for all no matter your politics
- By Lynne on 05-21-24
By: George Stephanopoulos, and others
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Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
- By: Reni Eddo-Lodge
- Narrated by: Reni Eddo-Lodge
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In February 2014, Reni Eddo-Lodge posted an impassioned argument on her blog about her deep-seated frustration with the way discussions of race and racism in Britain were constantly being shut down by those who weren't affected by it. She gave the post the title 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race'. Her sharp, fiercely intelligent words hit a nerve, and the post went viral, spawning a huge number of comments from people desperate to speak up about their own similar experiences.
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In truth, I don't have THAT particular privilege
- By Buretto on 03-08-18
By: Reni Eddo-Lodge
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The Wife Drought
- By: Annabel Crabb
- Narrated by: Annabel Crabb
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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'I need a wife'. It's a common joke among women juggling work and family, but it's no joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a godsend on the domestic front and an asset on the work front and is an advantage enjoyed by vastly more men than women. Full of candid and funny stories from politics and the media, The Wife Drought shares intriguing research about the attitudes pulsing beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.
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Honest balanced and practical discussion of gender issues in politics.
- By Barry J. Marshall on 01-20-17
By: Annabel Crabb
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Read This to Get Smarter
- About Race, Class, Gender, Disability, and More
- By: Blair Imani
- Narrated by: Blair Imani
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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An approachable guide to being an informed, compassionate, and socially conscious person today - from discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to disability, class, and beyond - from critically acclaimed historian, educator, and author Blair Imani.
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Top Tier
- By Lashauna Lumsden on 10-24-23
By: Blair Imani
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Lies My Teacher Told Me, 2nd Edition
- By: Dr. James Loewen
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should - and could - be taught to American students.
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Brent
- By Brent on 07-23-20
By: Dr. James Loewen
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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
- Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
- By: Angela Y. Davis
- Narrated by: Angela Davis, Coleen Marlo
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of Black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles - from the Black freedom movement to the South African antiapartheid movement.
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Injustice anywhere is Injustice everywhere
- By Jarucia Jaycox on 05-05-17
By: Angela Y. Davis
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The Trouble with White Women
- A Counterhistory of Feminism
- By: Kyla Schuller, Brittney Cooper - foreword
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Mela Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their White feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves. In The Trouble with White Women, Schuller brings to life the 200-year counter-history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against White feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice.
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Excellent read!
- By A. Robertson on 11-30-21
By: Kyla Schuller, and others
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Mutual Aid
- Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
- By: Dean Spade
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout.
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abridge this for audio format
- By Jeff M. on 02-17-22
By: Dean Spade
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
- By Christopher on 01-19-17
By: Charles C. Mann
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Hitler's American Model
- The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
- By: James Q. Whitman
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime.
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Did not we suspect this?
- By dessa on 11-04-18
By: James Q. Whitman
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How We Can Win
- Race, History and Changing the Money Game That’s Rigged
- By: Kimberly Jones
- Narrated by: Kimberly Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In How We Can Win, Jones delves into the impacts of systemic racism and reveals how her formative years in Chicago gave birth to a lifelong devotion to justice. Here, in a vital expansion of her declaration, she calls for Reconstruction 2.0, a multilayered plan to reclaim economic and social restitutions - those restitutions promised with emancipation but blocked, again and again, for more than 150 years. And, most of all, Jones delivers strategies for how we can effect change as citizens and allies while nurturing ourselves in the fight against a system that is still rigged.
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Valid points made, but contradictory as well...
- By Julian C. Young on 01-28-22
By: Kimberly Jones
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How to Hide an Empire
- A History of the Greater United States
- By: Daniel Immerwahr
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.
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How to beat a straw man to death
- By Susan on 01-25-20
By: Daniel Immerwahr
Do yourself a favor and read this book!
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amazing writing amazing talent.
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I will encourage everyone I know to read/ listen to this.
the system works as designed
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The book we need right now
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powerful! an absolute must read
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Masterpiece
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Excellent perspective!
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A Much Needed Read for All
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I believe what Oluo puts forth is bitter medicine - not only for white men to hear (particularly when their spirit is seized in the clutches of such despair and self-loathing)...but also in regard to the role that patriarchy plays in the perpetuation of violence and domination among all men (speaking as one) - in relation to ourselves, each other and everybody else.
Kudos Ijeoma...I salute your willingness to be so courageous, thoughtful and vulnerable in writing such an important book.
A heartfelt plea...
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Finished White Fragility ? Expand the with this...
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