Book SummarySo You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of So You Want to Talk About Race

Self-described “writer, speaker and internet yeller” Ijeoma Oluo worked for many years in the tech industry, where she was often the only black person in the room. She wrote So You Want to Talk About Race as a handbook for people who want to have productive conversations about race in the United States. So You Want to Talk About Race (2018) was Oluo’s first book, followed in 2020 by Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America.

A skilled public speaker, Oluo has appeared on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah and The Opposition With Jordan Klepper. She’s also given a number of talks, including a 2018 presentation at Google (which has been coming to terms with its own race problem) and a conversation with Roxane Gay in which they both talk about their work.

Why We Haven’t Been Talking About Race

As Oluo notes, one of the main problems in talking about race is that people are afraid to do it. People of color are nervous about having their experiences minimized or dismissed. They’re wary of knee-jerk defensiveness and exhausted from dredging up their trauma to explain the same things over and over again. White people are often afraid of hurting or offending their conversation partner. They’re fearful of being called racist, and they’re unaccustomed to the feelings of discomfort that arise when they confront the ways in which their own privilege comes at the expense of others.

It’s good to be cautious when approaching this topic, but if we avoid talking about race entirely, we won’t get anywhere. If we fail to talk about the system by which millions of people are disenfranchised, hurt, locked up, and even killed every day, we’re complicit in that system. (Shortform note: Derald Wing Sue refers to this as “the conspiracy of silence.”)

Words can bring unconscious patterns out of the dark so that we can examine them, understand them, and disentangle them. With clearer definitions, we can be more precise in describing the problems, making it easier to find solutions.

Difficult Conversations: Why They’re Difficult

As Oluo notes, conversations about race are almost always difficult. In Difficult Conversations, Douglas Stone suggests that this is because any difficult conversation contains three main sub-conversations, more than one of which is usually active at any given time.

• The What Happened Conversation, in which we’re focused on trying to work out who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s the victim, and whose fault the problem is.

• The Feelings Conversation, in which we either over-focus on our own feelings or manage them badly.

• The Identity Conversation, in which protecting our own self-image as competent, moral, and worthy of love becomes our top priority.

It can be challenging to juggle all three sub-conversations at once.

Key Terminology

The first thing we need to do is get our terms straight. If we don’t do that, we risk talking at cross purposes and getting nowhere.

What Is Racism?

Is race even real? No. As Oluo notes, the concept of race has no scientific basis. (Shortform note: As discussed in this Scientific American article, genes can be used in a limited way to identify people’s place of geographical origins, but they don’t map well onto the physical characteristics we associate with race.)

But race is very much a social reality, in that our ideas about race have real social effects, and these social effects translate into material differences in how people in certain groups are allowed to live their lives. Even though race is a fiction, it’s a fiction that shapes many, many people’s realities. And it won’t magically go away if you suddenly decide you don’t believe in it.

(Shortform note: Consider national borders. They’re based on human invention, too—the land on one side of a border isn’t inherently different to the land on the other side. But, even so, the country you happen to be born in has a significant impact on how your life plays out. In this way, an imaginary line dictates the physical realities of our lives.)

When people talk about racism, they’re usually drawing on one of two definitions:

1. Racism is bias against a person or group based on their race.

2. Racism is bias against a person or group based on their race, in the context of power structures that support this bias.

(Shortform note: The Merriam-Webster dictionary makes the same distinction: It presents two definitions of the word “racism,” the first describing individual prejudices and the second describing systemic social oppression.)

If you’re working from the first definition, it makes sense to talk about “reverse racism” and prejudice against whites and to see affirmative action as unfair. If you’re working from the second definition, you understand that “reverse racism” can’t rationally exist and that affirmative action is designed to redress a historical imbalance. If you want to truly engage with issues of race and spark real progress, Oluo recommends that you use the second...

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Shortform Introduction

So You Want to Talk About Race is a handbook for people who want to have productive conversations about race in the United States. Author Ijeoma Oluo weaves together three conceptual strands: first, the important background information that people should know before embarking on a conversation about race; second, Oluo’s own experiences with the issues she describes; and third, practical advice about what to do in certain situations (for example, if the other person doesn’t want to talk, if you accidentally say something offensive, or if you get called racist).

The book is for anyone who wants to improve how they talk about race and includes advice for people of color as well as for white people.

About the Author

Self-described “writer, speaker and internet yeller” Ijeoma Oluo is a Nigerian-American writer with a background in political science. She was born in the United States to a white mother and a Nigerian father. She married early and had two children, completed her college degree as a working single mother, and worked her way up the ladder in the white-dominated Seattle tech industry.

After some time writing for online...

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Introduction: The Power of Words

As Oluo notes, if you’ve picked up her book, it’s because you want to learn how to have more productive, more empathetic, more useful conversations about race. You believe in the power of words to change things. But you may feel hesitant about having the conversation.

According to Oluo, one of the main problems in talking about race is that people are afraid to do it. It’s good to be cautious when approaching this topic. But, Oluo argues, if we avoid talking about race entirely, we won’t get anywhere. If we fail to talk about the system by which millions of people are disenfranchised, hurt, locked up, and killed every day, we are complicit in that system. (Shortform note: Psychology professor Derald Wing Sue refers to this avoidance as “the conspiracy of silence.”)

Conversations are powerful. Words can bring unconscious patterns out of the dark so that we can examine them, understand them, and disentangle them. Talking about things helps us to see them more clearly. And the more clearly we can see the problems, the...

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 1: Foundations

To avoid misunderstandings, the first order of business is to make sure that we’re all talking about the same thing.

Sometimes we can reach an impasse just because people are using the same word in different ways. For example, what happens if you and the other person mean different things when you say the word “racism”? Or if someone doesn’t know the meaning of a word, such as “intersectionality,” and that gets in the way of their understanding of key issues? If we start without a good understanding of important terms, we’ll end up talking at cross purposes and getting frustrated.

(Shortform note: In How to Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi adds that definitions are important not only to get everyone on the same page, but also because slippery definitions can be easily manipulated to make oneself appear virtuous or to silence conversational partners.)

So in this chapter, we’ll look more closely at the meaning of “racism” and “systemic racism.” In the next chapter, we’ll clarify the meanings of some other important terms you’ll need when...

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 2: Privilege, Intersectionality, and the Model Minority Myth

In this chapter we’ll look at some commonly misunderstood terms that come up often in conversations about race: “privilege,” “intersectionality,” and the “model minority myth.”

What Is Privilege?

The White Supremacist system is built on privilege. Privilege is a situation in which one person or group has advantages that another doesn’t. These advantages are unfairly distributed to begin with. As Oluo explains, if you have privilege, even if you worked very hard to get where you are, your successes are greater than those of someone who began without these privileges. (Shortform note: Scholar Peggy McIntosh likens privilege to an “invisible knapsack” of useful tools that privileged people carry through life.)

Privilege and disadvantage are relative concepts, so they’re two sides of the same coin. We can also talk about privilege as an “opportunity gap.” It doesn’t only apply to race—privilege is also relevant to disability, sexuality, neurotypicality, physical...

Shortform Exercise: Explore Intersectionality

Examine how intersectionality works in your own life.

Write down a list of all of the social descriptors you can think of that might apply to you (for example white, Hispanic, neurotypical, Hindu, thin, working class, and so on.)

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 3: Seeking a Deeper Understanding

Once we’ve settled on a common language for talking about race, we need to step back and examine how these principles operate in real time.

There are four things we need to examine more closely.

• First, we need to be able to track how our repeated experiences solidify into beliefs about how the world works, and understand that different experiences can lead to different understandings of the world.
• Second, we need to dissect our own perspectives, being honest with ourselves about where they’re limited or faulty.
• Third, we need to learn to quiet our own experiences, set aside our filters, and listen with openness and humility to the experiences of others.
• And finally, we need to understand why not all hurtful words are the same.

Understand that Different Experiences Shape Different Perceptions

Based on our past experiences—especially on repeated or very intense experiences—we make predictions about what to expect in the future. These predictions inform our worldview.

Let’s take the police as an example. **As Oluo notes, if you’re a white person, [chances are that most of your encounters with the police have been...

Shortform Exercise: How Do You React to the Word “Racist”?

Think about some reactions you’ve experienced to the word “racist.”

Think about a time when something you’ve done was called racist. (If you can’t think of one, think of a time when you’ve called someone else out for racist behavior or have seen this happen to someone else.) Describe what happened.

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 4: Connecting the Past and the Present

Our current system of racial inequality didn’t come out of nowhere. We inherit ways of acting and ways of talking that are powerful and often subconscious. (Shortform note: As James Baldwin wrote in 1965, “the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”)

In this chapter, you’ll see how the history of race in the United States continues to shape its current realities. History is still here, embedded in current behavior patterns. How did this White Supremacist system come to be? Who designed it? Who benefits?

The History of Race Relations in the United States

The original function of White Supremacist beliefs wasn’t to make white people feel good. As Oluo points out, it was to justify an economic system built on the theft of indigenous land, the genocide of indigenous peoples, and the practice of chattel slavery (slavery systems in which some people are the personal property of others).

**The goal of all of this was profit for White America...

Shortform Exercise: Consider the Role of History in Current Oppression

Think more about the role of racist history in today’s patterns of inequality.

The historical events and processes that you read about in this chapter are by no means exhaustive. Can you think of another racially charged historical event or situation that wasn’t mentioned?

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 5: Connecting the Present and the Future

Today’s children of color are tomorrow’s adults of color. That means that any race-based disadvantage they’re facing now will follow them all their lives. This chapter looks at how children of color are affected by systemic racism.

Disadvantage Throughout School

As Oluo points out, the opportunity gap between white students and students of color begins to open up even before they start school. On average, children of color are born into households with fewer resources (for food, internet, and books). They also live in areas with underfunded schools. (Shortform note: Children of color make up 73% of the 11.9 million children currently living in poverty, and The Century Institute calculates that the school funding deficit amounts to over $5,000 per student per year.)

There’s an intergenerational effect of incarceration: Five-year-old boys whose fathers went to jail for the first time when the child was between one and five are [less likely to be judged...

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 6: Connecting the Small to the Systemic

In Chapter 1, we saw that racism is systemic, and examined how its smaller and seemingly more harmless manifestations are linked at the deepest level to the most aggressive and damaging ones. In this chapter, we’ll look in more detail at why racist incidents are not isolated events.

We’ll look at microaggressions, including tone policing, and cultural appropriation to peer beneath the surface of things that may look trivial at first glance.

What Are Microaggressions?

Microaggressions are subtle acts of psychological violence against a person because they belong to a marginalized group. Microaggressions can be directed toward any group (can be racist, sexist, transphobic, and so on), but in this guide we’re specifically talking about racist microaggressions.

Microaggressions can appear harmless on the surface, which makes it easy to deny responsibility or say that someone is overreacting. (Shortform note: In fact, this ambiguity makes things even more stressful for people of color. One 2012 study showed that interacting with a white person who showed subtle racial bias impaired the cognitive functioning...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Microaggressions

Examine the belief structures hidden in microaggressions.

Most of us have done things or made comments that we thought were innocent, only to find out later that they were offensive. Describe a time that this happened to you. (Perhaps the person on the receiving end let you know that the comment was inappropriate, or perhaps you only found out by reading this book or seeing information elsewhere.)

Shortform Exercise: Think About Cultural Appropriation in Your Own Life

Identify some ways in which you might be participating in cultural appropriation.

What activities do you participate in, items of clothing do you wear, and/or music do you listen to that originated in a non-white culture?

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 7: How to Have the Conversation

Now, with the foundations of racism clear and an understanding of the types of higher-level connections we need to look for, let’s look at how to have a conversation about race.

Oluo weaves advice for talking about race throughout the book. We’ve synthesized the key themes and elaborated on them to create a practical how-to guide for having these conversations. Here are the practical nuts and bolts.

Before the Conversation

Before the conversation starts, do your homework:

• If you’re a white person in conversation with a person of color, don’t rely on them to explain things you could easily find out for yourself. As Oluo comments, the other person is not your human Google.
• If you’re a person of color, consider looking for some statistics to support your points.

(Shortform note: If you’re a white person not sure where to start, there are various sites and articles that can help you educate yourself. They provide resources including:

• Articles (such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The Case for Reparations”)
• Books...

Shortform Exercise: Pick a Conversation

Decide what conversation you’re going to have first.

What area of racial justice would you like to talk about first? (You could pick an area that you already know quite a bit about, to build confidence, or one that you know little about, to maximize your learning.)

So You Want to Talk About Race Summary Chapter 8: Beyond the Conversation

Oluo acknowledges that it’s easy to get hooked on the good feeling that comes with having successful conversations about race. But she recommends that you don’t get trapped in a feel-good cycle of saying the right things and doing nothing. It’s what we do after we have the conversations that matters.

Oluo argues that there are many ways you can put your new understanding into action in the political, educational, economic, workplace, and personal spheres. Pick whichever of these suggestions resonate best with you:

Political Actions

Oluo suggests that you:

Vote. And not just in big elections: Vote on school boards, local elections, and so on. Local politics is often where the real change happens.

• Bother politicians before elections. Ask to see their policies on racial equality.
• Vote for candidates of color.
• Support racially inclusive and just policy platforms.
• Become involved in the campaigns of candidates of color.

Vocally support increasing the minimum wage. Proportionately more people of color work in minimum-wage jobs, so increasing the minimum wage will benefit more people of color.

Support affirmative action. Ever since...

Shortform Exercise: Go Beyond the Conversation

Think about ways you can put your new understanding into practice.

You can take action in the political, economic, educational, workplace, and personal spheres. Pick two of these categories and list some specific things you could do in these categories.