19 must-read nonfiction books like Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Cover of Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

By: Ijeoma Oluo

4.41

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, a history of white…

"It's the expectations that many white men have that they shouldn't have to climb, shouldn't have to struggle, as others do. It's the idea not only that they think they have less than others, but that they were supposed to have so much more . When you are denied the power, the success, or even the relationships that you think are your right, you either believe that you are broken or you believe that you have been stolen from."

-Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

If you liked the nonfiction plot in Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo , here is a list of 19 books like this:

Cover of Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper

1. Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

By: Brittney Cooper

4.43

Format: None pages, Hardcover

Black women are often considered angry and divisive in their interactions with others in both publi… read more

Similar categories in Brittney Cooper's Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist

2. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By: Michelle Alexander

3.77

Format: None pages, Hardcover

"As the United States celebrates the nation's 'triumph over race' with the election of Barack Obama… read more

Similar categories in Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

3. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

By: Cornel West , Angela Y. Davis , Frank Barat

3.78

Format: None pages, Paperback

In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Ange… read more

Similar categories in Cornel West's Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Cover of Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

4. Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

By: Amanda Montell

4.29

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The word "bitch" conjures many images for many people but is most often meant to describe an unplea… read more

Similar categories in Amanda Montell's Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • history
  • feminism
  • gender
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
"Language pedantry is snobbery and snobbery is prejudice,"

-Amanda Montell, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

"One of the burdens of being a woman is the imperative to be nice."

-Amanda Montell, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

"Hitler wasn’t any less fascist because he could write a coherent sentence."

-Amanda Montell, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

"Anytime language reform happens, it has to happen in the context of social change,"

-Amanda Montell, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

Cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

5. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken ca… read more

Similar categories in Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"[Scapegoating] blames societal ills on the groups with the least power and the least say in how the country operates while allowing the larger framework and those who control and reap the dividends o…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny wha…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Cover of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

6. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

By: Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Format: 504 pages, Hardcover

An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Sou… read more

Similar categories in Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"Black people will always find each other in the passage between death and America"

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"And again we confront the problem of history: it's usually the powerful who get to write it."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"Z is for zealotry: national pride like an infinite zipline, hyperdrive, the fastest way down."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"There's dust, a scratch in a groove, and here we are repeating the same two seconds of "Strange Fruit."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Cover of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

7. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

By: Caroline Criado Pérez

4.35

Format: 448 pages, Hardcover

Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and… read more

Similar categories in Caroline Criado Pérez's Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • feminism
  • politics
  • gender
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"When planners fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default."

-Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

"It's not always easy to convince someone a need exists, if they don't have that need themselves."

-Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

"You don’t have to realise you’re being discriminated against to in fact be discriminated against."

-Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

"There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work."

-Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Cover of Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

8. Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond

4.27

Format: 284 pages, Hardcover

Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in Ameri… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

Cover of The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

9. The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

By: Amanda Montell

3.54

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blen… read more

Similar categories in Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • nonfiction
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"While magical thinking is an age-old quirk, overthinking feels distinct to the modern era—a product of our innate superstitions clashing with information overload, mass loneliness, and a capitalistic…"

-Amanda Montell, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

"Information transmission research suggests that folks with higher anxiety are quicker to engage with, and slower to disengage from, negative information; so "as a trait and state," anxiety itself per…"

-Amanda Montell, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

Cover of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

10. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

By: Amanda Montell

3.85

Format: 309 pages, Hardcover

The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultis… read more

Similar categories in Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • nonfiction
  • history
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"Without language, there are no "cults"."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"Some say people who join cults are “lost."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"With words, we breathe reality into being."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"The nimble direct sales industry always finds a way to reinvent itself - the capitalist cockroach that just won't stop reincarnating."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather  McGhee

11. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

By: Heather McGhee

4.63

Format: 415 pages, Hardcover

Heather McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the Am… read more

Similar categories in Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"They have to make Americans afraid of one another. They're exploiting fear in America to sell guns."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Ultimately, an economy, the rules we abide by and set for what's fair and who merits what, is an expression of our moral understanding."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Instead of being blind to race, color blindness makes people blind to racism, unwilling to acknowledge where its effects have shaped opportunity or to use race-conscious solutions to address it."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"It's often unconscious, but their perception of The Other as undeserving is so important to their perception of themselves as deserving that they'll tear apart the web that supports everyone, includi…"

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

Cover of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint   Smith

12. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith

4.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a… read more

Similar categories in Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia ,"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Jefferson believed himself to be a benevolent slave owner, but his moral ideals came second to, and were always entangled with, his own economic interests and the interests of his family."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"But not enough people spoke about the reasons so many black children grow up communities saturated with poverty and violence. Not enough people spoke about how these realities were the result of deci…"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Cover of Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

13. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

By: Mikki Kendall

4.37

Format: 267 pages, Hardcover

Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream femi… read more

Similar categories in Mikki Kendall's Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"Poverty is an apocalypse in slow motion, inexorable and generational."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"I tell you this story because sometimes the story of your life is the story of a lot of lives."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"Mainstream, white-centered feminism hasn't just failed women of color, it has failed white women."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"Ignoring the treatment of the most marginalized women doesn't set a standard that can protect any woman."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Cover of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

14. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017

By: Rashid Khalidi

4.50

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US … read more

Similar categories in Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
Cover of Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

15. Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

By: Ijeoma Oluo

4.41

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, a history of white… read more

Similar categories in Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • feminism
  • politics
  • gender
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"It's the expectations that many white men have that they shouldn't have to climb, shouldn't have to struggle, as others do. It's the idea not only that they think they have less than others, but that…"

-Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Cover of Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

16. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

By: Tricia Hersey

4.08

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitali… read more

Similar categories in Tricia Hersey's Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
Cover of Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business by Roxane Gay

17. Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business

By: Roxane Gay

4.01

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, “a strikingly fresh cultural critic” (Washington Po… read more

Similar categories in Roxane Gay's Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne

18. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

By: Kate Manne

4.21

Format: 269 pages, Kindle Edition

An urgent exploration of men’s entitlement and how it serves to police and punish women, from the a… read more

Similar categories in Kate Manne's Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • feminism
  • politics
  • gender
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"by] torture for the rest of their slutty lives."

-Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

"厌女症不应该被理解为一种对女性根深蒂固的强烈仇恨心理,而应该理解成父权制(patriarchy)在“执法"

-Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

"function. In my previous book, Down Girl, I argued that misogyny should not be understood as a monolithic, deep-seated psychological hatred of girls and women. Instead, it’s best conceptualized as th…"

-Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

"Studies show there is but one circumstance in which men’s and women’s household work will tend to approach parity: when she works full-time and he is unemployed. And even then, the operative word is …"

-Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

Cover of What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

19. What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

By: Aubrey Gordon

4.41

Format: 197 pages, Hardcover

From the creator of Your Fat Friend, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias faci… read more

Similar categories in Aubrey Gordon's What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • sociology
  • audiobook
Cover of White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

20. White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

By: Ruby Hamad

4.56

Format: 284 pages, Paperback

This explosive book of history and cultural criticism argues that white feminism has been a weapon … read more

Similar categories in Ruby Hamad's White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • history
  • feminism
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • sociology
  • audiobook
"This weaponization of White Womanhood continues to be the centerpiece of an arsenal used to maintain the status quo and punish anyone who dares challenge it."

-Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

"White women can oscillate between their gender and their race, between being the oppressed and the oppressor. Women of color are never permitted to exist outside of these constraints: we are both wom…"

-Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

"Yes, it is true women of color have been the targets of a setup of monumental proportions, something that amounts to nothing short of a covert war against us. But it is also true that these attacks a…"

-Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

Cover of Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett

21. Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

By: Michael Bennett

4.22

Format: 220 pages, Hardcover

Super Bowl Champion and three-time Pro Bowler Michael Bennett is an outspoken proponent for social … read more

Similar categories in Michael Bennett's Things That Make White People Uncomfortable book and Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

  • race
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"At this point, I think if you’re being silent, you’re making a choice and taking a side."

-Michael Bennett, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

"Don’t feel guilty. Do something to make it better. Help us heal by standing—or sitting—alongside us."

-Michael Bennett, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

"Remember what John Carlos said: “There is no partial commitment to justice. You are either in or you’re out."

-Michael Bennett, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

"In that moment I saw the part of the man that makes me feel pity: he has no ability to walk in other people’s shoes, to see the world from another perspective, from Puerto Rico to the NFL."

-Michael Bennett, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

17 must-read audiobook books like Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Transform Your Habits

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Transform Your Habits

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Transform Your Habits

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Caroline Criado Pérez

4.35

Transform Your Habits

Poverty, by America

Matthew Desmond

4.27

View all the books

17 Top audiobook books like Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

Transform Your Habits

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Transform Your Habits

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Transform Your Habits

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

4.67

Transform Your Habits

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

Michael Harriot

4.59

View all the books

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