So You Want to Talk About Race

Oluo’s book is an introduction to race and racial oppression in America. The language is simple, and the author’s use of personal anecdotes serves to draw in non-specialists. Despite this accessible and engaging approach, however, Oluo does not shy away from challenging concepts. Chapter 5, which focuses on intersectionality, is a prime example. Crenshaw coined the term in the late 1980s, but White, middle-class feminists were slow to adopt it. By and large, feminist writings from the 1990s fail to consider the experiences and identities of minority women. As a result, the term intersectionality remained conspicuously absent from feminist discourse until the 2000s.

Oluo not only provides a clear definition of intersectionality, but also uses her life experiences to explain the concept to novice readers. She describes receiving virulent backlash after criticizing a prominent Black singer accused of sexually abusing Black women and teenage girls on Twitter. Trolls (mostly Black men) accused Oluo of hating men of color, with some going so far as to align her with White oppressors. The singer’s defenders gave little or no thought to his Black female victims. In other words, their idea of blackness excluded women. Put another way, the only blackness worthy of defending was male. As Oluo notes, her identity, like everyone else’s, comprises a multitude of interrelated parts that are impossible to untangle:

I am not capable of cutting myself to pieces. I’m not capable of cutting away my blackness in order to support feminism that views the needs of women of color as divisive inconveniences. I’m not capable of cutting away womanhood in order to stand by black men who prey on black women (74).

Intersectionality is now regularly referred to by academics and social justice advocates, but many outside these specialized circles have never heard the term. In addition to defining intersectionality and providing concrete examples of how it operates, Oluo cites ways readers can raise awareness of the concept in their discussions of race. She cautions that unknown words can put people on the defensive and thus recommends starting with real-life examples about how conversations can be more intersectional. Oluo also suggests framing the concept in positive terms, arguing that intersectionality “is more easily understood when viewed as an opportunity to do better and do more, instead of just an examination of the ways in which these efforts are failing” (80).

In addition to introducing new, difficult terms, Oluo prompts readers to reconsider deeply held beliefs. In Chapter 6, for instance, she posits that America’s police forces do not serve all citizens equally. In fact, police forces serve vastly different functions depending on race. Oluo cites statistics to support her claims: Black drivers are 23% more likely to be pulled over by police than White drivers. Furthermore, they are five times more likely to be searched during traffic stops, despite the fact that they are less likely to be carrying contraband. Black drivers are also far more likely to be ticketed, arrested, and killed during these stops. Native Americans face similar discrimination, in addition to systemic abuse and dehumanization. A 2016 review showed that Oakland police officers handcuffed 1,466 Black people during traffic stops in a 13-month period, while handcuffing only 72 White people. A 2016 study by the Center for Policing Equity revealed that Black people were four times more likely to be subjected to police brutality than White people, including force by hand, pepper spray, taser, and gun.

What these statistics demonstrate is that Black people are both disproportionately targeted for stops by police and subject to more police violence during these encounters. People of color know that they are criminalized more often than White people and that police officers will face few, if any, consequences for using unjustified force against them. Police officers also know this, thus perpetuating the violence. Oluo’s aim is not to make White people fear the police, but rather to join Black people in demanding that police treat all citizens equally, including people of color.

Chapter 8 raises another concept readers may find new and troubling: the school-to-prison pipeline. Oluo lays out sobering statistics. Black students make up approximately 16% of the student population, yet they comprise 31% of suspensions and 40% of expulsions. Moreover, Black students are three-and-a-half times more likely to be suspended than their White classmates. Further, they make up 70% of in-school arrests and police referrals. Studies reveal that these harsh punishments impact more than academics:

Psychologists attest that overly harsh discipline destroys children’s trust in teachers and schools, along with damaging their self-esteem. Students suspended from school are more likely to have to repeat that entire year, or they may choose to drop out entirely. Students arrested at school are more likely to be arrested again in the future (125).

Systemic racism in schools, then, sets children of color down a negative path, one that often results in run-ins with police as adults. Law enforcement agencies, like schools, are also biased institutions, a fact borne out by statistics. One in three Black men go to prison in their lifetimes. For Latino men, the number is one in six. Women of color are also incarcerated at higher levels than their White counterparts. The mass incarceration of people of color devastates communities, breaks apart families, and deprives them of income, dignity, and freedom. As troubling as these statistics are, it is the cyclical aspect of the school-to-prison pipeline that makes the situation all the more urgent: “[Y]oung boys whose fathers have served jail time are more likely to be deemed emotionally ‘unready’ for school, repeating the cycle of trouble and disproportionate discipline in their classrooms” (125). Ending the mass incarceration of Black men, then, demands changing how Black children are policed in schools.