Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in So You Want to Talk About Race, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Privilege, and White Supremacy
Confronting Racial Pain
Intersectionality, Oppression, and Social Justice
Cultural Appropriation
Summary
Analysis
Oluo recalls a dinner with colleagues in a theater group, during which a white theater director gets tipsy and keeps using the word “nigger.” The performers respond by asking the theater director to undergo “racial justice and awareness training.” Instead of accepting their request, the director begs Oluo to sit down and explain where he went wrong. Oluo’s frustrated. She doesn’t want to sit down and chat with the director—she wants him to take action and make a change himself. Oluo explains that while some people are scared to talk about race, others use talking as an excuse to avoid taking action. She believes that many people think having a deep and meaningful conversation is the end, not the beginning of the work that needs to be done.
So far, Oluo has focused on encouraging people to have—rather than avoid—difficult conversations about racism. Now, she turns to a slightly different problem. Lots of people (such as the theater director who uses the n-word, a racist slur, in this anecdote) prefer to talk because it’s easier than taking action. Oluo thinks this is problematic for two reasons: first, the director places an extra burden on Oluo by demanding her time and labor rather than doing something about the situation himself. Second, people who put too much emphasis on talking can become complacent about the real goal, which is to take action and bring about change.
Themes
Oluo remembers another time when she’s asked to give a speech at a feminist protest because they don’t have any women of color involved. She declines the invitation because it’s uncompensated, and she finds that exploitative. Afterward, a white woman contacts Oluo and wants Oluo to take extra time and explain the issue to her (without offering to compensate Oluo for her time). Oluo says that she’s constantly approached by people who seek her time because they want to become more educated. Oluo thinks that “they want to feel better but they don’t want to do better.”
Oluo explains that there is an emotional cost—in time and labor—to people of color when they talk about racism, which is problematic. Here, she goes even further to argue that demanding people of color’s time to educate more privileged people isn’t only burdensome, it’s active exploitation—such people are effectively demanding free labor from disenfranchised people so that they can “feel better” themselves.
Themes
Oluo acknowledges that people can’t understand racial oppression without talking about it, but she also thinks understanding isn’t the ultimate goal—action is. Many people talk about global warming, but talk alone won’t stop the planet from getting warmer. She implores her readers to talk, but also to act, and she offers some suggestions.
Oluo uses the example of global warming to show that talk alone won’t make a change. She explains that the point of talking isn’t to increase people’s understanding, it’s to change a system that’s oppressive.
Themes
Oluo suggests voting in local elections for candidates who prioritize racial justice, police reform, increasing diversity in political representation, and increasing minimum wage. She also suggests asking schools for more diverse curricula, bearing witness to police brutality, speaking up about racial issues in union meetings, supporting businesses and cultural programs owned or run by people of color, giving money to organizations that fight for social justice (such as the ACLU and Planned Parenthood), and boycotting businesses that exploit people of color.
Oluo has argued that the reason why systemic oppression exists in the first place is because it helps the people at the top gain more money and power at the expense of others. Here, she suggests that changing that flow of money (by spending in ways that support disenfranchised people) can help to even the score. Similarly, boycotting expenditure on places that engage in cultural appropriation, or pushing for more diverse representation in arts, media, and schools, limits the power of white supremacy in those avenues. Oluo also advises supporting organizations that help disenfranchised women and fighting for legislation that reduces poverty to remind the reader that social justice is an intersectional issue—it demands challenging other sources of oppression like sexism and classism as well.
Themes
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Oluo knows that dismantling systemic racism seems like a “huge” and “insurmountable” task, but she argues that it isn’t. She says that everybody in society is part of the system—every time they vote, spend their money, and call out racist behavior—they are pulling levers of the system. Oluo recalls a 2016 situation in which a cop killed a black man but wasn’t prosecuted. Many people commented on social media about their outrage. Oluo, instead, urged people not to reelect the district attorney who refused to prosecute the cop.
Oluo reminds her readers that although systemic racism is pervasive, the system only has power when people act in ways that support it. For example, every time somebody votes for a political official who challenges the status-quo, they take a little bit of power away from the system, and they weaken its ability to oppress people of color.
Themes
Recalling another local election, Oluo says that the 2015 defeat of Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez (who notoriously refused to charge several officers who killed people of color) sends a message to prosecutors everywhere that they can’t afford to cover up police corruption. Oluo admits that some of these efforts end in defeat, and the wins are small—but they add up, especially when people keep trying. Oluo concludes that the road is long, but people are taking steps, bit by bit, to weaken the oppressive system. She urges people to talk and to act, and she closes with a word of encouragement, saying that together, we can make a change.
Oluo uses Anita Alvarez’s defeat to show that every small change—such as removing one corrupt person from office—makes people in power realize that they can’t stay in power if people stop voting for them. Effectively, Oluo concludes that even though U.S. society’s institutions (like politics, media, and education) control Americans, Americans also control these institutions—through their votes and their spending. Thus, voting and spending in ways that support people of color is the most effective way to combat systemic racism.
Themes
