Summary: Chapters 12–14

Ijeoma Oluo begins Chapter 12, “What are microaggressions?” with a story about lipstick. A schoolmate, Jennifer, told her she’d look like a clown with red lipstick because of her lips. The size of her lips, the poufiness of her hair, her body shape, and her “loud” voice were all things that people commented on, and these comments were constant reminders that she was different from other students. A similar thing happened when she and other students were talking about college. Another student observed that as a Black student, she didn’t need to try hard to get college acceptances, suggesting that it was easier to get into college if you’re Black. This, too, made her feel like she didn’t belong. They also made her feel she had problems, not that the comments were problematic. She contrasts these experiences among her mostly white school peers with an experience going to a scholarship conference for students of color and describes the experience of not being shamed for her body shape, voice, or name.

She explains that microaggressions are similar to the constant critiquing of a passive-aggressive parent, except it comes from the whole world. Microaggressions are “small daily insults and indignities perpetrated against marginalized or oppressed people.” She explains that microaggressions are small but that the cumulative effect is huge. They cause isolation, anxiety, and even depression. They normalize racist attitudes and perpetuate stereotypes. But their small size makes them hard to address, because each one taken on its own seems insignificant. She gives a few suggestions for handling a situation in which someone perpetrates a microaggression against you. She also has suggestions for white people who witness microaggressions or who are called out for a microaggression. All of her suggestions stress the importance of communicating directly and honestly, not becoming defensive or emotional, and acknowledging that good intentions don’t make an offense less offensive.

In Chapter 13, Oluo addresses the question, “Why are our students so angry?” She begins by describing interactions with her 8-year-old son about his decision not to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school. While her son’s own teacher was understanding, a different teacher tried to coerce him to say it at a school assembly. Oluo describes the painful reality of raising a child of color: the hurtful remarks, the danger of having a toy gun outside, all of the “the ugliness that they don’t have the privilege of being kept safe from.” This reality is one reason why her son didn’t want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Despite the rosy optimism of the 1980s, the outlook for Black and brown children in the United States had not lived up to the promises of the 1980s. After decades of protest and hope for a better world for Black and brown Americans, the result was mass incarceration of Black and brown people, increasing income inequality along racial lines, and an epidemic of police brutality against Black and brown people. The students are angry, she suggests, because of dashed hopes and broken promises of a more just country. They can more clearly see the reality of systems stacked against them. And they are fighting these systems. She suggests that this generation of young people is “fighting for a world more just and more righteous than we had ever dared to dream of” and that older generations should give them the support and resources they need to find their own way into the future they are shaping.

In Chapter 14, “What is the model minority myth?” Oluo addresses the way that Asian Americans are stereotyped in US society as being the “ideal” minority group. It says that Asian Americans are academically and financially successful, have and are strict parents, and are very hardworking. This stereotype puts such high expectations on Asian Americans that if some struggle to live up to them, they are virtually erased. The model minority myth does not leave room for any Asian Americans who do not fit. So while the stereotyping may seem benign, it actually makes many Asian Americans invisible, including Pacific Islanders, poor Asian Americans, Asian Americans who don’t do well academically, and Asian American women who experience domestic abuse. It hides the lack of advancement many Asian Americans experience in their careers, the lack of Asian Americans in political positions of power, and hate crimes perpetrated against them. It also diminishes the ability of Asian Americans to come together with other racial minorities in solidarity, by making them seem like a separate minority group with little in common with other racial minorities. 

Analysis: Chapters 12–14

In Chapters 12–14 of So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo continues to develop the key idea that words matter and have power. While the n-word is a potent example of this, verbal microaggressions also show the power of words to isolate, shame, and communicate the message you don’t belong. In addition, a slightly different twist on this idea is Oluo’s son’s rejection of the Pledge of Allegiance. He objects to saying words that are not true to his experience. At 8 years old, he recognizes the power of words, and he doesn’t want to repeat words that are lies.

Part of the power of words, Oluo argues, is that they “normalize” racism and negative stereotypes that perpetuate racism. This normalizing effect is a key ingredient of their power. It isn’t only the nature of a word’s history that matters—its tie to enslavement, for example. It is how much history a word or phrase has. How many times has a word been said, over how many years? How many times is a stereotype repeated before people accept it as simply the truth? This way of thinking about the power of words suggests that our conversations about race can have the power to make real change, because people can counteract the effect of harmful words with healing ones, as long as they persist in using them.