Summary: Chapters 9–11

In Chapter 9, “Why can’t I say the ‘N’ word?” Ijeoma Oluo addresses the sticky issue of this particular racial slur. She relates her own childhood experiences being called the “n-word” and the horror she and her brother felt being the objects of such ridicule and hate. She explains the origins of the word and how it became a slur used against enslaved Black people by enslavers and then by white supremacists and racists. It is a powerful word because it carries this history with it. Oppression begins by deploying language against the oppressed group, she says, because people use it to distance themselves from the humanity of those they wish to oppress. Black people have suffered from the oppression of words like the “n-word” while white people have benefited from the privilege these kinds of words helped create. So even if some Black people have “reclaimed” the word, it is the word’s use by white people that carries the oppressive power of its history. This is why white people should not use the “n-word.”

Chapter 10, “What is cultural appropriation?” explores the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. Oluo begins with a story about a restaurant called “Africa Café” that had no African food—only cheesy African-themed branding. It was a caricature of African culture, meant to make money. This is an example of cultural appropriation: “the adoption or exploitation of another culture by a more dominant culture.” The African-themed restaurant did not bring about an appreciation of any African culture in restaurant-goers. It only benefited the white restaurant owner. And it resulted in the appropriated culture being misrepresented by the dominant culture. Oluo uses Black music—jazz, blues, rap—to show how it only became “respectable” well after white musicians began making it. She suggests approaching discussions about cultural appropriation with an attitude of respect for the marginalized culture, knowing that individuals from marginalized cultures may differ in their opinions of what cultural appropriation is. Once you’ve listened to what others have to say, you can make a decision—about a Halloween costume, for example—that tries to do no harm.

In Chapter 11, “Why can’t I touch your hair?” Oluo begins by describing her first day at a new job. At a dinner with the rest of her new team, the director of her division asked if her hair was real. The resulting conversation was uncomfortable because, to Oluo, it was completely inappropriate for several white people to discuss her hair and, in particular, the lengths Black women often go to achieve “white” hairstyles using harsh chemicals. She tells readers that she’d used these harsh chemicals for years, despite the toll they took on her hair and scalp, and that it took decades to learn to love her natural hair. And here she was, all these years later, surrounded by white people who were shaming Black women for using chemical hair relaxers. She notes that many random strangers and coworkers touch her hair without asking. Her Black friends cite uninvited hair touching as one of their “least favorite microaggressions.” It’s an invasion of personal space, it’s weird, hands are dirty, and Black hairstyles take a lot of time and effort. And it is exactly the sort of disrespect for bodily autonomy associated with white supremacy. To have a Black body in America was, historically, to be seen as property. Value was associated with whiteness, Oluo explains, so the more a Black person could make themselves look like a white person, the more society valued them. Black hairstyles still carry stigma and result in stereotyping and are often seen as unprofessional or exotic. So even though Black hair is only dead cells, it is still part of a person whose life has been shaped by racist ideas about Black bodies, and touching it without permission is a symbol of the white supremacist idea that Black people do not own their own bodies.

Analysis: Chapters 9–11

In Chapter 9 of So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo develops a theme that is also implied by the title of her book: the power of words. This chapter focuses on one word in particular and traces its use from the United States’ earliest years all the way to Oluo’s own life. She makes the point that words cause harm not only by expressing hate or contempt but also by shaping reality in harmful ways. Words created the idea of race and the idea of privilege. Words created negative stereotypes that support racism, and words that dehumanize give the privileged “permission” to treat people of color as less than human.    

When discussing both the n-word and how people touch her hair without asking, Oluo draws heavily on the history of enslavement in the United States. Words helped cause a system in which enslavement was not only possible but very profitable. But enslavement was not the only effect; even after it was gone, many of the attitudes and beliefs that made it possible persisted. White people’s sense of entitlement to Black bodies persists in the bizarre behavior of touching Black hair without asking, among other ways. And Oluo explains it’s important to talk about unwanted hair-touching, not only enslavement and lynching, as an example of racism because as different as these are, they still come from the same root cause.