Mediocre

by Ijeoma Oluo

  15. Diggins, Up from Communism.

  16. J. Allen, “New Details Revealed About Biden’s Busing Record: Why Was He So Strongly Opposed?,” NBC News, July 6, 2019, www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-s-mastery-backlash-politics-takes-center-stage-n1025931.

  17. “Wilmington Integration Order Poses the Possibility of Busing,” New York Times, July 13, 1974, www.nytimes.com/1974/07/13/archives/wilmington-integration-order-poses-the-possibility-of-busing.html.

  18. J. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration,” Politico, August 4, 2015, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/04/joe-biden-integration-school-busing-120968.

  19. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration.”

  20. D. B. Taylor, S. G. Stolberg, and A. W. Herndon, “A Brief History of Joe Biden and School Busing,” New York Times, July 15, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/us/joe-biden-busing-timeline.html.

  21. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration.”

  22. Taylor, Stolberg, and Herndon, “A Brief History of Joe Biden and School Busing.”

  23. A. W. Herndon and S. G. Stolberg, “How Joe Biden Became the Democrats’ Anti-Busing Crusader,” New York Times, July 15, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/us/politics/biden-busing.html.

  24. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration.”

  25. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration.”

  26. Sokol, “How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration.”

  27. J. Biden, Promises to Keep (New York: Random House, 2007), 125.

  28. J. Biden, “Joe Biden Full Interview,” interview by J. Favreau, J. Lovett, T. Vietor, Pod Save America, March 2019, https://youtu.be/Tcev9dcFDkw.

  29. K. Glueck, “Biden, Recalling ‘Civility’ in Senate, Invokes Two Segregationist Senators,” New York Times, June 19, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/biden-segregationists.html.

  30. R. A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (New York: Knopf, 2002), 767.

  31. K. Glueck and A. W. Herndon, “Joe Biden and Democratic Rivals Exchange Attacks over His Remarks on Segregationists,” New York Times, June 19, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/biden-eastland.html?module=inline.

  32. D. Gunn, “Non-White School Districts Get $23 Billion Less Funding Than White Ones,” Pacific Standard, February 26, 2019, https://psmag.com/education/nonwhite-school-districts-get-23-billion-less-funding-than-white-ones.

  33. “Delaware’s School Resegregation Increasing After Dissolution of Its Groundbreaking Metropolitan Desegregation Plan,” Civil Rights Project, December 18, 2014, www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/2014-press-releases/ucla-report-finds-delaware2019s-school-resegregation-increasing-after-dissolution-of-its-groundbreaking-metropolitan-desegregation-plan.

  34. J. Bies, “Lawsuit: Delaware Schools Are Leaving Children in Poverty Behind,” Delaware Online, May 23, 2018, www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2018/05/23/lawsuit-would-change-way-delaware-schools-funded/590963002/.

  35. I. Oluo (@ijeomaoluo), “I dreamt last night,” Twitter, May 27, 2019, 8:46 a.m., https://twitter.com/IjeomaOluo/status/1133036856033988608.

  36. S. Doyle, “Not About Gender,” Tumblr, 2016, https://sadydoyle.tumblr.com/post/132899987688/not-about-gender.

  37. Jeanne Shaheen, “I was honored to introduce my friend Hillary Clinton,” Facebook, January 22, 2016, www.facebook.com/jeanneshaheenNH/photos/a.10151236112888293.495154.6691963292/10153925284253293/?type=3.

  38. I. Gandy, interview with author, May 28, 2019.

  39. P. Bump, “Here’s What Happened at Saturday’s Dramatic Nevada Democratic Convention,” Washington Post, May 17, 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/15/heres-what-happened-at-saturdays-dramatic-nevada-democratic-convention/.

  40. J. Ralston, “Sample of Voicemails Left for State Democratic Chairwoman Roberta Lange,” Ralston Reports, May 16, 2016, www.ralstonreports.com/blog/sample-voicemails-left-state-democratic-chairwoman-roberta-lange.

  41. S. Ember, “Bernie Sanders Stumbled with Black Voters in 2016. Can He Do Better in 2020?,” New York Times, February 17, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-black-voters-outreach.html.

  42. T. J. Starr, “How Bernie Sanders Lost Black Voters,” Splinter News, July 10, 2016, https://splinternews.com/how-bernie-sanders-lost-black-voters-1793860129.

  43. Starr, “How Bernie Sanders Lost Black Voters.”

  44. Starr, “How Bernie Sanders Lost Black Voters.”

  45. S. Ember and K. Benner, “Sexism Claims from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 Run: Paid Less, Treated Worse,” New York Times, January 2, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html?module=inline.

  46. S. Ember and J. Martin, “Bernie Sanders Apologizes Again to Women Who Were Mistreated in 2016 Campaign,” New York Times, January 2, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/sanders-sexism-apology.html.

  47. G. E. Curry, “In Vermont, Socialist Makes Congressional Election Hot,” July 29, 1990, www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-29-900 3030805-story.html.

  48. B. Sanders, “NYT: Learning from the Ferguson Tragedy,” Sanders senatorial website, August 21, 2014, www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/nyt-learning-from-the-ferguson-tragedy.

  49. L. Kreutz, “Hillary Clinton Knocks Bernie Sanders over Response to Donald Trump’s Abortion Comments,” ABC News, March 31, 2016, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-knocks-bernie-sanders-response-donald-trumps/story?id=38063205.

  50. B. Griffiths, “Sanders Slams Identity Politics as Democrats Figure Out Their Future,” Politico, November 21, 2016, www.politico.com/story/2016/11/bernie-sanders-democrats-identity-politics-231710.

  51. R. Graham, “What’s It Like to Be a ‘Bernie Bro’ Heading into 2020?,” Slate, March 4, 2019, www.evernote.com/l/AZ7rzFMUe9ZJKapsd9_So-kYf644n1Ow_eA/.

  52. Quoted in E. Morrissey, “Sanders: My Primary Opponents Care Only About Identity Politics and False Diversity,” Hot Air, January 25, 2019, https://hotair.com/archives/2019/01/25/sanders-primary-opponents-care-identity-politics-false-diversity/.

  53. T. J. Starr, “Bernie Sanders Is Not a Real Progressive,” The Root, November 6, 2017, www.theroot.com/bernie-sanders-is-not-a-real-progressive-1820122317.

  54. “Bernie Sanders at Black Forum MN: Full Discussion w/Sanders,” YouTube, February 13, 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsI3-2VgF1U.

  55. R. D. Francis, “Him, Not Her: Why Working-Class White Men Reluctant About Trump Still Made Him President of the United States,” Socius 4, no. 11 (2018): 1–11.

  56. D. Kurtzleben, “Here’s How Many Bernie Sanders Supporters Ultimately Voted for Trump,” NPR, August 24, 2017, www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds.

  57. “Exit Polls: Obama Wins Big Among Young, Minority Voters,” CNN, November, 4, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20081108082743/http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/exit.polls/.

  58. R. DiAngelo, interview with author, May 3, 2019.

  3. THE IVY LEAGUE AND THE TAX EATERS

  1. M. Kennedy, “Princeton Will Keep Woodrow Wilson’s Name on School Buildings,” NPR, April 4, 2016, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/04/472985937/princeton-will-keep-woodrow-wilsons-name-on-school-buildings.

  2. S. Svrluga, “Princeton Protesters Occupy President’s Office, Demand ‘Racist’ Woodrow Wilson’s Name Be Removed,” Washington Post, November 18, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/18/princeton-protesters-occupy-presidents-office-demand-racist-woodrow-wilsons-name-be-removed/.

  3. D. Matthews, “Woodrow Wilson Was Extremely Racist—Even by the Standards of His Time,” Vox, November 20, 2015, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/20/9766896/woodrow-wilson-racist.

  4. A. Neklason, “Elite-College Admissions Were Built to Protect Privilege,” The Atlantic, March 18, 201
9, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/.

  5. Neklason, “Elite-College Admissions Were Built to Protect Privilege.”

  6. Neklason, “Elite-College Admissions Were Built to Protect Privilege.”

  7. I. Shapira, “Before Asian Americans Sued Harvard, the School Once Tried Restricting the Number of Jews,” Washington Post, October 15, 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/09/14/before-asian-americans-sued-harvard-the-school-tried-restricting-the-number-of-jews/?noredirect=on.

  8. Neklason, “Elite-College Admissions Were Built to Protect Privilege.”

  9. Neklason, “Elite-College Admissions Were Built to Protect Privilege.”

  10. S. S. Avi-Yonah and D. R. Franklin, “Renovated Lowell House Will Not Display Portrait of Controversial Former University President Abbott Lawrence Lowell,” Harvard Crimson, March 26, 2019, www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/26/lowell-portraits-removed/.

  11. A. DenHoed, “The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement,” New Yorker, April 27, 2016, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-forgotten-lessons-of-the-american-eugenics-movement.

  12. J. Weissglass, “For Equality’s Sake, the SAT Should Be Abolished,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2000, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-24-me-57241-story.html.

  13. M. Viera, “The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism,” Teen Vogue, October 1, 2018, www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mired-in-racism-and-elitism.

  14. C. Brigham, “Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups,” Psychological Review 37 (1930): 158–165.

  15. Viera, “The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism.”

  16. “Land-Grant Universities,” Encyclopaedia Brittanica, accessed May 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/land-grant-university.

  17. C. W. Young, Background for Developing a System of Hispanic-Serving Land-Grant Colleges, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Unversities, accessed May 2020, www.hacu.net/images/hacu/young.pdf.

  18. “Farm Bill Reauthorization Workplan,” Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, acessed May 2020, www.hacu.net/hacu/Reauthorization_workplan.asp.

  19. M. Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success: Higher Education After World War II,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 559 (1998): 64–76.

  20. “Ethnic Studies 50th Anniversary Commemoration Week,” San Francisco State University, 2019, https://ethnicstudies.sfsu.edu/50th.

  21. Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success.”

  22. Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success.”

  23. Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success.”

  24. D. Fergus, “My Students Pay Too Much for College. Blame Reagan,” Washington Post, September 2, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/02/my-students-pay-too-much-for-college-blame-reagan/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9401a2038ec4.

  25. J. Kahn, “Ronald Reagan Launched Political Career Using the Berkeley Campus as a Target,” UC Berkeley News, June 8, 2004, www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/08_reagan.shtml.

  26. “The 1980’s,” History.com, June 7, 2019, www.history.com/topics/1980s/1980s.

  27. K. Sullivan and M. Jordan, “‘Elitists, Crybabies and Junky Degrees’: Educators See Growing Disdain for Universities,” Chicago Tribune, November 25, 2017, www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-college-education-critics-20171125-story.html.

  28. Sullivan and Jordan, “‘Elitists, Crybabies and Junky Degrees.’”

  29. M. Balingit and D. Douglas-Gabriel, “Trump Seeks to Slash $8.5 Billion from Education Department Budget,” Washington Post, March 11, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-seeks-to-slash-85-billion-from-education-department-budget/2019/03/11/69ab930e-441f-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html?utm_term=.0b221cac52db.

  30. Z. Friedman, “What Trump’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Means for You,” Forbes, March 27, 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/03/27/what-trumps-latest-proposals-mean-for-your-student-loans/#6f8c1af 9508f.

  31. Balingit and Douglas-Gabriel, “Trump Seeks to Slash $8.5 Billion from Education Department Budget.”

  32. “Median Incomes v. Average College Tuition Rates, 1971–2016,” ProCon.org, April 20, 2017, https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532.

  33. J. Selingo, “States’ Decision to Reduce Support for Higher Education Comes at a Cost,” Washington Post, September 8, 2018, www.washington post.com/education/2018/09/08/states-decision-reduce-support-higher-education-comes-cost/; J. Marcus, “Americans Don’t Realize State Funding for Higher Ed Is Falling, New Poll Finds,” Hechinger Report, February 25, 2019, https://hechingerreport.org/americans-think-state-funding-for-higher-ed-has-held-steady-or-risen-survey-finds/.

  34. S. Stebbins, “Choosing a Degree? These College Majors Are Likely to Pay Off the Least,” USA Today, January 19, 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/19/jobs-college-degrees-education-arts-pay-off-the-least/41006589/.

  35. B. Auguste, “Failing by Degrees: Why College Grads Need NonCollege Grads to Succeed,” Forbes, March 14, 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/byronauguste/2019/03/14/failing-by-degrees-why-college-grads-need-non-college-grads-to-succeed/#38ea75316c5b; “View Talent Shortages Around the World,” Manpower Group, 2018, https://go.manpowergroup.com/talent-shortage-2018#shortagebycountry-globaldata.

  36. A. Graves, “How Many Times Has Trump Mentioned His Wharton Education? We Crunched the Numbers,” Daily Pennsylvanian, January 17, 2018, www.thedp.com/article/2018/01/trump-penn-wharton-data-education-times-ivy-league-business-finance-philadelphia-campaign; J. Glenza, “Trump Makes ‘Blood’ Truce with Fox Then Says He Is Top Candidate for Women,” The Guardian, August 11, 2015, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/11/donald-trump-megyn-kelly-fox-women.

  37. R. D. Francis, “Him, Not Her: Why Working-Class White Men Reluctant About Trump Still Made Him President of the United States,” Socius 4, no. 11 (2018): 1–11.

  38. A. Tyson and S. Maniam, “Behind Trump’s Victory: Divisions by Race, Gender, Education,” Pew Research Center, November 9, 2016, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/.

  39. C. Ingraham, “Three Quarters of Whites Don’t Have Any Non-White Friends,” Washington Post, August 25, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three-quarters-of-whites-dont-have-any-non-white-friends/?utm_term=.669393795a9d.

  40. “Income and Wealth in the United States: An Overview of Recent Data,” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, October 4, 2019, www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/10/income-and-wealth-in-the-united-states-an-overview-of-data.

  41. “Completing College—National by Race and Ethnicity—2017,” National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, April 26, 2017, https://nsc researchcenter.org/signaturereport12-supplement-2/.

  42. Sullivan and Jordan, “‘Elitists, Crybabies and Junky Degrees.’”

  4. WE HAVE FAR TOO MANY NEGROES

  1. C. Ingraham, “Three Quarters of Whites Don’t Have Any Non-White Friends,” Washington Post, August 25, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three-quarters-of-whites-dont-have-any-non-white-friends/?utm_term=.669393795a9d.

  2. S. A. Reich, The Great Black Migration: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2014), 148.

  3. I. X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Nation Books, 2016), 243.

  4. M. Berman, “Even More Black People Were Lynched in the U.S. Than Previously Thought, Study Finds,” Washington Post, February 10, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/?utm_term=.ee0d39576e53.

  5. E. J. Scott, “Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916–1918,” Journal of Negro History 4, no. 3 (1919): 317.

  6. I. Wilkerson, “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration,” Smithsonian, September 2016, w
ww.smithsonianmag.com/history/long-lasting-legacy-great-migration-180960118/.

  7. “Top 10 Poorest States in the U.S.,” Friends Committee on National Legislation, September 18, 2018, www.fcnl.org/updates/top-10-poorest-states-in-the-u-s-1630.

  8. “Top 10 Hungriest States in the U.S.,” Friends Committee on National Legislation, September 18, 2018, www.fcnl.org/updates/top-10-hungriest-states-in-the-u-s-1629.

  9. U. Akcigit, J. Grigsby, and T. Nicholas, The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age, Working Paper 17-063, Harvard Business School, June 7, 2017, www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/17-063_e55d07c8-c1db-4e59-b935-37a7701e0839.pdf.

  10. T.-N. Coates, “What This Cruel War Was Over,” The Atlantic, June 22, 2015, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/.

  11. “Wealth and Culture in the South: Slavery and the White Class Structure,” Lumen Learning, accessed May 2019, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory1os2xmaster/chapter/wealth-and-culture-in-the-south/.

  12. J. Hammond, “Document: Cotton Is King (March 4, 1858),” republished on the website Teaching American History, accessed May 2020, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cotton-is-king/.

  13. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 238.

  14. Coates, “What This Cruel War Was Over.”

  15. J. N. Gregory, “Southernizing the American Working Class: Post War Episodes of Regional and Class Transformation,” Labor History 39, no. 2 (1998): 135–154, http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/southernization.pdf.

  16. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, “Racial Restrictive Covenants,” University of Washington, accessed May 2020, https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm.

  17. Scott, “Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916–1918.”

  18. Wilkerson, “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration.”

  19. “World War I and the Great Migration,” History, Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives, accessed April 7, 2019, https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Temporary-Farewell/World-War-I-And-Great-Migration/.