Mediocre was not what I expected. What did I expect? A lot of the ways that white men have screwed up: specifically pointing out their flaws and the things they’ve made worse in the world. Instead, it’s a book chronicling all the ways white men keep women and people of color out of the places of power and undermine the work they do, including, but not limited to:
- The SAT being created by a literal eugenicist to give universities an excuse to stay white and male;
- The language (that is being corrected, slowly) about how the American continent was “empty” before Europeans arrived;
- The early (think Susan B Anthony era) male feminists who decided they should support women’s rights so that men wouldn’t have to support them and they could be layabouts who could sleep with whoever they wanted;
- How women were forced out of the workforce after WWII because the men needed their jobs back; and
- The entire history of the NFL.
It can be a depressing and hard-to-read book at times. However, it did give me a yearning to read a Shirley Chisholm biography – her awesomeness was a highlight. I would recommend Mediocre, especially as a way to educate yourself more about how America works and was built.