46 Quotes by Ijeoma Oluo

Being privileged doesn't mean that you are always wrong and people without privilege are always right. It means that there is a good chance you are missing a few very important pieces of the puzzle.

Do not let people convince you that you are being oversensitive, that you are being disruptive or divisive.

Racism is any prejudice against someone because of their race when those views are reinforced by systems of power.

It is important to learn how to fail, to learn how to be wrong in a way that minimizes the pain to you and others and maximizes what you can learn from experience.

How self-centered. I remember thinking that it was yet another sign that the former president was a weird emotional child who was not at all qualified for the presidency (this was, of course, before Donald Trump showed us all what ‘weird, emotional child not at all qualified for the presidency’ really looks like). But I thought of this mostly as a funny aberration.

There are very few hardships out there that hit only people of color and not white people, but there are a lot of hardships that hit people of color a lot more than white people.

I would be having a good day, lost in my imagination, and bam -- I'd be hit with a comment that would remind me that I was not allowed to get comfortable.

And if you are white in a white supremacist society, you are racist. If you are male in a patriarchy, you are sexist. If you are able-bodied, you are ableist. If you are anything above poverty in a capitalist society, you are classist. You can sometimes be all of these things at once.” You do, as Walt Whitman said, contain multitudes.

Get used to that uncomfortable feeling that arises when you discover that perhaps your privilege is hindering your ability to truly understand or address an issue. Get used to that pang of guilt that comes with realizing yet another area of life where you've benefited at the expense of others. It will not kill you. You can withstand it . . . listen and learn.