Street Roots • June 29-July 5, 2018
Conversation
OLUO, fro m page 4
were doing. But now it’s something where I
have to think about whether it’s something
they’d be comfortable with or just ask them,
“Do you want this to go online or not?”
LE: In the book you describe white
supremacy as a pyramid scheme and later you
make the point that problems within the labor
and class movements is that they will have you
believing in trickle-down social justice. White
allies often want to take the path of least
resistance.
I.O.: I encounter it constantly. I think any
black person, a person of color in this work,
encounters it all the time, and you don’t
even have to be in the work. I think even
just conversations among
people on the so-called
left pop up time and time
again - these kind of
It's been really
compromises that people
expect us to make, but
wonderful to bear from
it’s really our humanity
people @1 color who are
that’s expected to be
using the book p ractically
compromised. We’re
because that was my goal. I
constantly told to wait to
Sell lik e 11 It wasn*f actually
meet these “majority”
helping people of color? I
needs first and then will
be addressed eventually,
w ouldn't h a w been able to
and it’s really common
It a success/*
and it’s another form of
white supremacy that
people don’t like to
acknowledge. The
thought that they would come first even if
they are the least suffered or the least
harmed. And it’s something that if we’re
ever going to have with movements that are
effective and that continue to hold the
attention and the effort of people of color
and are going to be effective in fighting
oppression, we really have to start in-house
first. We really have to look at where you
absorbed these harmful ideas.
L.E.: You write about your relationship
with your mother frequently. In the book you
recount a conversation about race you had
with her stemming from a joke she told at
work. Did you talk to her about it before you
put it in your book?
I.O.: I didn’t talk to her about it before I
put it in the book. My mom and I have had a
lot of conversations about my work over the
years. We had long talks when I first started
writing about, you know, how my life is
going to intersect with hers through a lot of
the stories where perhaps maybe she didn’t
quite get something right and it’s going to
have to be included because that’s part of
the story and it’s part of my story. It’s not
to hurt her or anything like that, but it’s
simply because we all have to live with
what’s happened in the world. And part of
how we move forward is by being open and
honest, and it will always have a reason or a
point. It will never just be “I want people to
know what my mom did.” We had that
discussion a long time ago.
My brother (Ahamefule Oluo) also
references our mom in his work a lot. He’s a
musician and a writer and a storyteller, so
our mom has had a couple of years to get
very comfortable, and I always do try to
think - I never want to harm her. I try to
figure where she is in the conversation. My
mom actually has absolutely no problem
Willamette Writers
Ijeoma Oluo will be among the
featured speakers for this year’s
Willamette Writers conference, Aug.
3-5, at the Sheraton Portland Airport
Hotel, 8235 NE Airport Way.
Other speakers ii
Page 5
devastated at the thought of us not having
that. It was the best thing in her life and she
really wanted us to have that. So she was
constantly trying to seek out ways to keep
us connected so that we could have, kind of,
some of that joy that she had had in those
years when she was with our dad.
L.E.: As a black woman, I ’m grateful for
all of the anti-racism work that you are doing,
but it also places you in the cross hairs of
trolls and racists. How do you handle
retaliation?
Nebula and Lam
Gayle Brandeis
fiction writer
Vlvek Shraya, mu
artist
Sonia Simone, ch
at Rainmaker Digital
Steven Spatz, \
book distributor
Registration fees
bird discounts
register by June 30.
available at willamettevt
with the chapter at all. The only complaint
she had was that I didn’t include more
things that she had said that were not
helpful at all in the conversation.
L.E.: Growing up your mother made a
point for you to know about your culture and
encouraged you to embrace your Nigerian
roots. That doesn’t always happen when white
people raise black and biracial children. Why
did your mom make that decision?
I.O.: I think part of it is my mom’s
nature. My mom is probably one of the
most open and curious people I’ve ever
known, so I don’t think it would have ever
crossed her mind that black was something
she wouldn’t want her kids to be. It’s almost
embarrassing when she runs across
someone who is from a demographic that
she hasn’t encountered. The light in her
eyes! She’s like “more people!” Just
completely fascinated. Part of that, you
know, I think is her nature. Not to say no
white supremacy infiltrated her — of course
she’s a white woman. But the idea of white
supremacy held no sway with her
whatsoever.
My mom wasn’t really accepted where
she grew up and wasn’t incredibly close to
her family growing up. When my mom
married my dad, they moved wherever
Nigerian immigrants were. They lived in a
really close, close-knit Nigerian-American
community, and that was, I think, the first
time my mom ever felt like she had a family
and community. And the thought that you
would be loved and accepted and you didn’t
have to fit any sort of ideal and that people
would be open with their affection and their
love was the exact opposite of what she had
grown up with.
For her, there was just this deep love for
this community that was really, I think, as
close to a large family that she had ever
really gotten. And when our dad went back
to Nigeria, she was just I think really
I.O.: First of all I’m incredibly privileged
that I’m able to pay all my bills writing -
and writing about these issues. Because I
don’t actually have to worry about a financial
impact. I turn down work often when the
request doesn’t align with my values or
when the editing process starts to pull my
work away from my voice or what I feel like
needs to be said. I don’t have to worry
about an office job and getting fired, or
creating a hostile work environment for
myself. A lot of times people are like, “I’m
going to get you fired.” And I’m like, “From
where?” (laughs) Where are you going to get
me fired from? From all the places who
already know everything I say, who read this
essay and decided to publish it? How?
A lot of writers, especially writers of
color, especially black women writers, are
not able to sustain themselves financially
just through their writing. And I wouldn’t
say it’s just my writing, but my writing and
my speaking and things that are related to
my words. And (other black w riters) are in a
tricky position because they really can be
fired from a job for talking about these
things.
L.E.: You cover a lot in your book. Is there
a topic that was a “must cover?”
I.O.: Pretty much all of them were musts
for me. If someone had said I couldn’t
include the chapter on the model minority
myth, I probably would’ve pulled the book.
I don’t think one is more or less
important than the other. A lot of them
build off each other.
L.E.: What’s been some of the feedback that
you’ve gotten?
I.O.: The feedback has been
overwhelmingly positive. I was actually
surprised. When you’re getting ready to
publish the book after this couple years of
process, you start thinking of every horrible
thing that people could possibly say about
the book and all the flaws they might find.
Definitely none of that really happened.
There was some critique here and there.
The reviews were all positive. Part of it I
think I hadn’t realized at the time that I
realize now which is that racists don’t want
to read an entire book that they’re not going
to like.
It’s been really wonderful to hear from
people of color who are using the book
practically because that was my goal. I felt
like if it wasn’t actually helping people of
color, I wouldn’t have been able to call it a
success. To hear from people of color who
are using it day-to-day in the way that I
hoped they would. People who are saying, “I
work in this field where people are
See OLUO, page 13