Mediocre

by Ijeoma Oluo

  20. “Targeting Black Veterans: Lynching in America,” Equal Justice Initiative, 2017, https://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans/red-summer.

  21. M. Ihejirika, “‘Chicago 1919’ Explores Racial Tension, from Eugene Williams to Laquan McDonald,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 10, 2019, https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/3/10/18313804/chicago-1919-explores-racial-tension-from-eugene-williams-to-laquan-mcdonald.

  22. “The Red Summer of 1919,” History.com, last updated July 26, 2019, www.history.com/topics/black-history/chicago-race-riot-of-1919.

  23. Ihejirika, “‘Chicago 1919’ Explores Racial Tension, from Eugene Williams to Laquan McDonald.”

  24. O. B. Waxman, “The Forgotten March That Started the National Civil Rights Movement Took Place 100 Years Ago,” Time, July 28, 2017, https://time.com/4828991/east-saint-louis-riots-1917/.

  25. A. Keyes, “The East St. Louis Race Riot Left Dozens Dead, Devastating a Community on the Rise,” Smithsonian, June 30, 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/east-st-louis-race-riot-left-dozens-dead-devastating-community-on-the-rise-180963885/.

  26. Waxman, “The Forgotten March.”

  27. “1920s–1948: Racially Restrictive Covenants,” Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston, accessed June 17, 2019, www.bostonfairhousing.org/timeline/1920s1948-Restrictive-Covenants.html.

  28. “Power, Politics, and Pride: Dr. King’s Chicago Crusade,” WTTW.com, accessed May 2020, https://interactive.wttw.com/dusable-to-obama/dr-kings-chicago-crusade.

  29. D. T. Carter, “What Trump Owes George Wallace,” Gulf News, January 12, 2016, https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/what-trump-owes-george-wallace-1.1652614.

  30. B. Lyman, “George Wallace: A Segregationist Stand for America,” USA Today, August 16, 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/1968-project/2018/08/16/stand-up-america-george-wallaces-chaotic-prophetic-campaign/961043002/.

  31. D. McCabe and P. Stekler, dirs., George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire, 2000, Vimeo.com.

  32. Lyman, “George Wallace.”

  33. K. Nodjimbadem, “The Racial Segregation of American Cities Was Anything but Accidental,” Smithsonian, May 30, 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-federal-government-intentionally-racially-segregated-american-cities-180963494/; R. Rothstein, “Public Housing: Government-Sponsored Segregation,” American Prospect, October 11, 2012, https://prospect.org/article/public-housing-government-sponsored-segregation.

  34. J. R. Thomas, “Separated by Design: How Some of America’s Richest Towns Fight Affordable Housing,” ProPublica, May 22, 2019, www.propublica.org/article/how-some-of-americas-richest-towns-fight-affordable-housing.

  5. FIRE THE WOMEN

  1. R. Ebert, “Nine to Five,” December 19, 1980, republished on RogerEbert.com, accessed June 2020, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nine-to-five-1980.

  2. V. Canby, “‘Nine to Five,’ Office Comedy,” New York Times, December 19, 1980, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/12/19/111324357.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0.

  3. R. S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America 1929–1941 (New York: Crown/Archetype, 2010), 176.

  4. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 10.

  5. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 11.

  6. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 176.

  7. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 176.

  8. R. L. Boyd, “Race, Labor Market Disadvantage, and Survivalist Entrepreneurship: Black Women in the Urban North During the Great Depression,” Sociological Forum 15, no. 4 (2000): 647–670.

  9. S. Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (New York: New Press, 2000 [1970]), 82–83.

  10. M. McDonald Way, Family Economics and Public Policy, 1800s–Present: How Laws, Incentives, and Social Programs Drive Family Decision-Making and the US Economy (Babson Park, FL: Springer, 2018), 152.

  11. E. Blakemore, “Why Many Married Women Were Banned from Working During the Great Depression,” History.com, July 21, 2019, www.history.com/news/great-depression-married-women-employment.

  12. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 176.

  13. M. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender and Propaganda During World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 150.

  14. Blakemore, “Why Many Married Women Were Banned from Working During the Great Depression.”

  15. A. Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929–1939 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 39–41, 64–68.

  16. S. J. Loza, Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 36–37.

  17. K. R. Johnson, “The Forgotten Repatriation of Persons of Mexican Ancestry and Lessons for the War on Terror,” Pace Law Review 26, no. 1 (2005): 6.

  18. T. L. Bynum, “‘We Must March Forward!’: Juanita Jackson and the Origins of the NAACP Youth Movement,” Journal of African American History 94, no. 4 (2009): 487–508.

  19. R. Freedman, Children of the Great Depression (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005), 49.

  20. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 268.

  21. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 18.

  22. K. T. Anderson, “Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women Workers During World War II,” Journal of American History 69, no. 1 (1982): 82–97.

  23. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 3–4.

  24. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 19–20, 136.

  25. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 147.

  26. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 6–10.

  27. C. Kirkpatrick, “EM 31: Do You Want Your Wife to Work After the War? (1944),” republished on the website of the American Historical Association, accessed May 2020, www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-31-do-you-want-your-wife-to-work-after-the-war-(1944).

  28. “GI Rountable Series: Introduction,” American Historical Association, accessed November 29, 2019, www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/gi-roundtable-series-introduction.

  29. S. M. Hartmann, “Women and World War II,” Metropolitan State University of Denver, accessed August 21, 2019, https://msudenver.edu/camphale/thewomensarmycorps/womenwwii/; “American Women in World War II,” History.com, updated February 28, 2020, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/american-women-in-world-war-ii-1.

  30. C. Le Faucheur, “Should Women War Workers Be Fired?,” National WWII Museum, accessed November 29, 2019, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/should-women-war-workers-be-fired.

  31. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 4–5.

  32. Le Faucheur, “Should Women War Workers Be Fired?”

  33. K. Weisul, “Where Are All the Missing Veteran-Owned Businesses?,” Inc., October 2016, www.inc.com/magazine/201610/kimberly-weisul/missing-veteran-owned-businesses.html.

  34. J. Bellefaire, “History Highlight: Women Veterans and the WWII GI Bill of Rights,” Women in Military Service Memorial Foundation, November 2006, www.womensmemorial.org/history-highlight.

  35. “After the War: Blacks and the G.I. Bill,” Smithsonian American Art Museum, February 2015, https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/After-the-War-Blacks-and-the-GI-Bill.pdf.

  36. Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave, Parents’ Guide to Paid Family and Medical Leave, March 2020, https://paidleave.wa.gov/app/uploads/2020/04/Parents-guide-V.3-FINAL.pdf.

  37. L. Kane, “Sweden Is Apparently Full of ‘Latte Dads’ Carrying Toddlers—And It’s a Sign of Critical Social Change,” Business Insider, April 4, 2018, www.businessinsider.com/sweden-maternity-leave-paternity-leave-policies-latte-dads-2018-4.

  38. C. Miller, K. Quealy, M. Sanger-Katz, “The Top Jobs Where Women Are Outnumbered by Men Named John,” New York Times, April 24, 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/24/upshot/women-and-men-named-john.html.

  39. L. Dishman, “What Is the Glass Cliff, and Why Do So Many
Female CEOs Fall Off It?,” Fast Company, July 27, 2018, www.fastcompany.com/90206067/what-is-the-glass-cliff-and-why-do-so-many-female-ceos-fall-off-it.

  40. J. Berman, “When a Woman or Person of Color Becomes CEO, White Men Have a Strange Reaction,” MarketWatch, March 3, 2018, www.market watch.com/story/when-a-woman-or-person-of-color-becomes-ceo-white-men-have-a-strange-reaction-2018-02-23.

  41. D. Byers, “Turbulence at the Times,” Politico, April 23, 2013, www.politico.com/story/2013/04/new-york-times-turbulence-090544?o=1.

  42. E. Pao, interview with author, May 13, 2019.

  43. F. Garza, “The Only People Who Aren’t Penalized for Promoting Diversity at Work Are White Men,” Quartz, March 25, 2016, https://qz.com/647512/the-only-people-who-arent-penalized-for-promoting-diversity-at-work-are-white-men/.

  44. Byers, “Turbulence at the Times.”

  45. A. Fitzgerald, “Female-Led Companies More Likely to Be Targeted by Activist Investors, MU Research Finds,” Mizzou News, April 17, 2018, https://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2018/0417-female-led-companies-more-likely-to-be-targeted-by-activist-investors-mu-research-finds/.

  6. SOCIALISTS AND QUOTA QUEENS

  1. “The Counted: People Killed by Police in the US,” interactive database, The Guardian, accessed June 28, 2020, www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database.

  2. C. Sweda, “Police Officers Convicted for Fatal Shootings Are the Exception, Not the Rule,” NBC News, March 13, 2019, www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-officers-convicted-fatal-shootings-are-exception-not-rule-n982741.

  3. S. Chisholm, “Shirley Chisholm’s Presidential Announcement Speech Transcript,” Common Lit, accessed September 2019, www.commonlit.org/texts/shirley-chisholm-s-presidential-announcement-speech-transcript.

  4. E. M. Simien, Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes U.S. Politics (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 32.

  5. “This Day in History: Jan. 25, 1972: Shirley Chisholm Began Historic Campaign for President,” Zinn Education Project, accessed September 2019, www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/shirley-chisholm-announces-campaign/; Chisholm, “Shirley Chisholm’s Presidential Announcement Speech Transcript.”

  6. R. L. Madden, “Mrs. Chisholm Defeats Farmer, Is First Negro Woman in House,” New York Times, November 6, 1968, accessed September 2019, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/11/06/91291879.html?pageNumber=1.

  7. J. Landers, “‘Unbought and Unbossed’: When a Black Woman Ran for the White House,” Smithsonian, April 25, 2016, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/unbought-and-unbossed-when-black-woman-ran-for-the-white-house-180958699/.

  8. J. Freeman, “Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 Presidential Campaign,” February 2005, reproduced on the website of the University of Illinois at Chicago, accessed November 11, 2014, www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/jofreeman/polhistory/chisholm.htm.

  9. Chisholm, “Shirley Chisholm’s Presidential Announcement Speech Transcript.”

  10. A. Diekman, “Covering the 1972 Chisholm Campaign: Shaping Perceptions and Postponing Progress,” Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato 9, no. 1 (2009): 1–12.

  11. E. Blakemore, “Here’s What People Once Said About How a Woman Would Never Be the Democratic Nominee,” Time, June 7, 2016, https://time.com/4359610/shirley-chisholm-nominee/?amp=true.

  12. A. Tully, “No ‘Women’s Lib’ for Negro Congresswoman,” Beaver County Times, February 2, 1972, reproduced in the Google news archive, accessed September 2019, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=J7AiAAAAI BAJ&sjid=ErMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2935%2C941954.

  13. Landers, “‘Unbought and Unbossed.’”

  14. L. Raatma, Shirley Chisholm (New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2011), 69.

  15. B. Obama, “Remarks by the President at Medal of Freedom Ceremony,” website of the White House, November 24, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/24/remarks-president-medal-freedom-ceremony.

  16. Landers, “‘Unbought and Unbossed.’”

  17. G. F. Will, “Sympathy for Guinier,” Newsweek, June 13, 1993, www.newsweek.com/sympathy-guinier-194016.

  18. A. Lewis, “The Case of Lani Guinier,” New York Review of Books, August 13, 1998, www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/08/13/the-case-of-lani-guinier/.

  19. J. Levin, “The Welfare Queen,” Slate, December 19, 2013, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html.

  20. L. Weymouth, “Lani Guinier: Radical Justice,” Washington Post, May 25, 1993, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/05/25/lani-guinier-radical-justice/1b4d4e4d-30d1-47d1-b1ab-cb5c77125987/?utm_term=.381eb432e545.

  21. Weymouth, “Lani Guinier: Radical Justice.”

  22. Quoted in D. Harris, Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 125.

  23. L. Guinier, “Lani Guinier on Her Interactions with Bill Clinton,” interview by P. Slen, C-SPAN, March 2, 2015, www.c-span.org/video/?c4529828/lani-guinier-interactions-bill-clinton.

  24. C. I. King, “Bill Clinton’s Treatment of Lani Guinier,” Washington Post, June 6, 1993, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/06/06/bill-clintons-treatment-of-lani-guinier/412b72d0-d823-4ac2-8bc3-2619c447d6e5/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.880bec21aba0.

  25. D. Lauter, “Clinton Withdraws Guinier as Nominee for Civil Rights Job,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1993, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-06-04-mn-43290-story.html.

  26. Guinier, “Lani Guinier on Her Interactions with Bill Clinton.”

  27. B. Milano, “‘If You Stop There…’: Celebrating Guinier in the Spirit She Has Inspired,” Harvard Law Today, February 23, 2018, https://today.law.harvard.edu/stop-celebrating-guinier-spirit-inspired/.

  28. Milano, “‘If You Stop There.…’”

  29. J. Lemon, “Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar Want to ‘Make Us Slaves to Socialism,’ GOP Congresswoman Accuses,” Newsweek, April 14, 2019, www.newsweek.com/democrats-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ilhan-omar-want-make-us-slaves-socialism-1395584.

  30. Editorial Board, “If You Want to Be Speaker, Mr. Crowley, Don’t Take Voters for Granted,” New York Times, June 19, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/opinion/joseph-crowley-alexandria-ocasio-cortez.html.

  31. E. Godfrey, “A Shocking Insurgent Victory in New York,” The Atlantic, June 27, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-latina-democratic-socialist-beat-the-king-of-queens/563861/.

  32. G. Krieg, “Who Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” CNN, February 8, 2019, www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/who-is-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/index.html.

  33. A. Herrera, P. Majerle, “‘In Love with Democracy,’ Ilhan Omar Draws Diverse Supporters in Bid for Congress,” The World, November 1, 2018, www.pri.org/stories/2018-11-01/love-democracy-ilhan-omar-draws-diverse-supporters-bid-congress.

  34. E. Ostermeier, “Ilhan Omar Nearly Breaks Minnesota US House Electoral Record,” Smart Politics, November 13, 2018, https://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2018/11/13/ilhan-omar-nearly-breaks-minnesota-us-house-electoral-record/; A. DuVernay, “Ilhan Omar Tells Ava DuVernay About the (Good) Trouble She’s Making in Congress,” Interview Magazine, April 3, 2019, www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/conversation-with-congresswoman-ilhan-omar-and-ava-duvernay.

  35. J. Nichols, “Rashida Tlaib: There’s a ‘Real Human Impact of Doing Nothing,’” The Nation, June 11, 2019, www.thenation.com/podcast/rashida-tlaib-next-left/.

  36. DuVernay, “Ilhan Omar Tells Ava DuVernay About the (Good) Trouble She’s Making in Congress.”

  37. G. Solomon, “The Omar Effect: On the Pulse of Controversy and Change,” Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, June 12, 2019, http://spokesman-recorder.com/2019/06/12/the-omar-effect-on-the-pulse-of-controversy-and-change/.

  38. M. Harriot, “Ayanna Pressley Introduces Legislation to End the ‘Pushout’ of Black Girls,” The Root, December 11, 2019, www.theroot.c
om/ayanna-pressley-introduces-legislation-to-end-the-push-1840346412.

  39. “Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s ‘People’s Justice Guarantee’ Is the Most Sweeping Weed Legislation Proposal Yet. But Will It Pass?” Greenwich Time, December 11, 2019, www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Rep-Ayanna-Pressley-s-People-s-Justice-14896636.php.

  40. N. DeCosta-Klipa, “The House Passed Ayanna Pressley’s Credit Score Reform Bill. Here’s What It Would Do,” Boston, January 30, 2020, www.boston.com/news/politics/2020/01/30/ayanna-pressley-house-credit-reporting-bill.

  41. L. Friedman, “What Is the Green New Deal? A Climate Proposal, Explained,” New York Times, February 21, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/climate/green-new-deal-questions-answers.html.

  42. S. Tarlo, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Appears to Mock Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Following on Twitter,” Salon, April 9, 2019, www.salon.com/2019/04/09/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-appears-to-mock-rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-following-on-twitter/.

  43. Friedman, “What Is the Green New Deal?”

  44. I. Schwartz, “Rep. Ayanna Pressley: ‘We Don’t Need Any More Brown Faces That Don’t Want to Be a Brown Voice,’” Real Clear Politics, July 14, 2019, www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/07/14/rep_ayanna_pressley_we_dont_need_any_more_brown_faces_that_dont_want_to_be_a_brown_voice.html.

  45. S. Kent, “Ayanna Pressley’s Disturbing Progressive Threat,” Washington Examiner, July 17, 2019, www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/ayanna-pressleys-disturbing-progressive-threat.

  46. J. Bowden, “Liz Cheney Calls Ayanna Pressley’s Comments at Netroots Nation ‘Racist,’” The Hill, July 16, 2019, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/453342-liz-cheney-calls-ayanna-pressleys-comments-at-netroots-nation-racist.

  47. Z. Beauchamp, “It’s Time for Ilhan Omar’s Critics to Stand with Her Against Trump’s Attacks,” Vox, April 18, 2019, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/18/18410662/ilhan-omar-trump-911-islamophobia.

  48. “Rep. Tlaib Tears Up While Reading Death Threat,” CNN, June 4, 2019, www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/06/04/rashida-tlaib-mcgarrity-domestic-terrorism-emotional-sot-vpx.cnn.