Beleaguered surfers stagger under new damning categorization: “You all are part of the mediocre white man industrial complex!”

The burdens we bear.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that white men are giant bummers, responsible for the dour state of the world, generally toxic and uncool. Oof. Seeing that the majority of surfers are white men all of these lessons apply to us and now, also, a whole new categorization. The “mediocre white man industrial complex.”

The term, first presented in Ijeoma Oluo’s new book Mediocre, describes how white male mediocrity has become both the United States and surfing’s core ideology. The author defines white male mediocrity as “this idea that white men deserve political power and wealth and safety and security and waves just because they’re white men.”

White male mediocrity protects the belief that white men are perceived as stronger and more successful than women and people of color regardless of skill or achievements, she says. “It’s a system that protects mediocrity, that sets [mediocrity] as the goal. And the idea that anything would ask for more of our systems — let alone the people within these systems — becomes a threat to the status quo and to our systems of power.”

Ugh.

It makes me think about my mediocre surfing and, likely, your mediocre surfing and how we’re bolstering the mediocre white man industrial complex every time we paddle out.

I need to work on doing less mediocre cutbacks. Like, actually bend my knees and stuff.

Paddling now. I’ll report on progress soon.