New satirical book from Saltaire-based writer explores white male privilege

His last such project, the 2018 book These Northern Types, was a 16-part typographic exploration of Northern identity. Working with a team of writers, engineers, printers and members of the public, it brought together type design, experimental production methods, public engagement and written work. One review described it as “an important sociological project” another that it was “beautiful to look at yet uncompromising and direct” – which is a pretty good description for his latest book White Man™ Identity Standards Manual, a satirical look at white male privilege, seen through the lens of branding and marketing. As with all good satire, it is witty and incisive, and makes its point very elegantly.

“I decided to write the book for a mixture of reasons,” says Bentley. “One of the things we had done while working on These Northern Types was to ‘rebrand’ the North. We launched it on Twitter as if we were a London agency rebranding the North – it was a light-hearted way of prompting debate around those issues and I wanted to do something more with that in terms of looking at identity and power. With These Northern Types I was in safe territory, writing about what it is like to be part of an identity in opposition to the default, with this I am reflecting on my own whiteness and maleness and how that relates to power. The book doesn’t cover ground that hasn’t been covered before by others who have put their head above the parapet but I felt I could maybe offer some of those arguments in an original way and with some levity.”

As the title suggests, the book takes the form of a brand manual, employing that very particular style of marketing language and messaging which enables Bentley to make bold, concise statements, laced with humour, that serve as subtle provocations. It opens with an explanation of the manual’s purpose, stating it exists ‘to help in the creation of correct, homogenous iterations of our identity across all contexts – ensuring they always reflect the pillars which support and maintain our power and position of supremacy within the marketplace.’ As a description of how the patriarchy works, that’s hard to beat.

Bentley says that the imposed structure of the manual framework helped in the writing of the book, which he started just over three years ago. “Once you have a set of rules – common brand rules that I work with all the time in my day job – I could focus on short statements and write a bit at a time. What I’m writing about is really complex and where it comes from is complicated but refining it down was a useful exercise and it helped to make the arguments really clear.”

Alongside these carefully constructed, thoughtful and wryly humorous statements, such as ‘White Man™ should always be keen and confident to explain any topics in great, detail, whenever the opportunity presents itself and regardless of expertise level’, are a series of original illustrative graphics. The final graphic is a tiny white square in the middle of a black page with the caption: ‘White Man™ has left the space below intentionally blank for the comments and input of others.’

“I hope that because the book approaches things from left-field and there is some humour in there that people will find it entertaining as well as thought-provoking,” says Bentley. “Mostly I would like to make people think about the link between identity and power and how deep that runs.”

The book subtly, persistently and cogently challenges the status quo, pointing up the injustices of a world view where the white man is the default identity and demonstrating how far there is still go in our thinking and attitudes around this. But ultimately Bentley wants to leave the reader on a positive note and to encourage debate . “Particularly towards the end there is some optimism,” he says. “I think i t is to everybody’s advantage to talk openly about these things. It’s really important to have these conversations because that is how we can effect change.”

White Man™ Identity Standards Manual by Oli Bentley, £7.99, published by Split is out now. Available at split.co.uk