NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington … BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.
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This book is well-written, and gives a really good perspective on how Zero-Sum thinking hurts all of us. What is Zero-Sum thinking? In a nutshell, it implies that for people of color to get ahead, white people must pay and lose something. In other words, for there to be a positive in one column, there has to be a negative in the other, and the net should be zero. But Heather McGhee lays out a compelling argument that it doesn’t have to be that way. Fear drives many of our decisions, and it has been that way for a long time, but it doesn’t need to stay that way. She looks at historical choices and how those choices still impact all races today. She walks readers through examples like public pools and how they were shut down, and thus penalized everyone, instead of sharing them when Black people wanted to start enjoying them. She examines the VA bill, and how it allowed an entire generation of white veterans to get ahead through college educations, but Black veterans (who fought in the exact same war) weren’t afforded the same benefits, and thus weren’t given the same ‘hand up.”
Policies that hurt people of color often end up affecting white people just as much or more. It is easy to feel depressed about the hurts caused by one race toward another, but we are all in this together. She delves into the fact that the environmental changes are affecting everyone and costing us all billions of dollars every year. If we all pull together, we can make the changes necessary to improve the lives of everyone, and not just one set of the population. This book was eye-opening for this reader, and should be on the ‘must read’ list for every high school or college student in the country. Adults should lead the way by opening their hearts and minds to the thoughts examined throughout this compelling book.
The premise of the Sum of Us is that racism hurts All of us; that when white people are complacent with racist ideologies in policy and programs, it actually hurts the white poor people the most. And evidence shows that this is the case! The author gives great examples and at the end of the book, offers ways that we as a whole in community can change that–for the betterment of All of US.
If I could convince every white person I know — especially those who consider themselves moderates and liberals — to read one book, it would be this one. Every sentence is truly profound. This book addresses an important aspect of USian culture that isn’t as well covered as it should be. Although one of the major themes is how racist structures harm white people, it doesn’t feel like it centers whiteness. And while it unflinchingly describes a monumental problem, the book is also infused with hope.
I borrowed the audiobook from my library, but there was so much I want to go back and reference, I’m going to buy it from Chirp and get the ebook, too. I’ll be rereading this repeatedly for sure.
Read 2.20.2021
This is a book that will quickly become a “must-read” book as it is filled with some amazing information about the “zero-sum” phenomenon and takes a deep look at why white people continue to sabotage themselves just to make [what they deem] life harder for those who don’t share the same skin color as them [Black people, Brown people, Asians, Immigrants etc]. This book is filled with story after story of the history of the “zero-sum” issues and how it has and continues to hurt everyone, not just the targeted group. This is, for the most part, a very easy [if not frustrating and angering] read, though there are parts that were, for me, very dense and a little above my pay-grade, but I will freely admit here that I know little about mortgages [the chapter I really struggled with] and so it became a tough read for me there.
The research here is top-notch; the author knows what she is talking about and this is written in a clear and concise way that almost anyone can understand. And it is much needed. Unless we understand what is going on around us, how can we change the damaging behaviors? This book is a good way to both learn and start. Very well done.
Thank you to NetGalley, Heather McGhee and Random House Publishing Group – Random House/One World for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.