To understand when white America had turned against government, I traveled to one of the many places where the town had drained its public swimming pool rather than integrate it. I heard from white parents and students who feared that segregated white schools would render them ill equipped for a diverse world. I talked to white homeowners who had lost everything in a financial crisis that began with the predatory mortgages that banks first created to strip wealth from Black and brown families. I traveled to Mississippi and sat with factory workers trying to unite a multiracial workforce to bargain collectively for better pay and benefits. The people of our country are so productive and generate so much wealth, but most of the gains go to a small number, while most families struggle to stay afloat. It starts where my own journey began, trying to understand how the rules of our economy became so tilted toward the already wealthy and powerful.

THIS BOOK RECOUNTS my journey to tally the hidden costs of racism to us all. The excerpt below comes from the book’s Introduction. That makes it not only a big idea, but one whose time has hopefully, finally, come. Heather McGhee’s book makes it clear, and offers a path to greater understanding and solidarity that can help us improve our personal lives, elevate our politics, and build greater prosperity in these divided and troubled times. Fewer see how racism continues to undermine our economy and individual prosperity. Most of us believe that racism poisons the mind, and many accept that it pollutes our politics. It is a myth as old as our nation, wrapped up in a repugnant belief in racial hierarchy that was used to condone the original sin of slavery, and that persists in undermining any effort to more adequately ensure the well-being of us all. But, as McGhee shows, we are still in the thrall of a false, zero-sum narrative suggesting that providing for the basic well-being of some must come at a cost to others. It is somewhat regrettable that the great research and writing Heather McGhee brings to The Sum of Us can even be considered a big idea or a new perspective in 2021, that we have so far been unable to see and build a more solid, common bond across race, class, and culture in our country that would allow us all a greater chance to prosper. The 2021 Porchlight Big Ideas & New Perspectives book of the year is The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee.

Heather mcghee the sum of us