The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

Any American who is not convinced that racism has severely impacted the economics and financial standing of the black community needs to read this book; but, further, all Americans should read this thoroughly researched, readable, and very necessary study to understand how racist policies ended up hurting the vast majority of the American populace regardless of race.

In a chapter called “Racism Drained the Pool,” author Heather McGhee shows how the integration of public pools starting in the late 1950s led many communities to work around allowing black people to use the pools, including by privatizing them, charging memberships, or closing them altogether.  These decisions affected all families who were working or middle class who couldn’t afford memberships or who lost all access to safe public swimming areas.  She uses the metaphor of “pools” to describe many other aspects of economic life that shut out—by closing down or by making things unattainable to—average Americans, including banking, health care, education, housing and wages.  These seemed to be explained in logical ways but often relied on false narratives about the ability of certain groups (namely the black community) to participate.  

Banking is a prime example.  Banking was historically difficult for black Americans beginning after the Civil War when they weren’t allowed to bank in white institutions.  Years down the road, they were not given access to life-changing GI loans after World War II that helped white veterans establish wealth through home ownership, their homes were undervalued because of redlining, and they were the earliest victims of predatory lending by such banks as Wells Fargo, a decade ahead of the subprime mortgages that ultimately lead to the economic collapse and wave of foreclosures on homes starting in 2008 and financial ruin of many Americans.

McGhee thoroughly rebuts the notion of the zero-sum equation, the idea that the benefits given to one group of people mean that another group loses out. (I’m hearing the common cry of “They’re coming to take our jobs.”)  In fact, stories of successful communities show that economically disadvantaged people  who work together for the benefit of all see a success for all—what she calls the Solidarity Dividend.  Working together to fight the “rules” that determine various economic decisions, such as wages that don’t offer an actual living, is the way that is going to make significant change.  Another big part of this change is through governmental policy that takes into account the different circumstances of the groups involved.

You may think that you are uninterested in economics and that it doesn’t pertain to you, but the devastation of these policies is coming into greater detail today as we watch the impact of the coronavirus on American life.  Numerous situations based on systemic racism led to black, brown, and Indigenous populations being affected far worse than the white population, but the entire effect has been to lay bare a crisis in public health that fans out into many other areas of our lives, including everything from childcare to education to unemployment to infrastructure.  

If you would like to get an idea how she explains her economic ideas, consider watching her recent TED Talk, “Racism has a cost for everyone.”  https://www.ted.com/talks/heather_c_mcghee_racism_has_a_cost_for_everyone?language=en

I have barely covered the tip of the iceberg here in this book that contains such big ideas.  I highly recommend it for its findings and for the way the author has combined economic research from a vast array of places with stories of the individuals whose lives have borne the brunt of unequal economic practices. 

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Random House One World for an advance copy.