She is a former president and currently a distinguished senior fellow of Demos, a non-profit progressive U.S. think tank. If you are looking for McGhee's book don't buy this one. Word Count: 1274. While the March on Washington highlighted the agenda of Black leaders who supported job security and a higher minimum wage, white support for these issues diminished after the march. by Heather McGhee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 16, 2021 A head-on consideration of the costs of American racism. Heather McGhee, in the book “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” take this further. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. McGhee traces how the slave economy stunted the growth of the entire slave-holding region. Enjoy this free preview Unlock all 53 pages of this Study Guide by subscribing today. "The Sum of Us" by Heather McGhee is a very important book that should be read by all Americans. Racism has costs for white people, too. Summary: "Heather C. McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. Chapter 2 introduces a symbolic example that McGhee will return to repeatedly as she discusses the ways in which public benefits that are kept from Black Americans prove that the zero-sum paradigm also prevents white citizens from social and economic progress. A chance moment during which McGhee overheard a senator lambasting “deadbeats [who] dodge the child support” led to an epiphany—racial stereotypes limit productive reform. However, throughout American history, socioeconomic benefits have often been available to “whites only.” Even twentieth-century policies like the GI Bill failed to significantly impact Black citizens. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. However, this epoch was soon followed by “the Inequality Era,” when the middle class shrunk. Next, McGhee investigates unions and the hestiance of white workers to join them, even when they would gain benefits for themselves. Introduction-Chapter 3. This event has passed. American citizenship became aligned with freedom and with whiteness, shutting out and dehumanizing people of color. However, McGhee also references instances of successful cross-racial bargaining, such as the Stand Up KC and Fight for $15 movements, in which workers resisted corporations’ attempts to see them as each others’ competition and embraced the unity of their cause. “Racism sits at the heart of America, and McGhee shows its effects on the very people who cleave to it. This item: Summary of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather… by Summary Guru Paperback $9.99. Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. American colonists’ radical notion of individual liberty could only be concretely understood in contrast to the utter bondage of slavery. In the 1920s and 1930s, large public pools that could accommodate thousands sprung up across the nation, partly aided by the Works Progress Administration. Donate; Contact; Members. Start your 48-hour free trial and unlock all the summaries, Q&A, and analyses you need to get better grades now. To disprove this faulty logic, McGhee gives examples of policies that could have helped Americans across racial lines but were rejected by white citizens. eBook: Smith, Carol: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store ABOUT THE MAIN BOOKHeather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. These white Europeans then created a nation with a racial hierarchy, situating themselves at the top. The plantation was basically self-sufficient; there was no perceived need to invest in education or public works to raise the general standard of living. Details. ©2021 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Introduction–Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis. And they see policies meant to increase economic equality, such as welfare, as disproportionately benefitting Black people when the opposite is actually true. Chair of the Board of Directors at Color of Change, McGhee argues America’s toxic mix of racism and greed is responsible for current and historic division, destruction, and inequality. Log in here. At Demos, McGhee started to consider what role race might play in this counterintuitive reality. Comment by ♕ʀᴏʏᴀʟᴛʏ♕. McGhee realized that some Americans were not “operating in their own rational economic self-interest.” She concludes that feelings “about who belongs and who deserves” can be understood by examining the racial divide at the heart of American history. McGhee ends by recommending that the American government adopt a program like Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation nationwide to begin identifying the sources of systemic injustice and to encourage citizens to work together to reverse those injustices, thereby creating a more equitable society for all Americans. In other words, white people see race relations as a zero-sum game: if people of color make progress, it must be at the expense of white people. ... Introduction Summary. The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee Book Summary. It is one of the most powerful and insightful books I have read in a very long time. Subsequently, higher education costs skyrocketed, and students have been saddled with crippling debt in their pursuit of a college degree, which remains a marker of success in American society. What is Heather McGhee’s concept of the “Solidarity Dividend” in The Sum of Us? Despite what McGhee perceives as the clear racial underpinnings of this resentment, white Americans deny the role of racism in anti-government attitudes. Patron-only-68. Today, southern states continue to lag in education and lead in poverty rates. One of the first stops on my book journey to write The Sum of Us was Montgomery, Alabama, which is one of many places where there is a beautiful central park in the city. McGhee illustrates how this zero-sum thinking plays a damaging role in all sectors of American life, including education, housing, labor, political representation, and the environment. The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Higher Ground, the production company of former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, has optioned Heather McGhee’s New York Times bestseller The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together for adaptation as a podcast series for Spotify.. Summary. She finds that a potential unionization drive at a Canton, Mississippi, Nissan plant failed, because white management pitted workers against one another based on race and painted Black workers as “lazy” complainers who just wanted handouts. March 18 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm Filled with information, yet easy to read, "The Sum of Us" delves into why so many Americans believe that we live in a zero sum society-that if life improves for people of color, it can only be at the expense of white people. McGhee focuses on integrated public pools to illustrate the lengths to which white citizens, gripped by zero-sum thinking, will go to limit equality for people of color. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. Specifically, when people of color achieve rights or benefits, white Americans perceive themselves as losing instead of seeing that all citizens can and do profit from a more just society. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Start your 48-hour free trial and unlock all the summaries, Q&A, and analyses you need to get better grades now. Heather McGhee argues that economic policies fueled by systemic racism have limited the progress of all Americans. Heather McGhee argues that economic policies fueled by systemic racism have limited the progress of all Americans. Public services have been decimated, millions of Americans have no healthcare, and lobbyists control political decision-making. Further, slavery lowered land value, impoverishing southern whites. Which aspects of American society are affected by racial disunity, according to The Sum of Us? Through her personal experiences, legal studies, and work at the think tank Demos, McGhee comes to realize that underpinning America’s unjust economic landscape is systemic racism fueled by the white supremacy built into the country from its start. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. The Sum of Us is a 2021 nonfiction book by Heather McGhee about the social and economic costs of racism, which all Americans must pay. Word Count: 1435. Heather McGhee will share the inspiration for ... Join our broad union family for a conversation on how racial justice economically and socially helps everyone. THE SUM OF US - SUMMARY AND ANALYSISDISCLAIMERThis is an independent publication by Snappy Reads. Ultimately, exposing and discussing the roots of inequality will help the nation move forward. This book is for all of us standing in the breach, working toward social change. She explains, “The logical extension of the zero sum story is that a future without racism is something that white people should … McGhee examines the housing crash of 2008 but looks even more carefully at its precedent: the predatory practices of subprime mortgage lenders who targeted Black homeowners in the late 1990s. Last Updated on April 8, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. McGhee began thinking about economic inequality as a child and was invigorated by her role at Demos, a group that researches inequalities and poses policy reform. McGhee has found, though, that white students who attend diverse schools achieve academic and social gains beyond what their white peers can accomplish in majority white schools. The Sum of Us Summary McGhee discusses the “zero-sum paradigm,” the common but false idea that any gains for Black Americans must mean losses... McGhee illustrates how this zero-sum thinking plays a damaging role in all sectors of American … The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. But to write The Sum of Us (11 hours), Heather McGhee traveled across the country—from coastal Washington and rural Kentucky to an evangelical church in Chicago and a Nissan plant in Mississippi—to understand the roots of white America’s zero-sum attitude toward racial equity and how this mistaken belief system damages everyone. These examples become McGhee’s earliest evidence of her concept of the “Solidarity Dividend.”. Janice Tomlin was the primary plaintiff in a case against the predatory lenders, and her testimony secured payments for over a thousand homeowners. Heather McGhee on her book, "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" In her new book, Heather McGhee argues that America will not reach its … HEATHER MCGHEE: The message of the book THE SUM OF US is quite simple. Access to housing and Social Security is limited by arbitrary “job categories” that exclude fields dominated by workers of color. 2021-03-04T18:26:00Z. Part of the reason is the zero-sum thinking that leads many to assume that what is good for the environment will be bad for the economy, but as with every other sector McGhee examines in her book, another motivator is systemic racism. Recent techniques have ranged from purging voter rolls without voters’ knowledge and removing polling places from university campuses. It’s the root of the most pressing public problems affecting us all, says Heather McGhee in The Sum of Us. In essence, white Americans do not vote in their own economic self-interest when they feel that people of color will also benefit, because they think that progress for people of color means losses for white people. Segregation continued with the Jim Crow South, and even after integration, it remains a common practice, even when white citizens claim they value diversity. The racial hierarchy meant lower-class white people were “elevated from the bottom of a rigid class hierarchy to a higher place in a new ‘racial’ hierarchy by dint of something as immutable as [their] skin color.” This created a sense of superiority and entitlement in white Americans which continues today and which blocks meaningful socioeconomic progress for people of all classes and races. Despite the adoption of the modest Affordable Care Act, states have turned down what McGhee calls “free money” through Medicaid, resulting in rural hospital closures and negative health outcomes, even deaths, for everyday Americans. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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. However, once more students of color began to enroll, and anti-government sentiment grew after the civil rights era, public funding for higher education was perceived as a handout. McGhee looks into disenfranchisement throughout American history, from limited rights to vote as drawn up in the Constitution, to poll taxes and literacy tests in the Jim Crow era, to continued attacks on the democratic process today. FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00. McGhee then examines how higher education was once considered a necessity; it received more generous public funding, making it affordable for middle-class white Americans. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. More recently, white voters have continued to vote against their interests in part because they see advances for people of color, such as Affirmative Action, as discriminatory against white people. Chapters 4-6. Her central example is the public pools of the early twentieth century, which were host to thousands of citizens until integration opened access to Black students as well. White Americans refused to use the pools, so they fell into disuse. SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE SUM OF US BY Heather McGhee. For example, McGhee explores the ways African slavery in the colonial and early national eras resulted in a racial hierarchy that lifted white people above Black slaves and Indigenous peoples. Buy the selected items together. Though Lewiston and other similar towns still experience zero-sum thinking and underlying tension, they become microcosms of McGhee’s concept of the “Solidarity Dividend,” the idea that citizens can all gain from joining together rather than seeing each other as enemies. Forgot password? McGhee moves on to a more modern phenomenon as she examines how the government has been “singularly stingy” toward its citizens in regards to public goods and infrastructure that would benefit everyone. The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee « All Events. Download Save. This racial hierarchy, in part, replaced a class-based system that placed white workers at the bottom. Touted as a symbol of democracy, the pools thrived until the push for integration in the 1950s. And its primary function in … Get started. What is Heather McGhee’s concept of the “Solidarity Dividend” in The Sum of Us? Chapters 7-10. The Sum of Us removes the cloak from this land of so-called innocents and brilliantly offers a path forward for the nation. McGhee tackles climate change and environmental racism, noting that conservative white men, who seem to be the least affected by climate change, refuse to seek and implement solutions. In Stock. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Former Demos president McGhee undertook her first project for the organization by studying credit card debt—which, by the early 2000s, was far more likely to affect Black and Latinx families than White ones. However, the warning that should have been sounded by this example was not heeded, and subprime lending continued until the crash of 2008. In a related development, the popularity of anti-government conservatism increased. “The Sum of Us is a powerhouse of a book about the deep, enduring, cross-cultural, multi-generational, and real-life cost of racist policy-making in the United States. Her work has been informed by a belief that Black people disproportionately suffered as a result of poor economic policy, but she came to realize that bad economic policy hurts white communities as well. Last Updated on April 8, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us starts with the assumption that the majority of Americans are suffering economically due to policy that benefits only a small segment at the top of the social hierarchy. McGhee returned to the fundamental question of why white Americans would not support economic policies in their own interest when those policies would also benefit people of color. By the 1980s, the white populace had begun to adjust to social equality for people of color, but their own economic progress stalled, stoking racial resentment. Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. In the book, McGhee, a frequent panelist on NBC’s Meet the Press, takes readers on a sociological odyssey of sorts … Indeed, many communities remain mostly white or Black, and public school systems continue to reflect more diverse populations than private institutions. Which aspects of American society are affected by racial disunity, according to The Sum of Us? After Demos’s report and policy recommendations, Congress passed a reform bill that helped credit card companies instead of citizens. I walked the grounds, this big, wide flat expanse that used to have one of the nearly 2,000 publicly funded grand-resort-style swimming pools in America. Racism resulted in public losses for everyone, not just Black citizens. Another public good that could benefit the majority of Americans but has been deemed a handout that will be taken advantage of by freeloaders is healthcare. McGhee then shifts her attention to a less tangible impact of systemic racism: the moral cost of racism on white Americans. As with the example of the public pools, McGhee asserts that “public healthcare is often a benefit that white people have little interest in sharing with their Black neighbors.”. Pools that were once social hubs for white swimmers fell out of use after integration granted equal access to Black Americans. Heather McGhee. Racism contributed to disapproval of the Affordable Care Act but also negatively impacts lower- and middle-class white Americans who have less access to healthcare. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. Following the lead of Republican politicians and Fox News anchors, who stoked racism in the wake of Obama’s election, white conservatives and moderates believed as recently as 2016 “that Black Americans take more than [they] give.” However, in supporting conservative economic policy, these citizens vote against their own interests. Heather Charisse McGhee is an American political commentator and strategist. HEATHER McGHEE: In The Sum of Us, I visit with workers who are fighting for $15, who are fast-food workers making a little over $7 an hour, Black and white, who were really at … : An Insightful Account Of The Deep Enduring Cost Of Racism And How We Can Overcome It To Prosper Together. Decreased use of public pools meant an increase in white memberships to exclusive clubs, a move in which “entire communities lost out.”. However, the vote holds so much potential for change that the most powerful will seek any method to disenfranchise citizens, whether Americans of color or progressive college students. McGhee comes to … Now, nearly half of Americans do not earn enough to meet basic needs, and a third of workers’ jobs offer no benefits; meanwhile, the wealth gap has grown as CEOs and corporations thrive. I- What? One of the first stops on my book journey to write The Sum of Us was Montgomery, Alabama, which is one of many places where there is a … Zero-sum thinking informed Europeans’ attitude toward Indigenous peoples’ lands, and their sense of cultural and religious superiority dictated their treatment of Indigenous people. 'Sum Of Us' Examines The Hidden Cost Of Racism — For Everyone Author Heather McGhee draws on a wealth of economic data to make the case that … White citizens may feel guilty but also unable to deal with feeling “like the bad guy.” Some project their anger and shame onto people of color, while others deny that racism exists, adopting a misguided practice of “color blindness.” Ultimately, it is the responsibility of white people to come to terms with their role in the country’s inequality and work for a more just society for everyone.
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