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

The Sum of Us is a powerhouse of a book about the deep, enduring, cross-cultural, multigenerational, and real-life cost of racist policy-making in the United States. With intelligence and care (as well as with a trove of sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes heart-opening true stories) Heather McGhee shows us what racism has cost all of us, as a society. And that cost has been brutally high across the board. This is a book for every American, and I am grateful for McGhees research, her humanity, and her never-more-important teachings.

Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author

If everyone in America read this book, wed be not only a more just country, but a more powerful, successful, and loving one. A vital, urgent, stirring, beautifully written book that offers a compassionate road map out of our present troubled moment.

George Saunders, #1 New York Times bestselling and Booker Prizewinning author of Lincoln in the Bardo

Racism is not merely destructive to people of color. It is self-destructive to many white people. Racism is anti-American and anti-human, as Heather McGhee expertly and judiciously proves in The Sum of Us. This is the book Ive been waiting for. The Sum of Us can help us come together to build a nation for us all, with policies that benefit us all.

Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist

The most consistent lie of racism is the lie that it benefits most white people. Just as Dr. King observed that poor white people had nothing to feed their children but Jim Crow, Heather McGhee brilliantly demonstrates in The Sum of Us that systemic racism hurts everybody. That is why we have to link together across every dividing line to build a fusion coalition that can remake a nation that works for all of us.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

In this compelling book, Heather McGhee exposes the dangerous zero-sum fallacy that has led some white people to believe their well-being is threatened when Black people get ahead. With powerful illustrations drawn from various fields, McGhee shows that the truth is the opposite: Collaboration across races yields a Solidarity Dividend, making us all better off.Critically important and relevant.

Robert B. Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor and author of The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It

What would it be like to live in an America where we embraced diversity as our superpower? Heather McGhees The Sum of Us challenges readers to imagine a country where we are more than the sum of our disparate parts. Through the stories of fast food workers in Missouri, community organizers in Maine, and more, McGhee illustrates the power and necessity of multiracial organizing. Hopeful, inspiring, and timely, The Sum of Us makes the case for the radical notion that we the people means all of us.

Cecile Richards, co-founder of Supermajority and former president of Planned Parenthood

Drawing on her experience on the front lines of social policy, Heather McGhee marshals data, history, and the stories of everyday Americans to make the case that racismand the false zero-sum hierarchy at its coreis responsible for our runaway inequality. The Sum of Us is a special, luminous book that points a clear path forward, toward a future that is less divided, richer, and more just. It is essential reading for leaders from every sector seeking a way to heal our countrys divisions.

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation

Heather McGhee again slices through the rhetoric and the obfuscation right to the heart of what racism is costing us all.A riveting read and a very fresh perspective!

Abigail Disney, activist and filmmaker

The Sum of Us removes the cloak from this land of so-called innocents and brilliantly offers a path forward for the nation.An extraordinary book for these difficult days.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Begin Again: James Baldwins America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

For those who still question the cost of systemic racism in Americaand whether there is anything we can do about itHeather McGhee has written a book you must read.

David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama and CNN senior political commentator

Heather McGhee has written a wonderful and engaging book that unpacks the work of racism in the lives of not only African Americans, but all Americans. Traveling across the country and talking to people from varying backgrounds, McGhee details how the work of white supremacy and racism continues today by promoting a zero-sum story in which white Americans are encouraged to view the world through an us-versus-them lens. The Sum of Us is a must-read.

Cathy Cohen, David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and founder of the Black Youth Project

Why cant we have nice things?

Perhaps theres been a time when youve pondered exactly this question. And by nice things, you werent thinking about hovercraft or laundry that does itself. You were thinking about more basic aspects of a high-functioning society, like adequately funded schools or reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty or a public health system to handle pandemics. The we who cant seem to have nice things is Americans, all Americans. This includes the white Americans who are the largest group of the uninsured and the impoverished as well as the Americans of color who are disproportionately so. We is all of us who have watched generations of American leadership struggle to solve big problems and reliably improve the quality of life for most people. We know what we needwhy cant we have it?

Why cant we have nice things? was a question that struck me pretty early on in lifegrowing up as I did in an era of rising inequality, seeing the wealthy neighborhoods boom while the schools and parks where most of us lived fell into disrepair. When I was twenty-two years old, I applied for an entry-level job at Demos, a research and advocacy organization working on public policy solutions to inequality. There, I learned the tools of the policy advocacy trade: statistical research and white papers, congressional testimony, litigation, bill drafting, media outreach, and public campaigns.