The Sum of Us

What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

By: Heather McGhee

Narrated by: Heather McGhee

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 Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal

“This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist

Look for the author’s podcast, The Sum of Us, based on this book!

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.

LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL

This is America

McGhee engages the reader/listener emotionally with personal vignettes from her life, interviews, and participant observation while providing extensive, original and existing, systematic qualitative and quantitative research as academic evidence for her argument against the zero sum game (i.e., white supremacist systems).

Everyone should have to listen to this book!

Amazingly written and very informative! I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone willing to make a change in society!

Simply Well Sooken

This was the most on point book I heard/read in a long time. I appreciate this woman, strong Queen!

Required Reading. Absolutely Excellent!

Everyone NEEDS to read this book. Depending on your political beliefs, some phases may irritate you. However, you will also be enlightened. Be strong, let go of minor differences while listening, and learn the truth. This is some fine work.

Shined a light

This was a good read. Heather's book gets to the root causes of racism in America. I liked that her book not only talked about issues racism causes but also the price everyone pays for it.