The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

This is a stunning, sobering, and ultimately oddly hopeful book that should be required reading for every high school student. It is about, as the title plainly states, how the pervasive and systemic racism that exists across the American landscape costs each and every one of us. Actual economic penalties, as well as quality of life costs. Unfortunately many people who think racism is overblown, or that its dominant historic forms have been overturned and the oppressors have become the oppressed, and those people might not read this book. And, if the studies and surveys are to be believed, the number of people willing to remain suspended between belief and denial, available to have their minds changed, is small and shrinking. I am harkening to my vaccine conversations with clearly at risk people I interact with professionally who found my having the conversation with them to reveal my politics rather than what the science shows. For those who do read this, she starts with the story of public swimming pools closing completely rather than allowing people of all colors to swim there. We would rather suffer than share. Why can’t we have public swimming pools, subsidized higher education, equitably distributed wealth, healthy natural environments, affordable housing and fair terms on mortgage loans? History shows U.S. society repeatedly refusing itself goods like these on racial grounds. Better not to have them at all than to allow people of color to enjoy them. But it is the result of middle class and poor whites being manipulated into accepting less, at great expense to themselves. Time for change.