In The Sum of Us, policy researcher Heather McGhee argues that the U.S. lags far behind other developed countries in fields like healthcare, education, pollution, and voting rights because of the way that racism shapes American politics. Specifically‚ she argues that many white voters view the world through a zero-sum paradigm: they see politics as a competition between themselves and people of color, and they think that, in order for themselves to win, people of color must lose. Thus, these white voters reject policies that help nonwhite people, even when those policies would actually benefit everybody. Meanwhile, conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires deliberately stoke white fear to win power, and when they do come to power, they continue with the same political agenda that has economically devastated the American middle class since the 1970s: cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating corporations, privatizing schools, defunding social programs, and suppressing labor unions.
In her introduction, McGhee explains why she quit her job leading the economic policy think tank Demos to write this book. After Donald Trump’s election, she realized that it isn’t enough to just analyze how bad economic policies cause racial disparities; we also need to understand how racism drives people to choose bad economic policies in the first place. This dynamic is key to the future of U.S. politics, because the majority of Americans will soon be people of color.
In her first chapter, McGhee explores the paradoxical finding that many white Americans view themselves as the main victims of racism today. This is because of zero-sum thinking: when they see people of color making progress, they think that white people are being discriminated against. This kind of thinking has a long history in the U.S. Once upon a time, the U.S. economy really was zero-sum—white people’s wealth came from enslaving Black people and stealing Indigenous land. The democratic ideals of early America were also zero-sum: “freedom” meant not being enslaved, and “rights” meant whatever enslaved people didn’t have. Politicians even realized that they could give poor white people special privileges, like citizenship, to prevent them from banding together with enslaved Black people and overthrowing the plantation system.
In the next chapter, McGhee uses public pools as a case study to show how the zero-sum paradigm still drives politics today. Countless U.S. cities built extravagant public swimming pools in the early 20th century, but then shut them down when the government ordered them racially integrated. In other words, white people preferred no public services to shared public services. Similarly, until the mid-20th century, major social policies like the Homestead Act (1862), the New Deal (1930s), and the G.I. Bill (1940s-50s) deliberately excluded people of color. But after the civil rights movement, government could no longer exclusively serve white people, so the white middle class—and the Republican Party—turned against government in general.
In chapters three through nine, McGhee shows how zero-sum politics has held the U.S. back in a variety of different specific areas. Her third chapter focuses on higher education, mass incarceration, and healthcare. She notes that the government began reallocating resources from higher education to prisons and policing in the 1970s, as urban manufacturing jobs were disappearing and the share of white students in universities was fast declining. As a result, young people today are disproportionately nonwhite, incarcerated, and indebted. Similarly, conservatives oppose the Affordable Care Act less because of what it contains than simply because it was Barack Obama’s signature policy. Just to spite Obama, states like Texas have refused to expand Medicaid, leaving millions of people without insurance (most of whom are white). Still, Texas lawmakers justified their decision by complaining about minority “freeloaders” seeking handouts—which shows how deeply racist stereotypes shape policy.
In chapter four, McGhee explains how lenders began targeting minority homeowners with predatory subprime mortgages in the 1990s and 2000s. Congress ignored thousands of urgent warnings about this pattern, which eventually spread to the rest of the housing market and led to the financial crisis of 2008 (and the Great Recession that followed). This shows how powerful white people ignore racism at their own peril: the tactics used to exploit people of color eventually get turned against them, too.
Next, in chapter five, McGhee explores how racism has derailed labor organizing—which has declined sharply since the 1970s. She visits a racially divided Nissan factory in Mississippi that narrowly voted against unionization because management convinced the white workers that “unions […] are for lazy Black people.” Many Americans feel the same way, even though historically unions have mostly helped white workers achieve benefits like a higher minimum wage, a 40-hour workweek, and pensions. Still, there have always been integrated unions, and efforts like the Fight for $15 movement show that interracial labor organizing has a bright future in the U.S.
McGhee’s sixth chapter focuses on voting rights. The U.S. has never had a fair representative system, but in the 21st century, it appears to be getting even worse. Aware that the majority of Americans will not support them, Republicans have started passing new laws (like strict voter ID requirements) that are designed to prevent people of color from voting, but also disproportionately impact poor white people. Ultrarich activists like the Koch brothers have spent billions of dollars funding this legislation, as well as racist advertising and lawsuits like Shelby County v. Holder (in which the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act).
Next, McGhee’s seventh chapter addresses residential and school segregation. She points out that white people overwhelmingly choose to live in homogenous neighborhoods, where most people of color cannot afford to live because of historical housing discrimination (redlining). American school funding depends on local property taxes, so many white families obsess over getting their children into “good schools”—which is usually just a code word for all-white schools. However, research suggests that white students actually do better and learn more important skills when they go to diverse schools. So some parents have chosen to buck the trend by deliberately sending their white kids to majority-minority schools in poorer neighborhoods.
In chapter eight, McGhee turns to the environment. Virtually all of the people blocking government action on climate change are white men, and recent research attributes this trend to their particular cognitive biases. Specifically, many white men are often emotionally invested in the “industrial capitalist order,” so prefer not to see its flaws, and they often assume that climate change will not affect them because they are at the top of this order. Next, McGhee visits Richmond, California, which is an environmental “sacrifice zone”—a minority neighborhood where the government chose to build the hundreds of toxic waste sites that white communities refused to house. Due to this toxic waste, Richmond has unusually high rates of cancer, heart disease, and asthma. But so does the rich, white adjacent neighborhood of Port Richmond. Since adjacent communities share the same air, wealthy white people do not truly escape pollution just by ensuring that the source is located in a poorer, nonwhite community. On the contrary, economics research shows that white people in highly segregated cities actually do worse: they assume that pollution will only affect people who aren’t like them, so they’re willing to tolerate a much higher level of it overall.
In chapter nine, McGhee makes the case that racism morally degrades white people. When forced to face the reality of historical racism, white people often react with a mix of denial, rationalization, and shame. In contrast, embracing racism is easy and comforting, if dishonest: ex-Nazi Angela King tells McGhee that she became a white supremacist largely because it let her avoid taking responsibility for her problems (and blame them on minorities instead). Other white people claim to be “colorblind” or believe in “meritocracy,” but these ideas imply that the racial inequities that do exist are caused by differing ability, and not by past discrimination. Still, white ignorance is powerful: it frequently leads to racist violence, especially by the police, and prevents white people from actually getting to know people of the color. Lastly, McGhee also interviews Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith leaders who all make a religious case for embracing racial healing.
Finally, in her last chapter, McGhee explains her vision for the U.S.’s future by taking the city of Lewiston, Maine as a case study. Until the early 2000s, Lewiston was a declining manufacturing town that nobody wanted to move to, but now, it is one of the prime destinations for African immigrants and refugees coming to the U.S. These newcomers have taken over the city’s extra housing stock, revitalized its economy, and helped support its aging population. While many politicians complain about the newcomers, an activist group called the Maine People’s Alliance has identified the power in Lewiston’s multiracial coalition and started organizing it.
Finally, McGhee ends her book by recommending five key takeaways for Americans. First, they should choose solidarity, not zero-sum thinking; and second, they should reinvest in government services that benefit everybody. Third, they should include everyone in social policies, while ensuring that the people who need the most help get the most help. Fourth, they should build relationships across racial lines. Finally, they should collectively confront the nation’s legacy of racism through a national Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) process.
