‘The Sum of Us’ by Heather McGhee

In 1950’s America, towns and cities opted to drain their public pools rather than have them as non-segregated spaces, cheating themselves out of their free community space whilst trying to take away their black neighbours’ place to swim.

In her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, Heather McGhee explores this as a metaphor for how all Americans are at the disadvantage of racism in politics, labour laws, employment, healthcare, housing, and climate and social policy. ‘The majority of white voters’, she proves ‘have voted against the democratic nominee for President ever since it became the part for civil rights under Lydon Johnson.’

The historical legacy of racism means white people often see racism as a zero-sum game – if black people are gaining, white people are losing. With their votes, political leaning, and wishes for society, white voters willingly lose out as long as black communities do not gain.

The antithesis of the slave with no freedom McGhee explains, created, and facilitated the white yearning for freedom. White slave owners once insured their slaves, thus gaining from their deaths; the lack of freedom of black people who built the nation is integral to the freedom of the white person.

The idea that both cannot gain – that one must have the converse experience to the other, ‘drains the public pool of resources.’ White people would often choose, maybe subconsciously, to lose out themselves rather than advocate for anything that would benefit ‘only’ black people.

Even slavery has resulted in long-term losses. Countries that relied more on slave labour in 1860 had lower per capita income in 2000. This is true of a lot of the seeming ‘gains’ of white communities.

White Americans voted against universal healthcare more and more as it got ‘lumped in with the communist-inspired doctrine of racial integration and amalgamation.’ Obama's residency was a huge tell of this correlation. When the figurehead of the American government became a black man in 2009, the correlation between views on race and government policy went into overdrive. Professor Michael Tesler, a political scientist at Brown University, conducted research in 2010 on how racial attitudes impacted views on the Affordable Care Act. He concluded that whites with higher levels of racial resentment grew more opposed to healthcare reform after it became associated with President Obama – even though affordable healthcare would have benefitted everyone, white and black.

Even the 2008 crash could have been prevented if we had paid earlier attention to the financial fires that were burning through black and brown communities, McGhee explains, of foreclosures, credit issues, and predatory loans. Instead of seeing these as foreshadowing, the practices weren’t taken seriously because they were not affecting white communities, houses, or bank accounts. They were allowed to continue until the disaster had engulfed white communities too, when it was an emergency and was too late.

The lack of solidarity between white and black people benefits those who want to keep both oppressed. Racism undermines white Americans' faith in and love for their fellow Americans. In terms of labour and wages, for example, employees pitting workers against each other meant they could pay no-whites less and drive down wages, make more profit, and further the divide. The wins of unions came from solidarity between black, white and brown men and women – a testament and metaphor for what could be achieved.

McGhee asks and answers the question: ‘What if racism is driving inequality for all of us?’