04-18-2021, 02:18 AM
A couple years back Bels started a tradition of reviewing books, which unfortunately died out. I thought it might be good to revive it by reviewing books from “both sides” of the current political divide, which address topics like foreign policy, racial inequality, the filibuster, Trumpism, voter suppression, disinformation, the pandemic, health care, etc. Two books a month, maybe.
This week’s book is, then, Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (New York: One World, 2021). I’ll articulate her thesis here; then in the following post I will cover the second chapter, “Racism Drained the Pool,” which sets up the dominant metaphor/analogy used throughout the book—the closure of public swimming pools throughout the South in response to desegregation. The message of the White power structure back then: “If we have to share public goods with Blacks, then we’d prefer to exclude everyone, including Whites.” McGee’s counter message—racism against Blacks has always hurt Whites too. We can accomplish more together, for whites as well as blacks, than apart.
McGhee’s point of departure is a study on Whites’ perception of racism: “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing” (2011), which found that many whites believed that decreased bias against Blacks correlated to increased bias against whites. https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/norton%20sommers%20whites%20see%20racism_ca92b4be-cab9-491d-8a87-cf1c6ff244ad.pdf.
Her thesis, then, is that this zero-sum perception of racial gain/loss is “the core idea at the root of our country’s dysfunctions.” If we want to “uproot” that dysfunction, then “we need to understand how it was planted,” and how it hurts whites as well as minorities (6).
Setting the stage for this understanding, she connects two historical trends usually analyzed separately—racism against Blacks and government help for Whites.
The first trend begins with the “Founding zero-sum,” the slavery which set whites over blacks. From a 1705 Virginia law which secured the private possessions of white servants but stripped slaves of theirs to be sold by church parishes for charity to poor whites (10), to the 3/5ths compromise, to the 1790 Naturalization Act, to the Civil War era* to Jim Crow, she establishes that point of dividing poor whites from blacks was not only a material, but also a social/psychological elevation which could be threatened by equality.
The second historical trend is government help for Whites which, in her analysis, begins big time with the Homestead Acts of 1862 and ’66. This trend continued through the New Deal, which helped Whites and some Blacks, and the GI Bill, which stimulated home ownership and education for millions of whites, but relatively few Blacks.
Between the New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society, White support for government programs among both Democrats and Republicans was extremely high. However, with the onset of segregation, that changed. The ideal of limited/small government, buttressed by the resources of the “States rights” tradition, are revived, and a shift in values sets in.
Solution? What McGhee calls the “Solidarity Dividend” the notion that “the sum of us can accomplish far more than just some of us” (272). Throughout the book, she balances losses in wages, education, healthcare and environmental quality with stories of how Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinxs and new immigrants have worked together, identifying common interests to create union jobs, educational and healthcare opportunities, and local economic renewals—always in the face of zero-sum politics.
I may have a few criticisms of this work, but I’d rather withhold them and listen to others responses. If there are questions, I’ll try to answer them as McGhee might.
*E.g. the New York Herald’s publisher warned” in 1860: “If Lincoln is elected you will have to compete with the labor of four million emancipated negroes”—i.e., zero-sum: their gain is your loss.
This week’s book is, then, Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (New York: One World, 2021). I’ll articulate her thesis here; then in the following post I will cover the second chapter, “Racism Drained the Pool,” which sets up the dominant metaphor/analogy used throughout the book—the closure of public swimming pools throughout the South in response to desegregation. The message of the White power structure back then: “If we have to share public goods with Blacks, then we’d prefer to exclude everyone, including Whites.” McGee’s counter message—racism against Blacks has always hurt Whites too. We can accomplish more together, for whites as well as blacks, than apart.
McGhee’s point of departure is a study on Whites’ perception of racism: “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing” (2011), which found that many whites believed that decreased bias against Blacks correlated to increased bias against whites. https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/norton%20sommers%20whites%20see%20racism_ca92b4be-cab9-491d-8a87-cf1c6ff244ad.pdf.
Her thesis, then, is that this zero-sum perception of racial gain/loss is “the core idea at the root of our country’s dysfunctions.” If we want to “uproot” that dysfunction, then “we need to understand how it was planted,” and how it hurts whites as well as minorities (6).
Setting the stage for this understanding, she connects two historical trends usually analyzed separately—racism against Blacks and government help for Whites.
The first trend begins with the “Founding zero-sum,” the slavery which set whites over blacks. From a 1705 Virginia law which secured the private possessions of white servants but stripped slaves of theirs to be sold by church parishes for charity to poor whites (10), to the 3/5ths compromise, to the 1790 Naturalization Act, to the Civil War era* to Jim Crow, she establishes that point of dividing poor whites from blacks was not only a material, but also a social/psychological elevation which could be threatened by equality.
The second historical trend is government help for Whites which, in her analysis, begins big time with the Homestead Acts of 1862 and ’66. This trend continued through the New Deal, which helped Whites and some Blacks, and the GI Bill, which stimulated home ownership and education for millions of whites, but relatively few Blacks.
Between the New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society, White support for government programs among both Democrats and Republicans was extremely high. However, with the onset of segregation, that changed. The ideal of limited/small government, buttressed by the resources of the “States rights” tradition, are revived, and a shift in values sets in.
Solution? What McGhee calls the “Solidarity Dividend” the notion that “the sum of us can accomplish far more than just some of us” (272). Throughout the book, she balances losses in wages, education, healthcare and environmental quality with stories of how Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinxs and new immigrants have worked together, identifying common interests to create union jobs, educational and healthcare opportunities, and local economic renewals—always in the face of zero-sum politics.
I may have a few criticisms of this work, but I’d rather withhold them and listen to others responses. If there are questions, I’ll try to answer them as McGhee might.
*E.g. the New York Herald’s publisher warned” in 1860: “If Lincoln is elected you will have to compete with the labor of four million emancipated negroes”—i.e., zero-sum: their gain is your loss.
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
