The Sum of US: Book Review

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, Heather McGhee, 2021. Heather McGhee is a lawyer and formerly president of Demos, a progressive think tank.

Introduction. “The ‘we’ who can’t seem to have nice things are Americans. That includes the white Americans who are the largest group of uninsured and the impoverished as well as the Americans of color who are disproportionately so. Generations of American leadership struggle to solve big problems and reliably improve the quality of life for most people” (p. 7). Bad economic policy decisions are particularly bad for black people, but also structural racism. Legislatures often make problems worse, like bankruptcy legislation favoring banks which lobby Congress. Scapegoating minorities is a favored technique, even by Democrats like Clinton. Trump was (and is) blatantly racist when president. White people did not work for their own self-interest, based largely on psychology rather than economics, which McGhee calls the “zero-sum paradigm,” making minorities the “freeloaders,” convincing whites not to make common cause with blacks.

Chapter 1: An Old Story: The Zero-Sum Hierarchy. “The fragile middle class, all income from volatile earnings and no inherited wealth or assets to fall back on. We were the kind of middle class in the king of community that kept us proximate to real poverty” (p. 19). The 1960s were fairly good for the middle class, but that changed in the later Inequality Era with a narrow middle class and expanding high- and low-income groups. CEO income zoomed up, but not the average worker. There was a study called “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing,” a winner-take-all capitalism.

When Obama was president, 90% of elected officials were white. Surveys of whites thought there was an anti-white bias. “If things are getting better for black people, it must be at the expense of white people” (p. 21). Whites had 13 times the median household wealth of blacks. There has been a racial hierarchy from the start, claiming Indigenous peoples and enslaved blacks were inferior: the entitlement to enslave them. Plus, the indigenous people were heathens and slaves were assets. All 13 colonies had slavery and northern slavery was permitted until 1846. Given the elite hierarchy, most men and nearly all women had some level of unfreedom. Then the “slavocratic Constitution” where three-firths of slaves counted in the population, giving the South more legislative clout. After emancipation was the white fear of job competition. “The zero sum is a story sold by wealthy interests for their own profit, and its persistence requires people desperate enough to buy it. … The Trump presidency was in many ways brought to us by two decades of zero-sum propaganda” (p. 29).   

Chapter 2: Racism Drained the Pool. Per capita spending on government is near the bottom of industrial countries, with sub-standard roads, bridges, and water systems and a weak commitment to public goods. What was the reason for antigovernment sentiment? Apparently, people don’t understand what government does, like highways, public schools, and libraries. Consider the plantation class that became wealthy on slave labor. Non-slave-owning whites did not have much influence on government. They didn’t need an educated population and did not depend on local customers. Slavery made the South poorer, with a lack of institutions that would provide economic opportunities.

Government opportunities seldom gave blacks much of a chance to benefit. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave land to citizens, with few blacks able to benefit. The New Deal offered the “liberal consensus,” but these were segregated benefits like redlining (thanks to Southern Segregationists).

Access to swimming pools was widely evaluated. As black lobbied and won lawsuits allowing segregation, in response whites stopped going in largely black neighborhoods and intimidated black swimmers. Some government either drained the pools or filled the pools with dirt and planted grass over the top. Others developed members-only pools excluding blacks. Racial resentment was based on culture and behavior. These people likely oppose government spending. Minorities become the “other.” Resentment was made worse by LBJ’s Great Society after he passed the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. In addition, the South went Republican, creating antigovernment conservatism, especially under Reagan. Reagan used “dog whistle politics” to encourage fear of blacks and stoke racism like “welfare queens,” “undeserving poor,” and “inner city.” Blacks were stereotyped as lazy.

“Priming white voters with racist dog whistles was the means; the end was an economic agenda that was harmful to working- and middle-class voters of all races. Conservatives like Reagan told white voters that government was the enemy, because it favored black and brown people over them—but their real agenda was to blunt government’s ability to challenge concentrated wealth and corporate power” (p. 47). Big money was with healthcare and taxes. Some 46% of Republican supported Medicare for all, but no Republican politicians. People are often unaware of racism. Right wing talk radio claimed Obama was just interested in payment and racial vengeance. Economic policy of low tax and low investment increased wealth disparity.

Chapter 3: Going Without. Public colleges started in the 1860s, including Texas A&M University. The GI Bill funded colleges for veterans and states paid a large percentage of college costs. The number of minorities has risen over time to around 49%. Apparently, as minority enrollment increased, tuition rose substantially, resulting in massive student debt, $1,5 trillion in 2020—“debt for diploma.” Tuition is often free in other developed countries, otherwise, low. Proposition 13 in California decreased property taxes, dropping the state from a national leader to 41st in K-12. Also hurt were community colleges. Funding for youth welfare dropped, soon replaced by increased spending on police and jails. This was made worse by loss of factory jobs from the mid-1970s.

Medicare works, close to European single payer care systems. Corporate health insurers can be horrible: expensive and limiting payouts for health problems. This started earlier by the American Medical Association from the 1940s, with a massive lobbying campaign. Labeling it socialism (a propagandistic usage of the term), adding racism and communist plots: “plutocratic dog whistles.” LBJ pushed both Medicare and Medicaid (benefiting some low-income people). Corporations cut back on health benefits. Obama added the Affordable Care Act, but did not have the necessary public option or collective bargaining for drugs. Probably became Obama is black, Obamacare has been unpopular with white voters. One result of poor funding has been the closing of rural hospitals, especially those like Texas refusing Medicaid expansion. This is somewhat amazing since Texas is majority nonwhite. The legislature, however, is majority white male.

Chapter 4: Ignoring the Canary. With bank deregulation around 2000 investment banks issued derivatives on subprime loans (predatory mortgages), made to many people with superior credit ratings. This was fraud with considerable lying to clients, but was considered legal at the time. Loan officers received bonuses and commissions for these subprime leans (“ghetto loans”). Prime borrowers received extremely risky loans designed to maximize penalties and make it easy to foreclose. That is, until it all crashed beginning in 2007. The derivative category was called mortgage securitization. Package thousands of loans, divide them by perceived risk and sell them globally as risk adjusted.

The big banks were bailed out (considered “too big to fail”) but not the victims losing their homes. The result for the economy was the Great Recession. These practices were tested first on black homeowners as the least respected and protected. Their banks had plenty of practice foreclosing on minorities. Congress was of limited help because “the bankers owned the place” according to staffers. “What is racism without greed” (p. 92). Of course, it was claimed the borrowers were at fault, especially by right-wing pundits.

The New Deal favored whites (the Southern Democrats were segregationists), which changed very slowly. Over time “bank reform” (banks behaved badly during the Roaring Twenties) improved, but racial unfairness persisted. One problem is regulators have trouble seeing rich white guys being crooks.

Chapter 5: No One Fights Alone. Nissan set up an auto factory in Mississippi in 2017 with techniques to stop a union from happening. There were both white and black workers, but the whites got the prime jobs, with others it was low pay and dangerous conditions. “Positions got whiter as the jobs got easier and better paid” (p. 109). With the perception that blacks got lower pay, the whites considered them a threat. It was cross-racial wins that worked for unions beginning with the Knights of Labor. Chambers of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and the Financial Services Roundtable were antiunion. Right-wing media promoted that and called unions socialist.  Big companies with northern unions turned to the South from the 1970s, then NAFTA.

The push as Nissan was “If the blacks are for it, I’m against it” (p. 118). Union became a dog whistle in the South, the least unionized region with the lowest minimum wages. White solidarity with blacks would have been in their self-interest, but they were satisfied with slightly better jobs (above the blacks).

Robin Di Angelo coined the term “white fragility about whites having “last place aversion,” not be at the bottom of the hierarchy. “Lower-income people are less supportive of redistributive policies that would help them than logic would suggest. … Cross-racial solidarity was the point” (p. 126), part of the zero-sum mindset when assuming a smaller pie available: if blacks are helped, white people are made worse. This ignores that everyone would benefit from improved healthcare, safety, higher pay, and retirement. Even a one-day strike at 200 fast-food restaurants in 2012 in Times Square to demand $10.10 an hour. Raises did come.

Chapter 6: Never a Real Democracy. “Our democracy is even less equal than our economy—and the two inequalities are mutually reinforcing” (p.139). The Founding Fathers were elites, claiming democracy for all, but in fact focusing on white male property owners. They compromised on slavery, including counting 3/5th of the slave population for seats in the House of Representatives. That meant Virginia became bigger than Pennsylvania.

The electoral college was another compromise to aid the South politically. When blacks were given voting rights after the Civil War, the South developed voter suppression tactics against blacks. Texas also uses voter suppression to limit voting on people who likely would vote democratic. For example, making it harder for college students to vote. Poor people have difficulty getting photo IDs, required in Texas. Perhaps 60% of Americans typically vote in presidential elections. It’s 97% in Australia and over 90% in Canada and Germany. States purge voters from the roles periodically.

Oil billionaire Charles Koch funds think tanks, legal organization, and advocacy groups to reduce the role of government (particularly regulating oil and gas), including the Citizens United case that resulted in corporations declared people. With campaign funding considered essential, politicians have the tin cup out for funds and promising favorable legislation for these rich folk, who will vote against bills that the majority of people favor like health insurance and infrastructure. Minority voting is declared “voter fraud.”

Connecticut passed a campaign reform bill, giving candidates public grants if they collected enough donations of less than $100. Candidates would have to talk to constituents. More women and minorities were able to run for office. The result was public-interest bills for paid sick days, higher minimum wage, and in-state tuition.

Chapter 7: Living Apart. Segregation started in the North before the Civil War. Blacks were potential job competitors. In the South, blacks were “integrated” into the plantation system. Civil Rights legislation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883, resulting in Jim Crow. “Both the Third Reich and Afrikaner governments looked to America’s laws to create their systems” (p. 166).

“80% of the city of Chicago carried racial covenants banning black people from living in most neighborhoods” (p. 168). Generally, averages wages will not get kids in highly rated schools. Exposure to different perspectives results in more creative and flexible thinking. Austin is divided east and west. West means richer and whiter. Interstate 35 was the barrier with blacks living east of I35.

Chapter 8: The Same Sky. The Republican Party used anti-science crusades like against climate change. Minorites are more in favor of climate change solutions than whites. The Koch brothers and other oil and gas interests pushed this crusade including supporting the Tea Party. Somehow there was a racial zero-sum element in the rhetoric and the preference for the status quo. One result was “environmental racism” like polluting plants and landfills in black communities.

Chapter 9: The Hidden Wound. What about an unfair meritocracy that oppresses minorities and poor people in general. Economics resentments compete with fear of minorities. In 2019 police shot and killed over a thousand people: more white but a much smaller percent of the population. Then George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed. “Crime victimization is as prevalent in poor white communities as poor black communities, but not represented on Right-wing media. With more guns, whites males are a third of gun suicides. “Fox is not news, it’s a propaganda outlet. … white supremacy was America’s original sin” (p. 230).

Chapter 10: The Solidarity Dividend. Various immigrants have been repopulating small towns, mainly filling low-paid farm and food processing jobs, then started their own businesses, finding increased education and participation in the community. There were French-speaking Africans in Maine. Republican politicians have used anti-immigrant rhetoric, including lies like they get free cars on arrival. The governor refused to expand Medicaid, then Maine became the first state to expand Medicaid by ballot initiative, helped by Samali taxi drivers to get voters to the polls.

To expand opportunity “you set a universal policy goal and then develop strategies to achieve the goal that take into account the varied situations of the groups involved” (p. 258) like homeownership. There are the spillover effects of higher property taxes and increased public money. Ditto public health.