The Sum of Us

Heather McGhee (1940-) is an American author, public policy researcher, and speaker. In The Sum of Us McGhee draws on her upbringing, her time spent as an employee and then president of the progressive think-tank Demos, and her experience as a Black woman in America to examine the harms caused by racism and propose ways that citizens can work together to end racial hierarchies.

McGhee grew up in the South Side of Chicago, where her family and neighbors “were always hustling” (3). As tenuous members of the middle class, McGhee’s family had no inherited wealth to fall back on—an issue McGhee explores in the book, noting that Black families have $17,600 in wealth on average compared to white families’ roughly $200,000, due to structural racism in policies meant to encourage homeownership. McGhee’s family history also tracks the changes in US society that led to greater inequality; her parents came of age just as the Voting Rights Act and Fair Housing Act came into force and a greater share of public goods opened up to Black citizens. But as these benefits were opened up to racialized people, their popularity fell among white Americans. By the beginning of McGhee’s adulthood, most of these public benefits had been hollowed out and inequality was on the rise.