"The Sum of Us" author on what racism costs white people and the lie of a zero-sum racial hierarchy

[TomCADem]

Heather McGhee's work, as well as the work by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, explain the method behind the GOP's madness in repeatedly pushing racially tinged attacks on the "China virus," BLM protestors, and the Mexican border crisis. Basically this is once again an attempt to stoke racial resentment among the white working class in order to get them to support policies that only benefit the top 1 percent. Heather's book discusses how racism not impacts the direct victims, but also the white working class who are being manipulated by the GOP to oppose middle class policies that benefit them and support policies like Trump's tax cuts, which only benefit the top 1 percent.

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/08/the-sum-of-us-author-on-what-racism-costs-white-people-and-the-lie-of-a-zero-sum-racial-hierarchy/

Activist and author Heather McGee has a sincere plea for white Americans: Stop seeing race in America as a zero-sum game. As McGhee explains in her New York Times bestseller, "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together," rejecting that outdated approach will actually offer a range of benefits for all Americans.

I spoke to McGhee on "Salon Talks" and I can assure you that her appeal to white America is not some feel-good bromide. Rather, as McGhee documents, when white people join in multiracial coalitions on issues from raising the minimum wage to addressing environmental justice, it greatly benefits white people — along with all other communities.

However, the zero-sum approach has been the norm for many in white America for decades. An example of that mentality is grabbing headlines today: the GOP's voter suppression efforts in various states. As McGhee notes, the zero-sum mentality is most acute in politics, where only one candidate can win an election, and the right keeps returning to the same tired playbook predicated on preserving white power.

McGhee's focus, though, is not on the racial divide in our nation, but on appealing to people's better angels by showing them how multiracial coalitions can yield a "solidarity dividend" for all involved. McGhee traveled the nation to write her book and saw firsthand how communities that have rejected the zero-sum game are uniting to achieve for common goals.

[abqtommy]

1. Thanks. I've bookmarked this.

[ck4829]

2. I realized the boilerplate job rejection letters I got were never written in Arabic or Spanish

There was no “press 1 for English” to hear “don’t call us, we’ll call you”

That’s a big help to remember that...

Poor white people are being screwed over... by white people just richer and more politically connected than them.

[Caliman73]

3. That has always been the case.

Especially since Black and Brown people have never had the legal or social power to screw poor White people over on a systemic level.

Slurs for White people that are often attributed to retorts from Black people (IE "Cracker" ) were invented by rich White people to demean poor White people.

Poor White people were elevated in the South in the US and became "Overseers" and "Foremen" on plantations as a way to get them to buy into slavery, in support of an economy that was not providing them any benefit.

I recommend watching the Series The Illusion of Race Part 2 Race: The Story We Tell is particularly interesting.

[TomCADem]

5. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson LET THEM EAT TWEETS

Yale and UC Berkeley present a similar argument, but from a political science perspective, talking about how it is no accident that Right Wing Media and the Republican party have become even more overtly white nationalist in recent years. By repeatedly stoking outrage, the Republican party and right wing media can get the working class to oppress themselves by supporting cuts in benefits to them by promising to own the libs, African Americans, Asians and Latinos. In other words, hate is rebranded as populism, which is married to pro 1 percent economic policy.

Of course, since the Republican Party and the Right Wing media have to continuously create outrage, they also need to create a self-contained echo chamber that is impervious to real world facts. Likewise, Republicans have to grow more and more extreme as noted by John Boehner recently to keep the outrage flowing.

Fighting racism not only protects minorities, but it also empowers the white working class to develop coalitions with such groups to protect their common economic interests.

[malaise]

4. That will be my next read

Like what I've heard and read about it