Public pools, which once hosted hundreds if not thousands of (white) Americans, were an attempt to level the playing field by providing a good that was equally available to everyone. What’s more, this understanding has been perpetuated for generations by wealthy individuals with something to gain from dividing the public into a racial hierarchy.įrom here, McGhee explores what this zero-sum hierarchy has cost Americans, starting with the loss of public pools over the 20th century.

But this understanding of the world is deeply embedded in many white Americans’ psyches, in part because it dates back to the early days of America, when the nation depended on catastrophic losses for certain groups, like the theft of land from Indigenous groups and the enslavement of Black people. McGhee notes that Black people do not share this framing and do not see their gains as coming at the expense of white citizens. The journey begins with an explanation of the zero-sum hierarchy, which creates a perception that gains by one group in society inevitably result in losses for others (specifically the dominant group: white people). Seeking a more comprehensive answer-and a solution-McGhee decided to travel across the United States, digging into public policy through the lenses of identity, status, and race. McGhee begins the book by expressing her frustration with the conventional view on economic policymaking, which ignores the role of race: “contrary to how I was taught to think about economics, everybody wasn’t operating in their own rational economic self-interest” (xvii).

The sum of us author