[ Music ]
>> Sponsored by the
James Madison Council
and the Institute of
Museum and Library Services
and the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
>> Erin Haines: Good
evening, everybody.
And welcome to the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
I'm Erin Haines,
editor-at-large at "The 19th."
And this evening I
am thrilled to be
with the incomparable
Heather McGhee to talk
about her amazing
book "The Sum of Us;
What Racism Costs Everyone and
How We Can Prosper Together."
Heather, welcome to
this conversation.
I'm so happy to be sharing a
screen with you this evening
and to talk about what I feel
like could not be a
more urgent topic.
>> Heather McGhee:
Thank you so much, Erin.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
And thank you to the Library
of Congress for inviting us
into this conversation.
>> Erin Haines: Absolutely.
And also for giving me an
excuse to congratulate you
on being a National
Book Award long lister,
which was made official,
I think, what?
Yesterday.
>> Heather McGhee: Yeah.
Thank you so much.
It's, I'm kind of in
shock and super excited.
The list is full of some
of the most profound
and impactful books
that I read this year.
So I just feel really
honored to be included.
>> Erin Haines: Well, profound
and impactful is how I would
also describe your book.
So you absolutely
belong on that list,
and I am thrilled
that people agreed.
So, you know, I want to
start by asking about,
asking you a larger question.
The theme of the National
Book Festival is open a book,
open the world.
So I want to ask, how have
books opened the world for you?
>> Heather McGhee:
How didn't they?
I mean, I was a book
nerd; right?
I mean, I was -- sort
of hard to believe now,
because I think I'm pretty
officially an extrovert now,
but I was a very
introverted kid, and I would,
I always had a book in my hand.
You know, I remember being
in the back seat of the car
at night coming home, you know,
reading from like the street
light as it passed, you know,
to scan like a Xerox
over the page.
I was always really into
speculative fiction, you know,
sword and sorceress,
science fiction, fantasy.
All of these worlds that
I could go to to sort
of imagine a different world.
And I think that
really shaped, you know,
the horizon of what I thought
was possible as I grew up
and became an activist
and really still believe
in the power of the imagination.
And the power of books
to create empathy.
The power of books
to open your eyes
and make you see things
in a different way.
And that's what I hoped to
do with "The Sum of Us."
That's why, you know,
it wasn't the same
as running a think tank, which
I used it do, and lobbying
and trying to craft legislation.
I felt like I wanted
to write a book and do
for readers what I had
experienced so often,
which was really be transported.
>> Erin Haines: Yeah, yeah.
And certainly your
book is a testament
to the transformative
power of books.
I would say, as somebody
who had a librarian
as a best friend growing up,
too, I can certainly relate.
So look let's talk about "The
Sum of Us" because I feel like,
you know, when you wrote
the book, so many things
in this country had
not yet happened.
Although a lot of
things that you touch
on in the book certainly
are on kind of the continuum
that I think that you have
laid out so well in this story.
I think that we've
learned by now
that we were not a
post-racial society after 2016.
People like you certainly
knew this all along.
But I guess just start
by talking about kind
of what else we missed about
what was brewing kind of during
and after that election and if
that was something that kind
of led, as you alluded to
just now, to you wanting
to do something substantive
like a book to get
into some of these issues?
>> Heather McGhee: Well, I had
spent nearly 20 years helping
to build and then running a
think tank that was dedicated
to advancing policy
to address inequality
in our economy, in
our democracy.
And, Erin, the tools
of the think tank trade
are statistical research,
white papers, legislative
drafting and testimony in front
of Congress, lobbying.
Trying to basically
study problems,
craft evidence-based solutions
and then get them in front
of policymakers and hope that
they'll make the right decision.
And for my particular
field of the economy,
I just kept doing the work,
as so many people did,
and seeing policymakers
make the wrong decision over
and over and over again.
And by wrong, I mean make
decisions that would worsen
and exacerbate inequality.
And it felt like, you know,
the data is just
not doing the trick.
There's something deeper
going on here in our country.
Some subterranean story that
is shaping the way people
in power believe we
should order the economy.
And that story is not
about dollars and cents.
It's about who's
in and who's out?
Who's on top?
Who belongs?
Who deserves?
What's right and wrong?
And it felt like I needed
to do something other
than what I'd done before
to get my mind around it.
And then to tell a story
that might be a way for us
to bridge those divides and
create a better future together.
So I quit my job in 2017.
I handed over the
reigns at Demos,
and I set out on a
journey that would take me
across the country
multiple times.
And really that was
the journey that began,
became "The Sum of Us."
>> Erin Haines: Yeah, yeah.
You know, your book really does
so much of what you've done,
when I have called you to
help make me sound smarter
as a reporter, which is to focus
on the legacy of past harms
in a way that doesn't
just correct the record,
but really I think serves as
the foundation for a way forward
for all of us together.
Why is that your approach?
And why does that
approach matter?
>> Heather McGhee: Yeah.
You know, so I'm
not a historian.
And, you know, I care much more
about the future and the present
than I do about the past; right?
This, that is not
my inclination.
But so many of the
most important factors
in determining economic success,
for example, are determined
by the interests either
being collected or paid
on explicitly racist decisions
made often long before we were
born; right?
Things like wealth.
Whether or not, depending
on what your paycheck is,
you have a cushion in the bank.
You have home equity to draw on.
You have retirement savings.
That's wealth.
And wealth is where history
shows up in your wallet,
where the racist history
of subsidizing white home
ownership, white pensions
through collective bargaining,
that were often exclusionary
racist, racially exclusionary.
While the federal government
basically barring banks
and developers from lending to
and selling to black families
for most of the 20th
century means
that today a black college
graduate has less household
wealth on average than a
white high school dropout.
Let me say that again.
If you are a white high school
dropout, you are most likely
to have a higher average wealth,
home equity, savings in the bank
than a black college graduate.
So that's why history matters.
And the lies that we have
been told about our history
and the omissions of our history
are why we often see disparities
today and substitute
stereotypes as the reign.
Instead of recognizing
that structures
and public policy created
the racial economic divide
and policy, better policy
can get us out of it.
And if we do that,
it will be great
for our overall economy; right?
The racial economic divide
is costing the U.S. economy
over a trillion dollars
a year in growth
that we are not having.
All of our best players are not
on the field scoring points.
So many are sidelined
due to debt
and discrimination
and disadvantage.
So "The Sum of Us"
talks about the past.
It talks about how we
got to the present.
And then it says that we can do
better together for the future.
>> Erin Haines: Now, what you're
talking about, you're laying
down facts here,
but these are facts
that make a lost people
uncomfortable; right?
These are facts that
really people have a lot
of feelings about,
especially I feel
like in this current context.
You talk in the book about the
idea of the zero of sum paradigm
and how, you know, that is a way
in which racism has really hurt
white people as well in a way
that they may not realize.
Talk a little bit about
what you mean by that
and explain the zero sum theory
to people who don't understand
or who haven't heard
about what that means
or haven't read the book.
>> Heather McGhee: So this
was a really helpful kind
of a-ha moment for
me when I came
across in my journey a whole
body of research that explained
that basically there's a world
view, a dominant world view
in the United States
culture that is a world view
that is held more commonly by
white folks than it is by people
of color, that sees
kind of well-being
as a fixed pie; right?
So if we get a bigger slice,
they must get a smaller one.
A dollar more in my pocket must
mean a dollar less in yours.
That kind of logic, which
basically is created,
and I talk about this in the
book, by a very old story
that was used by the colonial
plantation elite and really
in many ways, you
know, the current sort
of ideological heirs to the
colonial plantation elite
and the very far right wing
use that zero sum story
to convince the majority
of white Americans
that they are not on
the same team as people
who may be economically
similarly situated,
who are also working for a
living, working for a paycheck.
And that they should resent
and fear the idea, the presence
or progress of people of color.
And so it's that myth that
progress of people of color has
to come at white folk's expense,
which helps to explain why it is
that we always often seem
so at odds in society
and why we can't sort of
row in the same direction.
Why we don't have, as I say
in the opening of the book,
nice things in this country.
And by nice things I'm not
talking about self-driving cars.
I'm talking about really
universal health care
and childcare and well-funded
school in every neighborhood.
Why we have this
anti-government ethos,
which by all measures is
really self-sabotaging.
And yet there is this
anti-government ideology,
which only really took
root in the majority
of white Americans consciousness
after the civil rights movement.
And that's where I
talk about the sort
of the zero sum being
manifested, and its sort
of maximal expression being
to actually destroy something
rather than share it.
And that's the story of
the drained public pools,
the way that racism ended
up draining public pools
across the country.
And that is a metaphor
-- it actually happened,
but it's also a metaphor for
what happened to the sort
of robust system of public goods
that created the greatest middle
class the world had ever seen
in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
And then that sort of
social contract fell apart
during integration.
And when there was a sense that
public goods had to be shared
with people whom white Americans
had been taught were not good,
they really began to turn away
from the very idea of public.
And we saw things be privatized.
We saw more of a market in
the liberal ideology come in,
and that has drained the pool
with a cost for everyone.
Brought in the inequality era
instead of an era of a sort
of robust middle class
that, of course, ironically,
is a source of a great deal
of nostalgia on the right.
>> Erin Haines: Yeah,
you know, the draining
of the pool metaphor was
really, that was a moment
that was really clarifying
for me reading your book
because it really does make
so much sense, you know,
in terms of explaining
and understanding how,
you know, racism harms.
It can harm the oppressed
as well as those
who are either oppressing
or benefiting
from that oppression; right?
Before we keep going, I
want to just give a couple
of cues to the audience here.
We are definitely going
to leave some time
for to you ask questions
of our fantastic author.
And so you should submit
those if you have them.
And then also, if you are
enjoying this conversation
and want to share it on social
media, there is a hashtag.
It is hashtag nat book fest.
So please use that hashtag
to share this conversation
if Heather is dropping as many
gems for you as she is for me.
I want to talk, you
know, because this is all
on a continuum, Heather,
which is something
that you lay out so well.
I want to tie what
you're talking
about to last summer's racial
reckoning, which really was
so diverse and was sustained.
But I want to ask you where
you think we are a year later?
And how much of the country you
think is really still willing
to do the work of dismantling
institutional inequality?
>> Heather McGhee: That's
such a big question.
I will try to tackle it, Erin.
You know, I think that we are
absolutely still in the midst
of the largest social
movement in American history.
Consciousness has shifted.
A sense of urgency
is still there among,
you know, the American people.
90 percent of the Black Lives
Matter rallies last summer were
majority white communities.
You drive the rural areas of
Vermont and New Hampshire,
the most common, some of the
whitest states in the country,
the most common lawn sign for,
you know, that's political
at all is still Black
Lives Matter; right?
So I think we are still there.
I think that we are dealing
with a sclerotic democracy
where so much of
what people want --
whether it's the American jobs
plan, the American families plan
and all of the proposals
that I see as things
that would refill the pool,
the public good for everyone
and put an end to
the inequality era,
nice things for all Americans --
gets super majority support and
yet are stuck because
of gerrymandering,
because of a narrowly
drawn Senate,
because of the resistance
of one or two senators
who should be going along with
what their own constituents want
to see in the country.
And the same is really true
for racial justice; right?
If you look at the
sort of main planks
of the criminal justice
reform that --
and the police reform
that was, you know,
absolutely what people were
out in the streets for,
it was about accountability.
It was things like
ending qualified immunity
for abusive cops like
Derek Chauvin; right?
And that still gets
super majority support,
and yet it has not happened.
So I think in many ways what
we are seeing is still a desire
among the typical American
community for much more just
and responsive government
and for people in power
to be held accountable
for excesses.
And whether that's, you
know, the members of Congress
who voted along with
the sedition,
the members the sedition
caucus who voted
to do what the mob wanted
on January 6th; right?
People want accountability
for them.
People want accountability
for abusive cops.
People want more money
to go into public welfare
than to criminal justice reform.
That is majority support,
everything I just mentioned.
And yet we are, unfortunately
-- because of, I think,
some of the structures
that were created in order
to not fully have the most
representative democracy,
because that was never really
the founder's intention
and because of rigging of the
system by a very partisan elite
that has used everyone
single trick in the book
to try maintain power --
we are not seeing the kinds of
results coming out of Congress
that the American people want.
>> Erin Haines: Well, I
mean, Heather, that makes me,
that brings me to
another question.
Because, I mean, I have to say
it does also seem like we are
in the midst of a
separate racial reckoning
in this country; right?
I mean, you brought up the
January 6th insurrection.
We're seeing what's happening
with voter suppression.
I mean, we are not operating
here with a shared set of facts.
How does that kind of
work against your idea
of people being able to come
together and move forward?
How encouraged are you
that the country is capable
of working towards a
democracy that you envision
in this book if, you
know, we don't even have
that shared set of facts yet?
>> Heather McGhee: Yeah.
Well we got about a third of
the country that is living
in an alternate reality; right?
That believes the big like
that the election was stolen,
that is enthralled
to disinformation.
Disinformation that is the most
technologically sophisticated
and the most well funded, you
know, ever in our history,
that is completely blanketing
people in certain parts
of the country, in certain,
you know, races and genders
and religion, basically
mostly white evangelicals,
more male than female.
Blanketing them in
alternate facts; right?
And that is an existential
threat to our democracy; right?
I don't want to soft pedal that.
I also, though, because
we are, I think,
those of us in the media
ecosystem are so addicted
to the outrage and
to the scandal
of the outrageous big lie,
of the backlash and the fury
and the conflict, I think we do
tend to overstate how prevalent
that is among the American
public, you know, broadly.
The backlash is well funded,
it's well coordinated.
This is a very sort
of partisan playbook
that is happening right now, for
example, with the 11 plus states
that have passed these
attacks on honest education,
these history bans, these laws
telling teachers and students
that they can't talk about
facts from our history
that might cause white
students to have anguish.
Literally the laws say
in many of these states
that lessons are inadmissible
and can have financial penalties
or career penalties for
teachers if they can cause guilt
or anguish among students based
on actions taken by a member
of their race in the past.
So we're talking about
Tennessee, for example,
a right-wing activist mother
trying to get a teacher fired
for teaching a book about Ruby
Bridges in an elementary school.
Now, Ruby Bridges was six years
old, and she had the courage
and the guts to face down
death threats on a daily basis
to integrate a Louisiana
school in 1960.
And yet today, according
to these laws,
white students are too
fragile to be able to even read
about a six year old's courage.
So this is the state of affairs.
It is terrifying.
There is a very clear line from
Charlottesville to January 6th,
to these history bans and these
attacks on honest education.
We know what kind
of people ban books.
We know what kind of people
are terrified of the truth.
There's always been that
thread in American society,
the lost cause that
rewrote history so that less
than 10 percent of American
high school seniors,
according to the Southern
Poverty Law Center in 2018,
can accurately say that
slavery was the primary cause
of the Civil War; right?
We have always been
living in a society
where a faction has wanted
to deny us the truths.
Has wanted to rob us of our
shared history, both the beauty
and the struggle, the
struggle and the resilience.
And the goal there really
is about the same phenomenon
that I write about
in "The Sum of Us."
It's to keep us ignorant and
divided from one another.
Keep us pointing fingers
at each other instead
of holding accountable
the people powerful enough
to shape the rules
that affect our lives.
Because if you keep
people ignorant
and not knowing their
history, then you flood,
then what happens is people
flood the zone with stereotypes.
And that's what we see, is
we have this racist animosity
that is able to brew when
we don't know our history
and we don't know
that, for example,
racist stereotypes are the same
as they've been throughout
history; right?
We don't, the same that they,
that justified slavery
are still operative today.
And people who know their
history can spot the lies.
But people who don't know their
history are just vulnerable
to those lies again and again.
>> Erin Haines: Absolutely true.
Well, listen one more
question before we throw it
out to the audience.
And I continue to encourage all
of you to submit your questions.
If you have questions,
then we'll try to get
to as many of them as we can.
You know, Heather, the work that
you're doing really does seem
to be in a long tradition
of black women
who have been truth
tellers who have tried
to really perfect this
union and be, you know,
the shaper of this democracy and
to shine a light and attempt to,
you know, help us to get to
our better selves as a society
and as a country; right?
I guess, how do you see yourself
as a black woman
in that tradition?
Why do you think that
it is black women
who are the one who's are
either called to this work
or just continuously
committed to this work?
You know, despite
being, you know,
the disparities impacting
them in such a huge way?
How do you explain that?
>> Heather McGhee: Yeah, well,
that's a big question, Erin.
But I think, you know, I do
dedicate the book to my mother,
a black who showed me
how to live; right?
Who showed me what it means
to be a person on this planet
and what you have to do; right?
And that is to heal.
And that is to make
things better.
I mean, that's just, what
else is there to do; right?
There was sort of never
another option for me growing up
but to see that we give the
gifts that we've been given
by the creator back to this
place before we are done.
So that's just a long tradition.
I would also say
that there is a way
in which people whose identity
puts them on the lower ends
of the constructed
social hierarchy.
We tend to be able to, because
of where we have been situated,
see the whole system
clearly; right?
See how it fails
and who it fails
and see what would really
need to be done to fix it.
And that's what
intersectionality is all about,
the sense that, when you have
these interconnected and sort
of cascading hierarchies,
there is a uniqueness
about the situation
that you are put in.
Not that, you know, it's not
essential to your being; right?
It's not actually
about black girl magic.
But it's about your
social position,
to where you see how one
size doesn't fit all.
How it is that rules can
be made that can work
for some, but not for all.
But this is where
Angela Glover Blackwell,
another black women's wonderful
phrase, the curb-cut effect,
I think is so useful to remind
us that, if you fix a problem
for those who have the biggest
barriers to opportunity,
that often benefits everyone.
But if you only fix
the problem for people
who are the least burdened,
you know that won't
benefit everyone.
So that's the way
we need to reorient.
And that's the kind
of wisdom that people,
not just black women,
but, you know, I mean,
I have certain privileges
that others don't.
I am a native-born citizen,
and I am acutely aware
of that privilege; right?
And so I would say that, when
we look at a lot of the systems,
including the pandemic relief,
you need to be asking
undocumented essential workers
how to make the system work?
So that's really kind of the
spirit that I bring to the work.
>> Erin Haines: Got you.
Well, let's see if we can get
to a couple audience
questions here.
We have a question
from Robert McCoy.
Who wants to know, how should
we dialogue with our children
when they see everywhere
around them problems with race
on the news and everywhere
they look?
What do we tell them?
>> Heather McGhee:
Yeah, you know,
that's a really compassionate
question, and I appreciate it.
You know, I'm in the midst right
now of adapting "The Sum of Us"
for young readers, and it is
a question that's very much
on my heart.
I believe that we need
to tell young people,
and remind ourselves, stories
of overcoming and of triumph.
Right now, because there's
so much constant information
and because the information
economy feeds on conflict
and outrage, we don't see the
full story of what's going on.
And it's really important,
when we teach history as well
as this current moment, to
teach how it has always been,
people coming together
across lines of race
who have made all the progress
this country has ever seen
on issues of race
and other issues.
And so we can't sort of get too
caught up in the us versus them,
in the dooms day news, in
the sensationalism and forget
that people can change.
That in every corner of the
country there are people
who are doing the
right thing and trying
to make society better.
It's in the telling
of those stories,
the stories that I devote sort
of the last half of the book to,
the idea of the solidarity
dividend,
that I think we need
to find hope.
And, remember, we tell children
stories that we want them
to replicate in their
lives; right?
So that I think is
extremely important.
>> Erin Haines: We've
got another one here.
This is a two-for
from Adam Caid.
Who wants to know, first, how
do you respond to white people
who want to be the
drivers of a movement
when they're also
perpetuating inequality
by their biases in the system?
How can they be better
allies without us,
as people of color,
coddling them?
>> Heather McGhee: Okay.
You know, I think that --
I think two things.
One, I do think
that cross-racial organizing
is extremely important.
I think it's important for us
to experience the
desired state; right?
What we want is a world
in which we are together
and we find common
solutions to our common needs.
And we feel that, you know,
one group's fight is
another group's fight,
and no one fights alone.
That's what we want, so
let's create that even
in our neighborhoods
and our communities
and in our organizations.
At the same time, there is a
phenomenon in which people who,
particularly those who've been
sort of awakened in this moment
of mass mobilization,
haven't done the work, right,
on their own programming and the
unlearning that they need to do
to not perpetuate interpersonal
harm and to really know how
to do the work better
externally.
And so for them I
would say, you know,
there's an expression
like, get your cousin.
Which basically means, you know,
do the work in your own
community and don't just try
to show up and, you know,
be where the cool kids are,
if that's the way you're
thinking about this,
but actually do the harder
work that may require sort of,
you know, it's a
tougher conversation.
It often will, you know,
if you are really
organizing your family
and your neighborhood or
your church, you are going
to interact with the same lies
and stories and distortions
and biases that you
probably were programmed
with in your own growing up.
So that's why it's often very
important to start where you are
and in your own community as
a white ally before sort of --
or not before but, you
know, emphasize that rather
than jumping into
maybe more sort
of morally comfortable places
in cross-racial spaces.
So it's complicated, but I
also think that, you know,
we also need to give each
other some compassion all
across the board.
The four years of the
last administration were
extraordinarily difficult.
This past year, the
pandemic, everything has just,
there's so much stress
that we are all carrying.
So I really do think that,
you know, we need to,
all around the table,
give each other
as much compassion as possible.
>> Erin Haines: Absolutely.
And keep going; right?
Because this is not easy.
We will make mistakes
along the way.
But, yes, having
compassion for others is a,
continue to remain committed
to the process is how we can
all move forward together.
Well, Heather, do you have
a final thought before I let
you go?
Of course, we could talk about
this all day, but unfortunately,
we have, time flies when you
are, you know, having a robust,
such a robust and
engaging conversation.
What are your final thoughts
on this before we have to go?
>> Heather McGhee: You know, I
would just say to the audience,
if you have not spoking up in
defense of honest education
in your community, please do.
Write your, you know,
your elected officials.
Write your school board.
Go to a school board meeting.
Recognize that this, people who
love books should be outraged
by what's going on
in the name of a tax
on critical race theory.
And this is a really
important time for people
of good conscience
not to be silent.
That would be my last message
to this book-loving audience.
>> Erin Haines: A
good note to end on.
Thank you so much, Heather.
Thank you so much to
the Library of Congress.
And thanks so much to our
audience for your attention
and for your thoughtful
questions.
Have a good evening,
everyone [inaudible].
[ Multiple Speakers ]
>> Heather McGhee:
Thank you, Erin.
[ Music ]