Upcoming Book Discussion - All Welcome!
Join the AAFCS Diversity and Inclusion Book Discussion Group on January 19, 2026, 7 p.m. Eastern as we discuss the book: "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" by Heather McGhee (2021). (This is a great book for this discussion which is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.) Remember, you don't have to have read the book to join in on the discussion. If you would like to be included in an email list to receive the zoom link, contact, Sue Byrd at sbyrd6@utm.edu
Book Description: In "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm-the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country-from parks and pools to functioning schools-have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world's advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?