Includes bibliographical references (pages [295]-397) and index.

An old story : the zero-sum hierarchy -- Racism drained the pool -- Going without -- Ignoring the canary -- No one fights alone -- Never a real democracy -- Living apart -- The same sky -- The hidden wound -- The solidarity dividend.

In the 1950s and 1960s, white officials in communities across the country opted to drain their public swimming pools rather than integrate them. Generations later, America still hasn't recognized that racism has a cost for everyone. But our future can look different. The author's specialty is the American economy - and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the 2008 financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. 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 crisis that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? The author 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 shots 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. But in unlikely places of worship and work, the author finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply cannot do on our own. This book offers an analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. The author marshals economic and sociological research to tell an irrefutable story of racism's costs, but at the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy's collateral victims: white people themselves. With startling empathy, this heartfelt message from a Black woman to a multiracial America leaves readers with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. -- Adapted from dust jacket description.

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