Join the Community Safety and Diversity (CSD) Book Club for our next discussion!

What: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525509585/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_i_Y1F3Q2KM9NKKZ26MN7TH

When: Sunday, June 12th from 6pm-7pm

Where: University Hills Community Center Patio, adjacent to the Social Lounge/Media Center, 1083 California Ave, Irvine, 92617

Facilitator: Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

From Amazon.com: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.

Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public...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.

But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.

Please send questions or comments to CSDWG@uhills.org

Visit the Community Safety and Diversity Working Group at https://uhills.org/safety-and-diversity/