The Sum of Us Major and Minor Quotes

“Why can’t we have nice things?” (Prologue)  

—Heather McGhee

Analysis: This quote posits the main question Heather McGhee seeks to answer in the book. It is a variation of an expression often used humorously, to blame someone else, often a pet or a child, for ruining something so that it is worthless to attain something nice for fear of its destruction. However, here, McGhee transforms the statement into a question, not to refer to new furniture or carpeting and certainly not to refer to, as she says, “a hovercraft or laundry that does itself.” Rather, she is referring to everyday things that people who pay taxes and live in a developed nation should expect to have: decent schools, care for the sick, homes.

According to McGhee—and shored up with examples throughout this book—the answer to the question, “Why can’t we have nice things?” is racism. People, particularly white people, have been manipulated to believe that they should be against good public schools and health insurance because they might also incidentally benefit people of color. Politicians and, in some cases, the media, have pitted the races against one another, so many will be against things that benefit them.

“The zero-sum is a story sold by wealthy interests for their own profit.” (Chapter 1)

—Heather McGhee

Analysis: The author introduces the concept of a zero-sum game, the idea that all of life is a competition, where someone has to win and someone has to lose. According to the author, white people are more likely to see life this way. Thus, they fear that, if people of color get ahead, that will mean that white people will lose out. However, this doesn’t make sense. Throughout the book, the author will use multiple examples where white people have been against something that benefited them, such as Obamacare, unions that will give them higher wages and better benefits, or beautiful public pools where their children can swim for free or a very low cost, simply because they believe this zero-sum myth.

The author says that it is wealthy people, large corporations, and others who profit from people’s misery who are spreading this belief. They are doing it because they profit from it. For example, if a corporation can get away with paying a nonliving wage, it can make greater profits. Therefore, it wants people to vote against a living wage. Similarly, if billionaires can pay low or no taxes because the money isn’t needed to benefit people, they can keep more of their money.

“Do not say, ‘I lost my house.’ You didn’t lose [it]. It was taken away from you.”  (Chapter 4)

—Amy Rogers

Analysis: Amy Rogers is a white woman who lost her home after many years of making payments on it, because her ex-husband refinanced it (unbeknownst to her) using the type of predatory loan that mortgage companies usually sell to Black people. She had done everything right in life, worked hard at a job, paid her bills. However, when she tried to refinance, the banks were unwilling to work productively with her. Even trying to work with them was a ding on her credit, which made her unemployable because preemployment background checks usually require decent credit. Therefore, she ended up being foreclosed on.

Rogers says the statement “I lost my house” puts the blame on the borrower, as if they did something wrong. But often, especially with Black borrowers, they did everything right. They just got entangled with the wrong kind of mortgage company. Many of these loans are designed to fail so that predatory mortgage companies can take people’s homes from them when the house is worth less than they supposedly owe.

“Put a little good in the hole.”  (Chapter 4)

—Janice Tomlin

Analysis: Tomlin was the named plaintiff in a class action suit by thousands of people who had bad, subprime mortgages from Chase. This meant that her name was made public in a way that many people would consider embarrassing, as someone who got taken advantage of by a predatory mortgage company and, thus, couldn’t make her mortgage payments. Part of the reason this would be embarrassing was because the media blamed people whose homes were foreclosed, for taking on loans they couldn’t afford. Why, then, the author wonders, would Tomlin agree to be the named plaintiff? The other class members reaped the benefit of what she did, without having to put themselves out there, as she did.

The quote is something Tomlin’s father said, and it means that you should do something good for someone else, even if you’re not getting the benefit. Basically, pay it forward. This is a main idea of the book. People must look not only at what benefits them but also at what benefits society. It is selfishness that results in the “drained pool” that the author is observing. Therefore, people who will “put a little good in the hole” are necessary to allow the United States to thrive.

“You . . . have to keep up with the line . . . How can you be lazy with [that] job?” (Chapter 5)

—Sanchioni Butler

Analysis: Butler, an organizer for the UAW, is discussing attitudes she came across in her attempts to unionize auto plants in the South, specifically the Nissan plant in Mississippi. Many workers were anti-union because they had been fed propaganda by management, including attitudes that Black people wanted unions because they were lazy and that being in a union would allow them to be carried by the (presumably harder-working) white workers. In this quote, Butler explains how she attempted to counter these attitudes with logic. After all, the factories have assembly lines. These people aren’t sitting in offices, where they can hide their laziness. Rather, the parts are rolling out on a conveyor belt. If someone were lazy, if their job weren’t getting done, it would be obvious.

This should have been obvious to anyone, without Butler having to point it out. That it wasn’t shows how deeply entrenched these beliefs are, from years of listening to these attitudes.

“I’m a veteran . . . Now they aren’t giving me . . . the most fundamental right I have?” (Chapter 6)

—Larry Harmon

Analysis: Harmon, a veteran who lives in Ohio, didn’t vote in two elections and found himself purged from the voter rolls due to voter suppression measures put in place by conservative lawmakers, to disenfranchise Black voters. He was outraged. He points out that voting is “the most fundamental right I have.” This is true because all other rights spring from voting. If one can’t vote, one can’t vote for politicians who will guarantee the other freedoms.

It is notable that Harmon is a veteran. Prior to the 1971 passage of the 26th Amendment, people between 18 and 21 years old were not allowed to vote. However, they could be drafted to serve in a war. The war in question at the time was the Vietnam War, which was unpopular with many, and protestors argued that, if someone could die for his country, he should be able to vote also. People had been saying similar things since the 1940s, but the bill had bipartisan support and passed in 1971. Considering this history, it seems particularly egregious to disenfranchise a veteran.

“White people are the most segregated people in America.” (Chapter 7)

—Heather McGhee

Analysis: In this quote, McGhee calls out white people for self-segregating. Because most people associate the word segregation with pre–Brown v. Board of Education schools, they likely think of Black people as segregated, meaning forced segregation where they weren’t allowed to enter white spaces. However, white people are segregated because they are self-segregating. This is true even though a majority of white people say they would prefer to live in a more diverse neighborhood. But McGhee says deeply entrenched attitudes have led to a lot of white fear. They see neighborhoods with Black residents as bad neighborhoods and diverse schools as bad schools, even if they wouldn’t say so overtly. So, while they saythey want diversity, McGhee says they aren’t willing to take the risk of buying a house in a diverse neighborhood, where they believe the property values are lower, or sending their kids to a school where they fear they might not get as good an education. This is true even though integrated schools don’t actually have lower test scores and stats than white schools, if the students have similar incomes.

“The type of multiracial coalition that [loosened] Chevron’s grip on Richmond [is assembling] across the nation.” (Chapter 8)

—Heather McGhee

Analysis: In this quote, the author looks toward the future. Previous chapters talked about the past first. McGhee first spoke about drained public pools and other bad things that happened in the Jim Crow days and early days of the civil rights movement, such as when white people stopped being for government programs after witnessing the March on Washington. At that time, they took action that was overtly or almost overtly racist. Then, she spoke of the present, where racial prejudice is still dragging people of all races down. They might not think of themselves as racist, but that could be even worse, since they are buying into racist propaganda and dog whistles, which leads to them voting against measures that would benefit them all. But now, the author sees hope in younger people who are more inclusive and look at others, not just themselves. These younger people have likely had more exposure to people unlike themselves, because the United States is more diverse than it used to be and therefore they know better and are less likely to believe the propaganda. They don’t necessarily see people as “other” but, instead, want to work together.

“[We’re] socialized [to believe] racism is normal, and it’s built into our democracy . . . white people . . . have no clue.” (Chapter 9)

—Angela King

Analysis: Angela King, a former white supremacist, explains how she got that way. She didn’t set out to hate people. Rather, she was angry with her own lot in life and looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame. Part of the problem was that she didn’t want to blame herself. It was easier to think that Black people were to blame for her problems. And there were abundant numbers of people who were willing to allow her to believe that way, particularly because of the self-segregation of white people, which the author speaks about in the previous chapter. King had never really been in situations where she was expected to be with and know people of different races until she was in prison.

King goes on to say that white people become defensive when told about the racist systems that cause white people to feel that way and, also, cause them to continue the racism. They don’t want to know about it because they don’t want to be told they’re bad people or hurting others. Yet white people need to be aware of what they’re doing if they want to improve.

“We are greater than, and greater for, the sum of us” (Chapter 10)

—Heather McGhee

Analysis: An expression, often attributed to Aristotle, states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While Aristotle likely didn’t say exactly that, he praised the value of cohesion, the idea that people working together as a group can accomplish more than if they all work apart as individuals. Every person for themselves isn’t productive, but unfortunately, that is what is often happening in society, and it’s why we can’t have nice things, as McGhee puts it in her introduction.

Throughout the book, McGhee has shown what we lose when we work apart, a society where everyone can afford a home, have good schools, attend college, have a decent environment. She cites racism as the reason we don’t have those things and suggests that, if we can overcome our instinct to think only of ourselves or people like ourselves, we might be able to accomplish far greater things. We will not only be greater than but also greater for working together.