Wow, this was amazing. The Sum of Us is not only incredibly well-researched, it's also incredibly accessible; Heather McGhee's writing ability is definitely noticeable and makes this potentially dense book so easy to read.

My biggest personal gripe with lots of nonfiction authors, particularly those that write about politics, history, or economics (which, by the way, this book sort of falls into all three categories), is that they tend to be extremely knowledgeable but seem to have trouble transferring the information to a layperson or casual reader in a digestible way. Lots of nonfiction I have read has obvious academic merit, like something that would be great for a research paper or thesis, but as a casual reading experience, is dry, dense, and hard-to-follow. Sometimes reading nonfiction can feel like the author is throwing statistic after statistic after date after date at you. This book does NOT suffer from this problem at all.

The author does a great job combining her personal anecdotal experience, her abundance of knowledge and research, and the anecdotal experience of those she has worked with and talked to about the issue. In some parts it reads almost like a memoir, in others like an investigative journalism piece, but the main thesis stays strong and the author manages to argue her point extremely well. I found this to be a really enjoyable reading experience as a casual nonfiction reader.

The main argument made here draws attention to the intersection between racism and capitalism. In progressive spheres, it's pretty widely accepted that those from minority groups experience poverty at a disproportionate rate due to things like racism (and homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. but this book focuses on racism). Heather McGhee expounds upon this thesis with her own; not only does racism cause disproportionate amounts of harm to minority groups, but upholding white supremacy actually hurts everyone in the system, including white people.

Heather McGhee brings up lots of issues that deserve reflection, I feel like I learned so much about so many related topics. Each new section I remember thinking "oh this is definitely my favorite part", then the next section would come up and it would become my new favorite, and so on. So I guess the whole book is my favorite.