
McGhee delves deeply into the zero-sum ideologies that are rooted in this nation’s origin story and underpin how freedoms were first conceived in direct relation to the enslavement of Africans, convincing many White Americans that Black and brown suffering was requisite to White success.


She compiles her work-half investigative journalism, half master class in sociopolitical research-in this accessible, abridged (but no less intellectual) volume. In this condensed version of her 2021 adult original, South Side of Chicago native McGhee explores the toll racial injustice past and present takes on the life of every American. An emphatically all-American guide to the high cost of racism-with a hopeful path forward.
