Program Description
Event Details
Join us for the Pacific Beach Library's monthly book discussion! On November 9th at we'll discuss this year's One Book, One San Diego selection: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee.
Description:
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. 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 crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country and 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.
Each year, in partnership with KPBS, the San Diego Public Library brings together our community and encourages residents to join others in the shared experience of reading the same book. The title should be announced in August, during the San Diego Festival of Books.
If you'd like to check out a print copy of the book, they are available 1 month before each discussion at the Pacific Beach Library's Circulation Desk. Please call 858-581-9934 x0 before coming to pick it up so that staff may confirm availability.
You can choose whether you'd prefer to attend the meeting in the PB Library's Community Room or join the discussion via Zoom. To get the Zoom login info for 2023, please either register to attend this program or send an email to cwainwright@sandiego.gov.