Hello friends welcome so delighted that you're joining me today. I have a question for you

what does racism cost us? What does it cost us as a country?

That's the question we're going to be exploring with Heather McGee,

who is the author of a fantastic book

and the host of a podcast called The Some of Us. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and

welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Heather I am delighted to have you with me here today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. It is a pleasure. I read your book with great interest and was just thrilled that you were able to make time at your schedule to join us today.

I know people are very much going to benefit from hearing from you, enjoy hearing from you.

Can you give us a little bit of just a brief overview

of who you are, how you got started,

and what made you interested in this topic?

Well, Sharon, I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the early 1980s at a time that I really consider kind of the birth of the era of inequality when it was really clear to me even as a little kid that things were changing right that the neighborhood was becoming less safe, that the schools and playgrounds

that we depended on were sort of falling into disrepair while on the other side of the city business was booming and that sort of curiosity

and frustration about the way things were kind of grew up in me and made me seek out a job in trying to solve big problems.

So I spent 20 years as an adult helping to build and then ultimately running a non organization that focused on solutions to American

inequality, tackling issues like jobs that don't pay enough, the costs of climate change,

student debt, housing, and the financial crisis, all these kinds of problems

that feel like we should be able to tackle them and we should be able to do better. And after nearly 20 years,

testifying in Congress, drafting legislation, going on shows like Meet the Press,

I felt like we were missing something, like there was some part of the puzzle of studying economic problems and then crafting evidence-based solutions and advocating for decision makers to make better decisions that just like wasn't adding up.

And so Sharon I made this really kind of for me and my friends and my family at the time kind of crazy decision

to leave my dream job in 2017 and pack up and hit the road.

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