What racism costs everyone | Heather C. McGhee

TED Business

TED

Business, Modupe Akinola, Ted Business Podcast, Business Leadership Podcast, Ted Talks Business, Ted Modupe, Ted Talks

4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If it’s the richest country in the world, why does the American economy fail so much of the American public? Heather C. McGhee is a public policy expert who has spent the past several years trying to understand that question. Her conclusion, carefully detailed in a NYT bestselling book called The Sum of US, is that racism leads to bad public policy. Policies that have a cost for everyone—not just people of color. In this talk, she proposes a new way of thinking that can lead to a more prosperous nation for everyone.

After the talk, Heather and Modupe continue the conversation to get practical and figure out how to bring this mindset to work.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:07.8	So America is considered one of the richest countries in the world.
0:11.3	But if you really take a look at the experience of most people living here, you wouldn't think
0:15.0	so.
0:16.0	And that's what Heather McGee observed.
0:18.2	So many things that you would expect in such a wealthy country are missing.
0:23.0	I don't mean, you know, self-driving cars, which I actually don't think we need, or laundry
0:29.7	that does itself, which would be fabulous, but I really mean things like universal healthcare
0:36.5	and reliable, modern infrastructure and a well-funded school in every neighborhood and wages
0:43.7	that keep workers out of poverty.
0:45.3	The basics.
0:46.3	Yeah.
0:47.3	A country of our wealth and sophistication should be able to deliver to its people.
0:52.8	And we do not.
0:55.3	And the basic question that set me off on my travels was, why is it that we can't seem
1:01.0	to have nice things?
1:06.1	Welcome to Ted Business.
1:07.1	I'm Meduba Aganola.
1:09.1	And with that question on her mind, Heather left her job at a public policy think tank
1:13.9	and headed on a trip across the country to talk to experts and regular old people about
1:19.0	why we don't have these kinds of nice things.
1:22.6	It led her to the revelation that racism doesn't just harm the oppressed, but actually harms
	...

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