The White Bonus

Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America

De: Tracie McMillan

Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert

In The White Bonus, McMillan asks a provocative question about racism in America: When people of color are denied so much, what are white people given? And how much is it worth—not in amorphous privilege, but in dollars and cents?

McMillan begins with her family, tracking their modest wealth to its roots: American policy that helped whites first. Simultaneously, she details the complexities of their advantage, exploring her mother's death in a nursing home, at forty-four, on Medicaid; her family's implosion; and a small inheritance from a grandfather. In the process, McMillan puts a cash value to whiteness in her life and assesses its worth.

She expands her investigation to four other white subjects of different generations across the United States. McMillan shows how, and to what degree, racial privilege begets material advantage across class, time, and place.

For fans of Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us, McMillan brings groundbreaking insight on the white working class. And for fans of Tara Westover's Educated and Kiese Laymon's Heavy, McMillan reckons with the connection between the abuse we endure at home and the abuse America allows.

©2024 Tracie McMillan (P)2024 Tantor

The Strength of Authenticity

This author stripped herself and her writing of any mask or presence to give the world a glimpse into how people who have benefited from racism deny it and never count the true cost of their bias and tunnel vision. So called “white” people view history in terms of white affirmative action instead of the myth of black inferiority. They do not benefit from being superior. They benefit from the deck being stacked and the game being rigged!

Fascinating and so educational

I appreciate this author’s ability to explain racism to her reader by sharing both her own story and the story of other Americans. The book is a powerfully written memoir interwoven with the biographies of a handful of people living within the American racial hierarchy. I am from southeast Michigan (her memoir’s setting) and found it so interesting to hear how racism was built into the development of this area.

In sum, I am walking away from this book with a continued depth of understanding of the evil of racism and its affect on all.

Insightful

This is an insightful book, White Bonus. The author lays out how we got to where we are today and how race played a major factor. I learned a lot. I highly recommend this book.

Well researched

I fully enjoyed this book and it's structure. The author packs it full of well researched history. A must read for this time

The personal insight and reflection!

This book is simply extraordinary! So impressed with the author’s ability to keenly report on the milieu in which she resides. A candor seldom seen in self-reflections which to me more often seem to instead hint at an author’s ability for superhero level transcendence. Not so. In this matter of fact account.

Thankful for your hard work, reflecting on your life and family.

Just thankful to see honest person can help others understand the social norms seen, unseen shape our lives.

so true in every way

absolutely well written and factual right about paying reparations according to life span and to start paying reparations ASAP and how it would be a huge start toward getting people to the same table and just talk It's true black people do not and are not looking for any type of revenge whatsoever that's absolutely ridiculous

Excellent listen

I enjoyed hearing this perspective and could identify with some of the author’s experiences. Very relevant topic.