In this episode of What Cha Readin?’ Dr. Anica shares her three takeaways from the incredible book “The Whiteness of Wealth”.

This book is a remarkable examination of racism in the American tax system by a tax policy expert and law professor, Dorothy A. Brown. Brown uses decades of interdisciplinary study to demonstrate that tax law isn't as colorblind as she had previously thought. She introduces us to families from all types of backgrounds in Atlanta, her beloved city, whose experiences show how the American tax system favors white people while further pushing black people behind. Black Americans experience financial disadvantages relative to their White counterparts in many spheres of life, including college, marriage, and house ownership. As a result, there is a growing wealth disparity and more black families are being denied access to the American ideal.

America's tax code needs to be completely rewritten in order to solve the issue. But it will also call for different decisions from both white and black Americans. This important, constructive book shows how to move forward.

Dr. Anica gives her three takeaways from the incredible book “The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee!

From Maine to Mississippi to California, McGhee sets out on a very personal journey across the nation to calculate what we lose when we accept the zero-sum paradigm, which claims that growth for some of us must come at the expense of others. She encounters white people along the road who open up to her about losing their houses, their ambitions, and their opportunity for better careers due to the poisonous mixture of American racism and greed. This is the tale of how public goods in this country have turned into private luxuries; how unions failed; how wages stagnated; how inequality rose; and how this nation—unique among developed nations—has foiled universal healthcare.

McGhee gathers economic and sociological facts to build a picture of racism's costs. The book shares humble stories of people longing to be a part of a better America, even white people themselves. This sincere letter from a Black woman to a diverse America inspires unexpected empathy and gives us a fresh outlook on a day when we will finally understand that life is more than a zero-sum game.

However, McGhee discovers evidence of the Solidarity Dividend—gains that emerge when individuals work together across racial boundaries to achieve goals we just cannot achieve on our own—in unexpected places of worship and employment.

Dr. Anica gives her three takeaways from the incredible book “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein!

Many of the poor communities we know today are the result of deeply flawed urban planning in the 1950s. By demonstrating how government actions contributed to the construction of officially segregated public housing and the razing of formerly mixed areas, Rothstein deepens our understanding of this history in this book. While urban areas quickly worsened, federal grants for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans spurred the enormous American suburbanization of the post-World War II years. Rothstein reveals how law enforcement officials brutally upheld these standards by encouraging black families to resist in white areas.