CBH Talk | Exploring “The White Bonus” with Tracie McMillan and Darrick Hamilton
White Bonus is the money white people receive or save when racism works in their favor. In her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America, Tracie McMillan asks a pressing question: If racism denies people of color so much, just how much does it give to white people in literal dollars and cents? McMillan uses her own story and those of five others, to quantify the cash value of whiteness. In doing so, she explains the internal logic of white middle-class resentment in a way that vitally connects to the 2024 political landscape. Join her and economist Darrick Hamilton, one of the country’s leading experts on federal wealth redistribution, as they discuss difficult truths about racism’s direct and indirect gains for white Americans, and the corresponding losses for all.
Tracie McMillan portrait by Sarah Rice
Participants
Tracie McMillan has written for publications including the New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Mother Jones; Harper’s Magazine; Slate; and National Geographic. After putting herself through New York University and training under legendary reporter Wayne Barrett, she was the managing editor of the award-winning magazine City Limits from 2001 to 2005. A one-time target of Rush Limbaugh and a 2012-13 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow, McMillan is also the author of the bestselling The American Way of Eating (Scribner, 2012). McMillan’s work has been recognized by the Sidney Hillman Book Prize, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, and Investigative Reporters and Editors, among others. She was raised in rural Michigan and Detroit, and is now based in Brooklyn.
Darrick Hamilton is founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School where he is Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy. Considered one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, his work involves understanding and examining the causes and consequences of racial and ethnic disparities, and the associated remedies to address these inequalities. Professor Hamilton has been profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones, Bloomberg’s Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. He was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation. He has been involved in crafting policy proposals that have garnered media attention and inspired legislative proposals at the federal, state, and local levels, including baby bonds, guaranteed income, and a federal job guarantee. He has testified before several Senate and House committees, including the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. He was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, is a graduate of Oberlin College, and received a PhD in Economics from the University of North Carolina.
White Bonus is the money white people receive or save when racism works in their favor. In her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America, Tracie McMillan asks a pressing question: If racism denies people of color so much, just how much does it give to white people in literal dollars and cents? McMillan uses her own story and those of five others, to quantify the cash value of whiteness. In doing so, she explains the internal logic of white middle-class resentment in a way that vitally connects to the 2024 political landscape. Join her and economist Darrick Hamilton, one of the country’s leading experts on federal wealth redistribution, as they discuss difficult truths about racism’s direct and indirect gains for white Americans, and the corresponding losses for all.
Tracie McMillan portrait by Sarah Rice
Participants
Tracie McMillan has written for publications including the New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Mother Jones; Harper’s Magazine; Slate; and National Geographic. After putting herself through New York University and training under legendary reporter Wayne Barrett, she was the managing editor of the award-winning magazine City Limits from 2001 to 2005. A one-time target of Rush Limbaugh and a 2012-13 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow, McMillan is also the author of the bestselling The American Way of Eating (Scribner, 2012). McMillan’s work has been recognized by the Sidney Hillman Book Prize, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, and Investigative Reporters and Editors, among others. She was raised in rural Michigan and Detroit, and is now based in Brooklyn.
Darrick Hamilton is founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School where he is Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy. Considered one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, his work involves understanding and examining the causes and consequences of racial and ethnic disparities, and the associated remedies to address these inequalities. Professor Hamilton has been profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones, Bloomberg’s Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. He was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation. He has been involved in crafting policy proposals that have garnered media attention and inspired legislative proposals at the federal, state, and local levels, including baby bonds, guaranteed income, and a federal job guarantee. He has testified before several Senate and House committees, including the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. He was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, is a graduate of Oberlin College, and received a PhD in Economics from the University of North Carolina.
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