Interfaith Insight - 2021
Permanent link for "Is it win-lose, or can we all grow together?" by Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani on May 11, 2021
Is it right to assume our children will have even more success than
we did? After all, they have so many privileges that we didn’t have.
As a first-time mother of a senior, I have just traversed the
college application process with my daughter. I am ashamed to say that
I fell into this mindset in all the ways that showed deep-seated
indoctrination from the greater American society and from my own
Pakistani immigrant background. Growing up, my brother and I saw our
parents’ hard work and knew that nothing less than our best would be
good enough. We worked hard and went to good colleges leading to
wonderful opportunities to serve our communities in our own unique
ways. When I had my own kids, I thought they would have more
opportunities than we had growing up. With hard work they would go to
even better colleges than we did because of the privilege, access, and
support they had received growing up.
This year, the college application process, like everything in
the world with COVID, was very different. Many institutions made
entrance exams optional, leading to the highest application rates ever
seen, and thus acceptance rates dropped significantly. For our family
this resulted in rejections from schools for which our daughter was
very confident. I found myself bewildered and insulted. Why was I
taking it personally? Because, I had bought into this idea that one
school was good and the other wasn’t.
But then I remembered the advice of a dear friend and a Muslim
sister as both of our kids were applying to colleges during COVID. She
said, what is meant to be for them will be theirs. They won’t get
something that was meant for someone else, and others will not receive
what was meant for them. The reminder of this Islamic teaching was
comforting and it shook me out of that zero-sum mentality I was
wallowing in. I began to question 18 years of thinking that had
tainted my outlook for so many years.
This personal example demonstrates the trap of the zero-sum
mentality that Heather McGhee talks about in her book “The Sum of Us:
What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” In
diversity, equity and inclusion work I often hear it said that “we
need to make the pie bigger,” when helping people see the advantages
we all get from engaging in efforts of equity. The notion that equity
is a zero-sum proposition -- that for one person to gain another must
lose – stands in opposition to what the research and data tell us.
People fear that a dollar in someone else’s pocket is a dollar less in
my pocket. Or, in my example, admission for their kid means rejection
for mine.
McGhee addresses the notion of equity, and true social and
economic inclusion, which our country has resisted since its founding.
Our country was founded on a toxic narrative that, McGhee in a recent
interview said, “was invented to justify stolen land, people, and
labor.” In modern days this narrative has transformed into one which
now designates certain people as makers and others as takers,
taxpayers versus freeloaders, rather than as neighbors or fellow
citizens. She argues that the elite require this narrative to
perpetuate inequality that only benefits them. The zero-sum narrative
does not benefit the poor or working-class white person, the Black,
Indigenous or other person of color, nor does it benefit women, LGBTQ+
folks, or those with disabilities.
However, this successfully established implicit narrative in our
minds has justified the polarization in our society, resulting in
people working against their own best interests just to achieve gains
over “the other.” What McGhee argues is that racism and inequality
impact everyone, and that policies that seem to only harm one group
have more far-reaching repercussions.
A poignant example in the book is of the beautiful public
recreational complexes with pools in the South, where only white
families enjoyed comfort and relief from the heat prior to widespread
air conditioning. When the civil rights movement and legal rulings
required that all be admitted access to these pools since they were
funded by tax dollars, the cities made the choice to drain the pools
and fill them with dirt rather than integrate. They eliminated these
complexes as well as the park service departments, resulting in loss
of employment and loss of an important community resource. Racism
impacted everyone. This example of “drained pool politics” is not
uncommon in our U.S. policies and politics.
Heather McGee is an economist and social policy expert. After
years of tackling problems of inequality from the economic angle where
disparities are compared across groups, she came to realize the
missing root cause — racism. Rather than a variable that influenced
inequality, McGhee discovered it as the root cause of holding back
progress for all Americans. For example, 40% of white workers are not
making enough money to support their basic needs. Poverty wages impact
all people across the board, not just minorities. The narrative that
justice for people of color will come at the expense of white people
has historically kept workers from unifying for collective action.
However, McGhee documents how recent unified efforts have shown the
power people have if they work together.
As interfaith communities work together to seek justice, we must
critically examine these polarizing zero-sum narratives. Centering
race and racism in our conversations is a necessary paradigm shift
that aligns with many aspects of what we value or hold sacred. In my
own personal world example, I am reminded of where our pride comes
into play when we examine equity, access, and privilege in our
society. Are we missing the costs of racism permeating our society?
Through the stories of our American neighbors and with economic
analysis, McGhee guides us in her book to better understand how we are
stronger together. She calls us as a nation to get on the same page
about the truth of our past so that we can move forward into a future
together. This united movement will result in what McGhee calls
“solidarity dividends.” What if instead of looking at distribution of
goods, access, or privilege as a fixed, finite resource, we instead
imagine it as the sunshine?
Let us hold this image of the sunshine, something in plentiful
supply, even here in Michigan, that we can all appreciate, value, and
enjoy together, side-by-side, as serving “the sum of us.”
