Heather McGhee

HEATHER MCGHEE WAS COOKING DINNER IN her Brooklyn apartment in January as she opened a YouTube link to watch Joe Biden deliver his first speech on race as the President. As she bustled around the kitchen, Biden recited a line that seemed so familiar that she nearly dropped her wineglass. “We’ve bought the view that America is a zero-sum game in many cases: ‘If you succeed, I fail,’” Biden said. But, he continued, “When any one of us is held down, we’re all held back.”

McGhee’s first book, was about to hit shelves in February, and she’d shared copies of it with some Biden advisers. The book argues that Americans have been fed a “zero-sum story” that says progress for people of color will