![]() ![]() Rather than open them up to everyone, town after town simply shut them down. They were testaments to public investment.īut then desegregation happened and the pools had to be integrated. For a good chunk of the 20th century, American towns offered grand community swimming pools as symbols of leisure and civic pride. The story McGhee tells orbits around a depressing metaphor: the drained swimming pool. McGhee is the former president of the think tank Demos and the author of a terrific new book called The Sum of Us. It’s a self-inflicted wound that will never heal unless Americans change the way they think about race and the national project. And indeed, they are victims of America’s long history of racial oppression.īut according to Heather McGhee, that fact can obscure an important truth: White Americans also pay a tremendous price for the country’s racial hierarchy - and many don’t even realize it. Black Americans are typically cast as the victims of racism. ![]()
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