In her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone, Heather C. McGhee gives several examples of the ways in which racism has directly impacted Americans’ prosperity.

While this phrase is often said sarcastically, it is used to illustrate the need to explain, define, and/or describe concepts, events, and/or ideas to a general audience in an understandable way. In her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone, Heather C. McGhee gives several examples of the ways in which racism has directly impacted Americans’ prosperity. For this essay, you will choose one of the prompts below to explain the ways in which racism results in negative social and financial impacts on communities. Essay #2 Prompts (choose ONE): Explain the “zero-sum hierarchy”? What is the impact of this way of thinking on American life? Explain some of the ways that the U.S. economy has been dependent upon systems of exploitation and harm. How have certain Americans profited from exploiting, oppressing, or discriminating against others? How has this economic system impacted life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all in America? Explain why so many of America’s public swimming pools were drained and closed? How did this impact entire communities? Requirements: This essay must have the standard elements of an essay: introduction/thesis, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your introduction and thesis statement should focus or set up the main idea or main argument of your essay. Then, each body paragraph should provide evidence to support your thesis and should stay on one topic at a time. The conclusion should answer the following questions: SO WHAT and NOW WHAT. The “so what” is why this topic should matter to your reader. The “now what” (sometimes referred to as the “Call to Action”) is an explanation of what we should do now that we have read your essay. Each body paragraph should contain at least ONE direct quotation and in-text citation. This essay must follow the conventions of good writing and will be graded on the basis of these conventions: organization, focus, development (support/details), clarity of ideas, and grammatical correctness. Since this is an expository essay, you should NOT use the first person point of view (I, me/my/mine, we/us/our/ours). Instead, use the third person point of view (one, people, they, them, everyone, everybody, Americans) This essay must have at least five (5) paragraphs and must be at least three (3) pages in length. Please do not exceed four (4) pages. This essay must be written in proper MLA format. This essay must be an original work of your own and not plagiarized in any way. This essay requires you to cite material from McGhee’s book. Therefore, you will need BOTH in-text citations and Works Cited page.