All Ears with Abigail Disney - Heather McGhee: The Hierarchy Of Human Value

Heather McGhee: The Hierarchy Of Human Value

07/16/20 • 37 min

This week on All Ears Abby talks to author and commentator Heather McGhee. Heather is a distinguished senior fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, where she also served as president for four years. Heather argues that the economic, intellectual, and societal costs of racism affect not only its victims but also its perpetrators. She tells Abby that America’s White middle class grew after WW2, with help from Federal housing subsidies, education grants and other benefits that were largely denied to Black Americans. Once Black Americans began demanding equal treatment, many of those programs were simply dismantled. This kind of racism, McGee tells Abby, cost everyone. Abby and Heather also delve into the political theft of Reconstruction, whether American racism is unique, the misogyny of libertarianism, and if the Karen memes are a harbinger of a backlash on feminism.
Heather’s heavily anticipated book, The Sum of Us, is due out in early 2021.
EPISODE LINKS:
“A White Man Asked C-Span How to Stop Being Racist. Here’s the Fascinating Answer” (Fortune)
“Racism Has A Cost For Everyone” (TED Talk)
“Facebook Fails to Appease Organizers of Ad Boycott” (NY Times)
Color of Change
Demos
Heather on Twitter: @hmcghee
Heather on Instagram: @HeatherCMcGhee

Previous Episode

Stacey Abrams: Make Way For (Civically Engaged) Ducklings

In this week’s episode, Abby talks to one of Joe Biden’s shortlisted VP candidates, Stacey Abrams. Recounting her upbringing in Mississippi, the former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader describes the powerful example her parents set for their children as activists and citizens, even as they had struggled their whole lives for fair access to education, employment opportunities, and the voting booth. “Every election they would take us with them [to vote],” Abrams tells Abby. “And there's six of us. So we looked like Make Way For Ducklings as we followed them into the voting booth and we trailed out.” Additionally, Abrams talks to Abby about her missions to create awareness about voting, the value of the census, and the authoritarian playbook that closely resembles President Trump’s reelection strategy. Oh, and when Abrams isn’t saving the world, she has a romance novel-writing side gig.
EPISODE LINKS
Stacey’s book: Our Time Is Now
Fair Fight 2020
FairCount.org
The Cut On Tuesdays: Family Money (The Cut/Gimlet)
Make Way For Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey (MFA Boston)
Stacey Abrams: I Know Voting Feels Inadequate Right Now (NY Times)
1,285 Proven Cases of Voter Fraud in America (Heritage Foundation)

Stacey Abrams on Twitter and Instagram: @staceyabrams

Next Episode

Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson: Is Business Ethics An Oxymoron?

This week on All Ears Abby welcomes Professor Rebecca Henderson, who teaches about innovation, corporate culture change, and ethics at Harvard Business School. Her class, “Reimagining Capitalism”, is one of HBS’s most popular classes, and she says that the majority of her students tend to believe that capitalism is broken. But Professor Henderson tells Abby that capitalism is a fundamentally moral enterprise, albeit one that needs to be held in delicate balance with a strong society and a democratically accountable government. They discuss the dramatic pivot point created by the charismatic economist Milton Friedman in the early 1970s. According to Professor Henderson, Friedman’s fervent free market beliefs created the moral, political, and legal arguments for abolishing ethical boundaries in business practices in the name of maximizing profits. Then, using their political clout, unchecked business leaders spend the next decades undermining protections for workers, healthcare, infrastructure and the environment. Professor Henderson urges listeners to lean into their power as consumers and voters as the engine of business cultural change.
Find Professor Rebecca Henderson on Twitter: @RebeccaReCap

EPISODE LINKS
Reimagining Capitalism In A World On Fire (Rebecca Henderson)
“The Business Case For Saving Democracy: Why Free Markets Need Free Politics” (Rebecca Henderson)
“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (New York Times, 9/13/70)
“The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations” (Moyers On Democracy)