RICH WHITE MEN

A social justice activist and self-described “rich white man” serves up ideas about breaking the class stranglehold on the American polity.

“It turns out that racist thinking is common among white people,” writes Neiman, who opens by noting that the U.S. is racially and socio-economically segregated in astonishingly entrenched ways. The former CEO of a nonprofit devoted to placing students of color from “high-poverty” areas in colleges, the author writes about a seemingly sympathetic executive who, while putatively a “good” billionaire, revealed his view that such students were noncompetitive for ingrained reasons of culture. Meanwhile, by Neiman’s account, the executive was a prime example of the rich, White, male class that holds disproportionate political and economic power and expresses its views in unmistakably self-serving ways—e.g., by preparing to transfer $36 trillion in intergenerational wealth to their offspring, who aren’t as likely to put those dollars to work solving social problems. Neiman paints with a wide brush, but interestingly, he applies notions of intersectionality not just to the oppressed, but also to the oppressors. “Compounding unearned advantage says nothing about how hard any individual works or the quality of their choices,” he writes. “Rather, it simply acknowledges that those who benefit from unearned advantages receive a premium on their positive efforts and a discount on their missteps.” Neiman shows how wealth can be leveraged differently to dismantle social and economic inequalities and create a more equitable society. He uses the example of Prince Harry, who walked away from “the power and prestige that was his birthright as being in his own self-interest.” Harry, of course, remains rich and White all the same, but Neiman’s larger point is that “each generation gets to decide for itself what it means to be good,” including the prospect of giving up some of its loot.

A thought-provoking book sure to cause heated debate in discussions of equity and social justice.