ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historical development of the zero-sum fallacy of racism; the harm it has caused only to Indigenous, African American, Asian American, Latinx and multiracial people to white Americans; and the damage it has done, continues to do to this country’s founding principles. Martin Luther King, Jr. once observed that poor white people in the South had nothing to feed their children but Jim Crow, a poignant example of the power of racism to convince economically oppressed white people to work against their own economic self-interest in exchange for the crumbs of white supremacy. Zero-sum thinking, assuming that a gain for one group inevitably means a loss for other groups, prevents people from recognizing possibilities for mutual gain. The fallacy of zero-sum thinking at the heart of racism leads all too many white people to believe their well-being is threatened when People of Color, especially Black people, get ahead, recognize what they could gain by working together.
