Tracie McMillan

Detroit, New York

Contract Project Editor at Capital & Main

Author, THE WHITE BONUS. Editing coverage of worker organizing @capitalandmain; tweets my own. I care a lot about welfare policy. Also good food.

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Articles

Will Trump’s Return Be a Devil’s Bargain for Workers Seeking to Organize?

Jan 20, 2025 | capitalandmain.com | Tracie McMillan

As Donald Trump returns to the White House this week, the people that Capital & Main has covered for the last 18 months in its national series on worker organizing could face a difficult transition. Pro-labor observers expect that members of the federal agency overseeing unions, the National Labor Relations Board, will be replaced with appointees hostile to unions.
The UHC CEO Murder reminded me of this...

Dec 8, 2024 | traciemcmillan.com | Tracie McMillan

The following excerpts are from Chapters 7 and 8 of The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. I am sharing them in light of the December 3 murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers. An October 2024 Senate Majority Staff Report found that the company’s shift towards automated claim processing accompanied an increase denials of some care.
Being white paid off for JD Vance-by $20 million (at least)

Sep 30, 2024 | amsterdamnews.com | Tracie McMillan

Tracie McMillan is author of “The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America.” She edits coverage of worker organizing for Capital & Main. This piece was originally published in Reckon. JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Republican candidate for vice president, does not talk much about being white. Yet an analysis of public records indicates that more than $20 million has flowed to the self-styled “hillbilly” from policies and practices that fuel white advantage.
Being white paid off for JD Vance-by $20 million (at least)

Sep 30, 2024 | reckon.news | Tracie McMillan

JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Republican candidate for vice president, does not talk much about being white. Yet an analysis of public records indicates that more than $20 million has flowed to the self-styled “hillbilly” from policies and practices that fuel white advantage. As I describe in my book, The White Bonus, combining social science and history with life story can offer a powerful—if rough—tally of the dollar value of white privilege for an individual American.
Being White Paid off for JD Vance

Sep 25, 2024 | citybeat.com | Tracie McMillan

JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Republican candidate for vice president, does not talk much about being white. Yet an analysis of public records indicates that more than $20 million has flowed to the self-styled "hillbilly" from policies and practices that fuel white advantage. As I describe in my book, The White Bonus, combining social science and history with life story can offer a powerful - if rough - tally of the dollar value of white privilege for an individual American.
How Losing My Inheritance Gave Me What I Actually Needed

Aug 29, 2024 | thecut.com | Tracie McMillan

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photo: Tracie McMillan My dad disowned me last July. The news came in the mail. In a blocky script made wobbly with age — he’s 77 — my dad spent the first half-page of his letter listing flaws he’d seen in me since my birth: a tendency toward being a “drama queen,” evidenced by the tantrums I threw while learning to walk. A “problem with the truth,” exhibited when I lied about making a mess at the dinner table.
My Disinheritance Gave Me What I Actually Needed

Aug 29, 2024 | flipboard.com | Tracie McMillan

Oakland County16 hours agoOakland County probate judge removed from bench, accused of ‘unprofessional conduct’theoaklandpress.com - Aileen Wingblad • 16hOakland County’s Chief Probate Pro Tem Judge Kathleen Ryan has been removed from the bench indefinitely due to allegations of “unprofessional …Bankruptcy21 hours agoStruggling gas station chain files for Chapter 11 bankruptcyTheStreet - Kirk O’Neil • 21hThe new owners of a service station chain have filed bankruptcy to reorganize its debts.
I thought my parents moved to Holly for the schools. I was wrong.

Aug 18, 2024 | yahoo.com | Tracie McMillan

You’d think my parents would have told me we fled integration. Instead, they said: We moved because of the schools. My family runs four generations deep here in southeastern Michigan: Pontiac and Waterford, Ann Arbor and Detroit, Rose Township and White Lake. My great-grandparents were Ozark migrants and small-town laborers — or their wives — all of them flocking to industrial towns from Pontiac to Sault Sainte Marie.
Calculating the ‘White Bonus’

May 13, 2024 | znetwork.org | Tracie McMillan

The existence of white privilege, the idea that unseen, unconscious advantages afforded to white people shapes systemic injustice, has been hotly contested since the term was popularized by women’s studies scholar Peggy McIntosh in 1988. Many working class and poor whites have questioned how they could possibly experience privilege while living through things like food insecurity, lack of medical care or stable housing, and low quality schools.
Gifted and Talented Programs Benefit White Students Disproportionately

Apr 23, 2024 | teenvogue.com | Tracie McMillan

I still remember the the first time I heard about “gifted” kids. I was fifteen, and taking part in a summer program for “gifted” Michigan high school students. Most of my classmates in the program had been “gifted” their whole lives. It was my first time, though. I went to school in a rural, low-income district without the funding to run gifted programs. Being gifted, I figured, usually took money—and I was proud to have earned that title without it.