Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?

From the bestselling author of Brown Is the New White, an explosive new argument for draining the swamp of white male privilege

“Steve Phillips has been far ahead of the curve in understanding not only where America is but what America will be.” —Neera Tanden, president, Center for American Progress

Just six years after the Racial Reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd, we are witnessing a full-scale assault on equality in America unparalleled since the overthrow of Reconstruction. Building on the urgency and clarity of his New York Times and Washington Post bestseller Brown Is the New White and his “spirited and persuasive” (Publishers Weekly) How We Win the Civil War, Steve Phillips now calls on the nation to go back on the offensive in the fight for racial justice—shifting the conversation from the underrepresentation of people of color to the overrepresentation of white men, who make up a shrinking minority of the U.S. population (29 percent).

In twelve short, animated chapters covering the fields of government, education, business, philanthropy, media, arts and entertainment, and democracy itself, Phillips exposes how Straight White American Male Preference (or S.W.A.M.P.) has come roaring out of the shadows once again. He makes a powerful, if not irrefutable, argument for how widespread persistent inequality largely stems from the deeply ingrained practice of providing unfair, if not unconstitutional, preferences to straight white men.

Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else? calls for nothing less than draining the swamp of white male privilege. Fearless, sharp, and deeply researched, this much-needed corrective offers those who wish to help make this nation a multiracial democracy—where all people are truly equal—the arguments, evidence, and inspiration they need to launch a new counterattack.