Published Work Archives - Tracie McMillan

The UHC CEO Murder reminded me of this…

January 22, 2025December 8, 2024

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 … Read more

Being white paid off for JD Vance—by $20 million (at least) / Reckon

January 22, 2025September 30, 2024

Reckon News

By Tracie McMillan See original article Update: The article was also co-published in Amsterdam News and Cincinnati City Beat. 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” … Read more

My Disinheritance Gave Me What I Actually Needed / The Cut

January 22, 2025August 30, 2024

The Cut

When my dad wrote me out of his will, my future — and my relationship — felt more secure than ever. By Tracie McMillanSee original article. 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 … Read more

I thought my parents moved to Holly for the schools. I was wrong. / Detroit Free Press

January 22, 2025August 19, 2024

Detroit Free Press

By Tracie M. McMillan, Guest columnist.Read the original piece in the Detroit Free Press. 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. … Read more

Gifted and Talented Programs Benefit White Students Disproportionately / Teen Vogue

January 22, 2025April 24, 2024

Teen Vogue

“Gifted” programs funnel money towards a disproportionate share of white students, Tracie McMillan explains in her new book. By Tracie McMillan, Teen Vogue 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 … Read more

Maximus Inc.’s Safety Net Contracts

January 22, 2025February 21, 2020

Type Investigations

Type Investigations
February 21, 2020

Type Investigations and Mother Jones have compiled the most comprehensive database of the company’s contracts for public benefits to date.

Breadsticks from a Different Time

January 22, 2025April 16, 2019

Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit
April 16, 2019

The Detroit suburbs have gone through a massive demographic change in the past 60 years. Gino’s has been around during all of it.

19 Great Restaurants to Work For

January 22, 2025March 15, 2019

Food & Wine

Food & Wine digital

March 15, 2019

When it comes to working in the average restaurant in America today, there is good news, and there is bad news.

How One Company Is Making Millions Off Trump’s War on the Poor

January 22, 2025January 1, 2019

Mother Jones

Mother Jones, The Wayne Barrett Fund at the Investigative Fund
Jan/Feb 2019

ONE NIGHT LAST MARCH, Sue Fredericks ran into trouble. She had been watching snow accumulate for hours from her post at a 24-hour gas station. Busy stretches on her overnight shift were rare, on account of the size of the town in which she worked; with a few thousand residents an hour from Indianapolis, it is small and quaint, surrounded by corn and soy fields and featuring a shuttered Walmart. March marked Sue’s eighth month on the job, and she was earning $8 an hour. Around 4 a.m., Sue (who asked that I change her name) consolidated the trash into two bags, propped the door open, and, hands full, walked outside. Somewhere near the dumpster, her foot hit a patch of ice. Sue’s leg flew out from under her, and she landed on her right ankle. “I heard it snap and all,” she said later, but “I didn’t break it to where my bone was sticking out.”

Menu of the Future: Insects, Weeds, and Bleeding Veggie Burgers

January 22, 2025March 8, 2018

National Geographic

National Geographic • March 8, 2018

Peer into the future of what we eat, and you will encounter many questions about what will happen to our meals. As the world’s population climbs above 9 billion by mid-century, our food needs will grow by 70 percent. How do we meet them without mowing down every forest or without resorting to industrial agriculture, which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has cited as the most significant contributor to climate change? How do we maintain soil health, and keep it from washing away, so that crops can thrive? These questions get into murky territory. But here’s one thing that’s clear: Dinner in 50 years won’t look much like dinner today.