America's Booming White Enclaves

Traveling some 27,000 miles, African-American journalist Rich Benjamin roamed the United States from 2007 to 2009 exploring a major demographic shift that's attracting remarkably little attention — the flight of white residents from cities and integrated suburbs into cloistered, racially homogeneous enclaves. Tidy communities such as St. George, Utah and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho — places Benjamin calls Whitopias — have grown at triple the rate of America's cities in recent years, raising troubling questions about the country's multiracial cohesion. The Stanford literature PhD chronicled his adventure in a new book, Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, and spoke with TIME about what he found.

Let's start with the title of your book — what is a Whitopia, exactly? It's more than just a place where a lot of white people happen to live.

Absolutely. A Whitopia has three things. First, it has posted more 6% population growth since 2000. The second thing is that the majority of that growth — upwards of 90% — comes from white migrants. The third thing a Whitopia has is an ineffable social charm — a pleasant look and feel.


You say many Whitopias offer a high quality of life, and tend to perform well on those "Best Places to Live" lists that run in magazines. Do you think people are also drawn to these places specifically by their whiteness?

The major draw to Whitopia is that they're safe communities with good public schools and beautiful natural resources. Those qualities are subconsciously inseparable from race in many Americans' minds. For some people race is a major role, and they said so to my face, but most of the Whitopians I encountered aren't intentionally practicing racial discrimination or self-segregation.

You say Whitopias can form even in the middle of diverse cities. How is that possible?

People don't realize that diversity isn't the same as integration. Blacks and whites in New York, where I live, are as segregated today as in 1910 [based on sociologists' segregation index, which measures how much contact people of differing races have with each other.]

What is the danger Whitopias pose to America as a whole?

You can call me old-fashioned, but I'm an integrationist. A democracy can't function at its optimum unless all members are integrated as full members.

A community full of like-minded people tends to enforce their own view of the world and closes off opposing viewpoints. You can go to parties in New York City where the liberal smugness is intolerable, because they're only hearing liberal viewpoints. On the Whitopian conservative side, it's spinning out of control. Look at the teabagger movement, where people are concerned their taxes are going to be wasted on minorities and illegal immigrants. Same with the movement that says Obama is not a citizen. (See pictures of the tea-party protests.)

So how can we avoid the threat of racial balkanization you describe?

We have a golden opportunity now. If I were an elected leader I would say we have $800 billion in stimulus money that could rebuild America. We don't want to build communities in such a way that continues segregation. After World War II, President Eisenhower built highways and gave incentives to homeowners that gave white suburbanites an advantage. It left us with segregation for decades to come. Now we have an opportunity to get it right.

Are there any places that are getting it right right now? That serve as a model for what you'd like to see?

There are communities around the country that get it right. Maplewood, New Jersey has all the attributes of a Whitopia — high property values, great public schools, neighborliness — and yet it's also integrated and very diverse.

What surprised you about the communities you spent time in?

I was caught off-guard by the level of hostility to immigration reform in many of these communities and by how concerned many are by taxes — they believe taxes are too high. But I was also caught off-guard by how pleasant an experience it turned out to be, the personable warmth that greeted me in many cases.

And you were surprised by how much you enjoyed golf.

I was. [Laughs] I feel like golf courses are the seductive emblem of Whitopia, and I didn't think I could get the essence of the place without learning myself. What I thought was a chore turned out to be a labor of love.

Tell me about the time you spent with white separatists in Idaho.

I just stumbled upon it. There's a religious sect called Christian Identity, which is a religious arm of the Aryan Nation. When I was in northern Idaho I sat in on a three-day retreat, and had some fascinating conversations. It was just a bizarre experience.

You, a black man, sat in on a white separatist retreat. How did that go over?

They were curious and shocked they had found a black man on their premises. A lot of the members of the church took pains to explain to me the difference between white supremacy and white separatism. They said, "We don't think we're better than you, we just want to be separate from you."


We see that tendency to divide ourselves into identity groups in places all over the world, it seems, whether it's by race or religion or political view. Is it simply human nature, do you think?

I just reject that argument. People in Whitopia would say, "Hey Rich, birds of a feather flock together. What's the big deal?" Our government and businesses across the country make decisions every day that perpetuate segregation. When you say homes need to be built on a one-acre lot, when you say apartment renters can't live in your community — these concrete policies are what contribute to segregation. It's not in our biology, and it's not natural. We're a great country — we've overcome some thorny problems in our past and we're better than that.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...146&xid=Loomia

I disagree with this "author" on several different points, but one in particular has a major flaw in historical logic, and it colors this researcher's entire premise.

The suburbs grew up along the Eisenhower highway system, and were facilitated by it's development. It isn't like "white suburbanites" existed in the wilderness waiting for the highways to connect them to the rest of the world. The suburbs pursued the highway, and sprung up along it.

Suburbs may be indicative in many cases of segregation, but as a SYMPTOM, not a CAUSE.

Of course, that is an inconvenient causality for a Ph.D. trying to make a case for forced suburban integration. :whistle:




Malone

i need some clarification
can rednecks belong to the aryn nations ie is we white r not?
what is wrong w/ hangin w/ u homeis?

and if any one no matter what race wants to pay my taxes welllllll bubba go ahead and more power to ur self!

It seems to me to be a pretty natural choice.

You either have no ambition or goals in life and you believe you are entitled to the finer things in life and the Government should provide them or you work hard for what you obtain in life, you gain an appreciation for what you have accomplished and obtained and you try to improve your situation.

The first group gets disgruntled when not enough things are GIVEN to them. They have no motivation, nor means to leave the Urban areas. They have no goals in life other than to MAKE the Government give them what's coming to them. They don't have a work ethic, they don't strive to improve themselves with education and they are basically just floating through life waiting for the next Government handout.

The second group wants to distance itself from a group of people that drag the bar and the standards down. They want to distance themselves from the casual sex, the lower morals, the lower educational standards that seem to be okay for the first group. They work hard, they sacrifice current dollars to obtain higher education levels and they get better paying jobs. As soon as the opportunity presents itself, they flee the environment that does not share the same values.

Where are they going to move? To areas that share the same concerns, the same attitudes and values.

This is not necessarily a black and white issue as many other races feel the same way about work ethics and values and they end up moving to neighborhoods that can promote their ideals. However, there does seem to be a large population of minorities that are tied to the Government Tit and don't undertake the task of improving themselves so they can improve their situation. They stagnate, expecting the Government to improve their lives so they don't work at it themselves.

We've all seen attempts at 'Social Justice' where they locate subsidized housing in suburban neighborhoods. Inevitably, instead of conforming to the area standards and mores, they bring the neighborhood down to the standards they are comfortable with. This spiral results in more and more people fleeing the area to find 'better' or more comparable communities that share their values. The exodus of the people with the better work ethics and moral means the people moving in to replace them don't take care of the property as well, they don't strive to improve their lives and the property values decline. Those that want to improve their lives try to find a way out leaving an ever declining situation for the remaining.

It's human nature and is more about attitudes than color. I've lived in neighborhoods that were primarily homes that were owned by the people that lived in them. As the neighborhood ages, home owners move on and many houses become rental properties. Renters don't maintain a house and yard nearly as well as someone who has the pride of ownership and overtime, the neighborhood declines to the point where people trying to improve their lot in life want to move to a 'better' area.

It's also human nature for people that work hard for what they obtain to resent people with attitudes of entitlement. I don't want my taxes to help pay someone's mortgage who engaged in risky decisions while I exectued fiscal responsibility. I don't want to subsidize large businesses or help people get rid of their clunkers to buy a new car. I don't want education levels to COME DOWN TO an acceptable standard for an urban area because that is NOT acceptable to me. I don't want bigger Government giving my hard earned money away to people that are not doing anything to earn it, not doing anything to improve their own lives, not doing anything productive in life but making more babies and expecting handouts.

IT IS HUMAN nature and as long as I am able to, I will position myself and my family in the best area that I can for all of our family needs and if that makes me a racist, then so be it.

It looks like they left out the last question . :whistle:

Rich, what would you do to fix the problem?

First I would use legal means. You know, declare those white subdivisions were not zoned right and so on. Then I would move to closing down their schools. You know, let folks know their schools did not have enough diversity or something. Then start bussing the kids back to the urban areas for the 'experience of encounter' as I like to call it. (chuckling)

With the law, we can bankrupt those homeowners and then where will they be? (laughs). Right back with the rest of us. (big smile)

Then, if that did not work, like if those white folks refused to leave or something, I would consider relocation, but call it something like 'urban rediscovery and allocation'. You know, but a good spin on it. When a bunch of buses with bars on the windows show up and we start piling those white kids into the backs of trucks, Whitopia is going to have one helluva wake up call, I tell you what. (laughs)

But let's get serious here. We will still have a problem with those Whitopias until we can make those white folks live in the same places we do and think like we do. Then we can have a real democracy. I vote we take that guys stuff. (laughs). Just kidding.

Mena is the whitest of the whiteopias, with the exception of say,... Harrison, Arkansas, just like Mena only a few times larger and home to the mothership--- headquarters of the KKK. You can slice it or dice it or serve it up anyway you want, say what you will, But Mena is one of the best examples anywhere of a whiteopia. period...

seems like all the other races do the same thing so whats the big deal they can have their space and we can have our space they dont like it too bad :usflag:

:thumb: White, black, yellow, red, purple, green, It doesn't matter to me. It's where i was born and raised, where i have raised my kids, where i expect to play with my grandkids [ someday]. It's a piece of dirt on the earth, a dot on the map, there is no signs at the county line discouraging folks of any color to go or stay.

At least not anymore. When I bought my house here the real estate agent proudly told me that minorities were not allowed here

That's what I was told also by a real estate agent.

Anything for a buck!! Real estate agents using that as a selling point, shameful!!! Especially the ones that grace us with their presence in church!! You know who you are. Jesus is weeping this very minute over this type of thing, but there are those living in this area that call themselves Christians that believe thatwhites are the chosen. They believe that racism is ok!!! What a sad state of affairs!! I love this place and will always call it home. My family has at least 8 generations here. I grew up with some of the most racist hateful people in the world, but they were taught that from their parents. Thankfully my parents were not racist. My dad is a little morebent towards not agreeing with mixed race marriage because of the problems mixed race children used to face in society, but having been raised here with all the racism, I was racist when I was younger. I didn't realize this until I got out in the world a little. I never spoke to a black person until I wasin my 20's. I felt really aukward. I used the "N" word with abandon when I was younger. I didn't know it was hurtful. I just said it just like everyone else. Anyway I hope that everyone who reads this will cnange the hatred in their hearts if they have it for any race of people. I understand that people are most comfortable with their own kind. If you were fleeing imminant danger and you saw a group of blacks, a group of hispanics and a group of whites, you would run to the group of whites. Its a lot easier for all the whites living here to stay in their comfort zone if they don't have to deal with people that are different, but the way that some people here act is shameful, or shameless.

I think there's only one race.....the human race.
I think Fastmover said it best.....Whatever our comfort zone is. :thumb: