SEARCHING FOR WHITOPIA

A black scholar moves into some of America’s whitest communities, attempting to do for race what Barbara Ehrenreich did for class.

Benjamin opens with a surprising statistic. “By 2042,” he writes, “whites will no longer be the American majority.” Perhaps even more surprising was the response that he noticed from white communities, particularly in urban areas. In an almost exaggerated version of “white flight,” white populations were rising in particular communities across America. The author decided to spend time in three of those places. His first stop was St. George, Utah, home to both a bustling community of new retirees as well as a growing population of young families. There Benjamin rented a house from a rare black Mormon, joined a poker group and befriended a group of retired women. Next was Couer d’Alene, Idaho, where he settled into a pleasant life of work and dinner parties in a community that valued the outdoors. Finally, Forsyth, Ga., where Benjamin immersed himself in a church youth group. The author’s experiences in “Whitopia” were surprisingly pleasant, particularly compared to a mugging incident near his home in racially diverse New York. But Benjamin is clear in his conclusion that this trend is not healthy for either white or minority communities. Ideally, he writes, each group should thrive on the resources of the city and on the influence of the other groups. Already, white communities are suffering from problems like unchecked sprawl and bad schools, and low-income minority groups are also losing access to the social capital of middle-class groups. Benjamin’s points are articulate and well-reasoned, but many of them seem to function independently of his actual journey or his time spent in each community.

Interesting social experiments unevenly integrated into an intriguing thesis.