Review of Whitopia by Rich Benajmin - In Pictures!

I chose this picture to represent the subject of white flight covered in the book. The term revolves around the concept that when middle-class white people begin to be surrounded by a certain percentage of minorities, they will flee the city/suburb for the next city/suburb. They partly flee because they feel that there is a surrounding darkness surrounding them, and that somehow the grass will be greener in a suburban space. A suburban space that just happens to be overwhelmingly white - ala - Whitopias.

I chose this picture for its clean urban feel. Shockingly, some Whitopian neighborhoods are in urban areas due to zoning, co-ops, and gentrification. Zoning is used to keep certain types of housing (think apartments) out of areas where people don't want to live near poor people. Co-ops are buildings that are owned by all renters within the building. They get to create criteria for those who apply. Gentrification is the process in which afluent people buy cheap property in a poor community, fix it up, and raise the prices in the neighborhood until the original inhabitants of the neighborhood can no longer afford to live there. All of these processes may seem innocent at the surface level (like the appearance in this picture), but all three these strategies could be used consciously or subconsciously by affluent white people.

You don't need racists to have racism. Much of it is at the structural level.

This picture depicts Obama in front of a very white crowd. Rich Benjamin makes the argument that our nation has come very far in interpersonal race relations. Or in other words, we have a more civil interaction in face to face situations. Even though Obama only got 42% of the white vote, that is still very impressive in light of our nations history. Mr. Benjamin referred to himself and President Obama as "no-demand blacks". Minorities that don't force those in the majority to confront their ugly stereotypes. There was interesting section on multiplier affects of race. An urban accent, a style of dress, could make a person in the majority, confront their racial fears, and make them want to protect themselves from having to confront such uncomfortableness by moving to Whitopias.

I thought the most important point made in the book was how political parties have been using wedge issues for years to drum up racial fears to gain votes. Sad stuff.

The back story to this book revolved around 2042. This is the year where it is predicted that White Americans  will no longer be in the majority. Due to a nativist narrative that has convinced so many people that this country is "ours" and shouldn't be shared with anyone is kind of funny to me. I fully respect the fact that people want to uphold the law, but even the fear that legal minorities having babies at a faster rate is somehow not their right because this is a "white country" is kind of strange. This land, and entire earth, is God's. American soil has belonged to many cultures over the last millennium (Native Americans, Mexicans, British, Spaniards). Many of us live in the dominant culture, but I, for one, don't fear being surrounded by people of different races and cultures. Why should I be? There's more we can learn from talking to each other rather than running from one another and being fearful.