Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America [Hardcover]

Rich Benjamin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 6, 2009

"It sounds like a recipe for a riot: an inquisitive black writer journeying into some of the most segregated neighborhoods in the country. But Benjamin...pulls off his quest with good cheer."
--Time

"[Benjamin] offers in the end a chilling vision of the future for progressive values."
--Daily Kos

"Exploring the identity, inhabitants, and social and political implications of...small towns...is the premise of Benjamin's provocative new book."
--The Daily Beast "Benjamin examines the history, politics, economics, and culture of race and class as seen in the growth of these `whitopias,' racially and therefore socioeconomically exclusive communities from the exurb St. George, Utah to the inner-city enclave of Carnegie Hill in Manhattan. . . . This is a thoroughly engaging and eye-opening look at an urgent social issue." --Booklist starred review

"Benjamin goes where no (sane) black man has gone before--into the palest enclaves, like Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to those places where white Americans have fled to escape the challenges of diversity."
--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

"An essential tool in questioning, appreciating, and better understanding these most historic times."
--Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory

"The revelatory chapters about New York City made me want to cry . . . Generous and understanding to all of its subjects, Searching for Whitopia is a eulogy for an unsustainable America lifestyle."
--Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like

"Searching for Whitopia will be a major publication, widely read and discussed."
--Andrew Ross, author of The Celebration Chronicles

"A courageous book that holds a mirror up to our country--and the reflection is one we can no longer afford to ignore."
--David Sirota, author and syndicated columnist

"An account of a black man's journey through the whitest communities of America is bound to be thought-provoking, especially when the voyager is as observant and articulate as Rich Benjamin. A very entertaining read with a message worth pondering."
--Robert D. Putnam, professor of public policy, Harvard, and author of Bowling Alone

Between 2007 and 2009, Rich Benjamin, a journalist-adventurer, packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America, to some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in our nation.

By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. As immigrant populations--largely people of color--increase in cities and suburbs, more and more whites are moving to small towns and exurban areas that are predominately, even extremely, white.

Rich Benjamin calls these enclaves "Whitopias" (pronounced: "White-o-pias").

His journey to unlock the mysteries of Whitopias took him from a three-day white separatist retreat with links to Aryan Nations in North Idaho to the inner sanctum of George W. Bush's White House--and many points in between. And to learn what makes Whitopias tick, and why and how they are growing, he lived in three of them (in Georgia, Idaho, and Utah) for several months apiece. A compelling raconteur, bon vivant, and scholar, Benjamin reveals what Whitopias are like and explores the urgent social and political implications of this startling phenomenon.

The glow of Barack Obama's historic election cannot obscure the racial and economic segregation still vexing America. Obama's presidency has actually raised the stakes in a battle royale between two versions of America: one that is broadly comfortable with diversity yet residentially segregated (ObamaNation) and one that does not mind a little ethnic food or a few mariachi dancers--as long as these trends do not overwhelm a white dominant culture (Whitopia).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starting in 2007, Benjamin, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Demos, and, more significantly, an African-American, spent two years traveling through America's whitest communities—patches of Idaho and Utah and even pockets of New York City—where, according to his research, more and more white people have been seeking refuge from the increasingly multicultural reality that is mainstream America. There's plenty of potential in this premise, but Benjamin writes without any sense of purpose, alternating between undigested interviews with policy experts, self-indulgent digressions on the pleasures of golf and real estate shopping and sketchy portraits of his subjects. Despite Benjamin's countless conversations with everyone from Ed Gillespie, former head of the GOP, to a drunk in an Idaho bar, he never offers any fresh insights or practical suggestions. He concludes by barraging the reader with a series of unearned musts: we must revitalize the public sector, we must work hard for a new universalism. If his time in the nation's whitest enclaves gave him any specific thoughts about how those ideals might be achieved, he would have done well to share them. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Rich Benjamin is a well-connected scholar, lecturer, and commentator on contemporary American politics and culture. His commentary is featured on NPR, FOX radio, newspapers and the blogosphere, including The Huffington Post, Tom Paine, Afronetizen, and Talking Points Cafe). He has PhD from Stanford University in Modern Thought and Literature; in 2001/02, he was a visiting scholar at Columbia Unviersity Law School, and he is currently a senior fellow at DEMOS,a progressive national think tank based in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; First Edition edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401322689
• ISBN-13: 978-1401322687
• Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 5.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Demography

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of depth in a slim book - great insights on modern demographics! March 11, 2010

By S. J. Snyder VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Rich Benjamin goes to a number of Whitopias (the concept is defined, demographically, in appendices) and actually lives in three of them. He approaches his subject without apparent bias aforethought, and with excellent research eyes.

In his research he distinguished between different types of Whitopias, whether the reasons for their development are more conscious or unconscious. Beyond that, he extensively interviews individual residents, to give the different Whitopias an individualized profile.

He also notes that natives don't always "cotton to" outside whites.

He provides a few statistics that I didn't know, as part of the possibility America may be "majority nonwhite" by 2050. For the whites fleeing blacks and Hispanics for purely racial, or racial-economic reasons, and at the same time, often fleeing Asians because "their kids study too hard for our kids," he has "bad" news I didn't know... the Asian population is growing faster than even the Hispanic population.

Beyond that, he asks what do whitopias, more exurban ones like Forsyth County, Ga., than freestanding St. George, Utah or the Idaho Panhandle, mean for the future of American infrastructure, whith highways, sewer, zoning tussles and more. And, what do all whitopias mean in terms of future American cohesiveness?

Without offering undue condemnation, Benjamin offers condemnation where it is due for these exurbs being used as a shield to avoid discussing race, and worries that broader social integration may have peaked in much of the country, at least for now.

If you want a very insightful -- and very well-written -- take on modern demographics, this is it!

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable book... October 24, 2009

By A. Harper

Format:Hardcover

I really enjoyed this book. I felt that Benjamin handled his interactions with residents of the Whitopian locations he spent a fair amount of time in, very well. Through ethnographic research and open-minded analysis, he attempts to paint white people who live in Whitopias as complex people who are not necessarily overtly racist. Benjamin, a Black American, felt rather welcomed in all of the Whitopian towns that he lived in for his 2 years of field research to write the book.

I was first excited to learn about the book because I was curious how a Black identified American would navigate pre-dominantly white class privileged (mostly conservative) towns, and remain good spirited-- especially being part of events in which people had affiliations to Aryan Nation... or meeting with a white guy who half-jokingly tells him that when he is alone with his white friends, they refer to Black people using the n-word.

Benjamin provides a lot of citations from the statistics and other types of data he uses to analyze Whitopian resident's responses to his inquiries about immigration, race relations, politics, and beyond.

He also speaks of how he is sick of the binary of "black-white" America, and that America is too diverse for the mainstream to keep on falling back on the old school way of looking at race relations, which paints the picture that it's an easy binary of black/white. He brings in class, age, geography, and the fact that Latinos, Asians, and people who are multi-ethnic destroy the old race relations model of "black-white" America.

All and all, I enjoyed reading the book. He is a good writer and deals with the subject of the "Obama" era of race and immigration in a very engaging and not so judgmental way.

43 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Whitopia" homegrown product responds October 20, 2009

By Marianne Love

Format:Hardcover

When he walked in and sat down at my book event at Hastings in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Rich Benjamin stood out. It was late July, 2007. My first inclination was to wonder why a high school kid would be showing up at a book event on a hot Saturday afternoon in the middle of the short North Idaho summer.

Oh yeah, I also noticed he was black. One notices such things in North Idaho where, looking back on my 33-year high school teaching career, I'd need only one hand to count the number of blacks who ever sat in my English/journalism classes.

Rich and I exchanged pleasant smiles. I moved on with my presentation about my latest book. He listened intently, thankfully laughing at the appropriate times as I read my humorous story about some prankish but friendly former students who invaded my house (while we were supposedly sleeping) left post-it notes on the television and wrapped toilet paper decorations around our porch.

When my presentation ended, Rich stuck around and brought a book through the line for me to autograph. Some close friends had attended, so we all enjoyed a few minutes of conversation. When he introduced himself to the group, I immediately recognized his name from a telephone conversation I'd had with him a couple of weeks earlier.

The voice on the phone hadn't exactly matched this youthful-looking person in front of me, whom I'd quickly assumed had to be a high school kid, dutifully completing an assignment for a summer-school class. In our earlier phone conversation, however, I had learned that Rich Benjamin was, indeed, fully engaged in an assignment---but not for high school or even college. He'd already graduated from college and had earned his doctorate.

Rich was writing a book.... He had a publisher and hoped to publish within the next year or two. He had told me in the phone conversation of his plans to visit three areas in the United States where the "boom town" phenomenon of urban dwellers fleeing to rural areas was occurring at the time.

He'd gone to great lengths to connect with locals in each area---locals in power, locals with historical knowledge, locals with a cause, everyday locals and, most importantly, locals who could call themselves "locals" after recently moving from somewhere else. I found his general premise fascinating, especially because of my own strong opinions---both good and bad---about the influx of outsiders to the beautiful area in North Idaho where I'd lived since the day I was born.

It was easy to connect with Rich because of his manners, warmth, sincerity, ability to carry on a down-to-earth conversation and especially because of the thought-provoking story which had brought with him to our area.

A few weeks later, we spent most of a day together, visiting the Bonner County Fair, with no set agenda, except to take it all in. Rich met and visited with 4-H'ers, members of the Antique Tractor Club, politicians and general fair-goers. Later, he spent time at our farm with my husband and me and even treated us to dinner at a local restaurant. He went on his way but kept in touch, occasionally sending updates on the progress of his book.

I now own a copy. I like this book by Rich Benjamin because I found it entertaining, enlightening and challenging. I know there are several sections I'll need to read a second time because of the demographic data included. Still, other segments will be forever etched in my mind because of our (the readers) opportunity to travel along with Rich as anecdotes filled with human interest, local color, humor, and imagery unfold.

I also like this book because it is not overloaded with emotion-charged judgments. Instead, Rich allows readers to draw their own conclusions, based on his well-balanced tapestry of characters representing different walks of life, socio-economic conditions, beliefs and clearly stated motivations for why they do what they do and think what they think.

Like he did so many times in setting up situations to obtain his material, Rich, ever the gracious host, offers readers from across the spectrum ample food for thought---a virtual smorgasboard of situations to ponder as this country moves forward, continuing to deal with racial, ethnic and general socioeconomic issues.

I believe this book offers a palatable but provocative conversation starter. People can read and enjoy "Searching for Whitopia." Then, while discussing Rich's discoveries and observations during his travels, perhaps they can arrive at their own destination of experiencing a better appreciation of each other and a clearer understanding of the obstacles which often hinder the ever-evolving quest to get along.

Oh yeah, remember how I thought Rich Benjamin was a high school student doing a summer-school assignment when he came to hear this retired teacher talk about her classroom experiences?

Well, as noted, I was quickly enlightened that day as to his true motivation. He has since completed his assignment. If I were his teacher, I'd give him an A.

I'd also recommend that other educators in high schools and colleges across the country consider adding "Searching for Whitopia" to their assigned reading projects. Read more ›