Oct 19 2009
Searching for Whitopia
In addition to the furor over the Federal government’s 287 (g) program, another controversy has erupted over immigration in Congress. Two Republican Senators are attempting to include a question about citizenship in the 2010 Census to prevent population numbers in states from being inflated by the presence of undocumented immigrants. Both senators are from Utah, where my next guest spent time “Searching for Whitopia.” Rich Benjamin, a journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos, spent two years in the fastest growing and whitest communities in the nation, include St. George, Utah, to uncover the reasons why so many white Americans are moving into small towns and so-called exurbs. In the course of his research, Benjamin also lived in Forsyth County, Georgia, Carnegie Hill, New York, and Warren County, Ohio. While there he went house hunting and golfing, attended anti-immigration meetings, local clubs, poker nights, prayer groups, all in an effort to learn the social and political implications of these Whitopias as he calls them. Rich Benjamin’s book is called Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America.
GUEST: Rich Benjamin, journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos, author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America
One Response to “Searching for Whitopia”
Ed Herman and David Peterson wrote:
There is much talk these days about the growth of a lunatic fringe on the right that threatens political rationality and even the governability of the country. But much more important is the structural lunacy that causes supposed “centrists” to choose the funding of a growing war machine, constantly improved methods of killing, and permanent war as an unchallengeable centerpiece of policy and resource use in a world of growing inequality, huge infrastructure needs, and major environmental threats. Indeed, structural lunacy is now built into the system and poses a greater threat than rightwing lunacy, which flows in good part from the impact and propaganda of the primary lunacy.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/hp201009.html