The Skimmer

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

By Rich Benjamin

Hyperion; 354 pages

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, a journalist with a Ph.D. in literature from Stanford, pulls off his quest with good cheer. He is invited into the homes and churches of what he calls "Whitopias": melanin-deficient exurbs and towns that have grown at least 6% since 2000, as whites have fled more ethnically diverse areas. "They are creating communal pods that cannily preserve a white-bread world," he observes, "a throwback to an imagined past with 'authentic' 1950s values." Like Sacha Baron Cohen, Benjamin can lull people into saying the most appalling things, as with a new friend who tells him, "I never know what to call you. So when I'm around my buddies, I just use the N-word." The author's conclusion: while explicit racism is no longer acceptable, segregation is on the upswing. Racial refugees won't be able to outrun reality, says the author; by 2042, whites will no longer be the majority in the U.S. But in Whitopia they've found a place to hide.

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