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Imagine a place where your neighborsgreet your children by name;
a place with splendid vistas;
a place where you can drivejust 20 minutes
and put your sailboat on the water.
It's a seductive place, isn't it?
I don't live there.
(Laughter)
But I did journey on a 27,000-mile trip
for two years, to the fastest-growingand whitest counties in America.
What is a Whitopia?
I define Whitopia in three ways:
First, a Whitopia has posted at leastsix percent population growth since 2000.
Secondly, the majority of that growthcomes from white migrants.
And third, the Whitopiahas an ineffable charm,
a pleasant look and feel,
a je Ne sais quoi.
(Laughter)
To learn how and whyWhitopias are ticking,
I immersed myself for several monthsapiece in three of them:
first, St. George, Utah;
second, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho;
and third, Forsyth County, Georgia.
First stop, St. George --a beautiful town of red rock landscapes.
In the 1850s, Brigham Youngdispatched families to St. George
to grow cotton becauseof the hot, arid climate.
And so they called it Utah's Dixie,and the name sticks to this day.
I approached my time in each Whitopialike an anthropologist.
I made detailed spreadsheets of allthe power brokers in the communities,
who I needed to meet,where I needed to be,
and I threw myself with gustoin these communities.
I went to zoning board meetings,
I went to Democratic clubsand Republican clubs.
I went to poker nights.
In St. George, I renteda home at the Entrada,
one of the town'spremier gated communities.
There were no Motel 6'sor Howard Johnsons for me.
I lived in Whitopia as a resident,and not like a visitor.
I rented myself this home by phone.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Golf is the perfect seductivesymbol of Whitopia.
When I went on my journey,
I had barely ever held a golf club.
By the time I left, I was golfingat least three times a week.
(Laughter)
Golf helps people bond.
Some of the best interviews I ever scoredduring my trip were on the golf courses.
One venture capitalist, for example,invited me to golf in his private club
that had no minority members.
I also went fishing.
(Laughter)
Because I had never fished,this fellow had to teach me
how to cast my line and what bait to use.
I also played poker every weekend.
It was Texas Hold 'em with a $10 buy-in.
My poker mates may have been bluffingabout the hands that they drew,
but they weren't bluffingabout their social beliefs.
Some of the most raw,salty conversations I ever had
during my journey were at the poker table.
I'm a gung ho entertainer.
I love to cook, I hostedmany dinner parties, and in return,
people invited me to their dinner parties,
and to their barbecues,and to their pool parties,
and to their birthday parties.
But it wasn't all fun.
Immigration turned out to bea big issue in this Whitopia.
The St. George's Citizens Councilon Illegal Immigration
held regular and active protestsagainst immigration,
and so what I gleaned from this Whitopiais what a hot debate this would become.
It was a real-time preview,and so it has become.
Next stop: Almost Heaven,a cabin I rented for myself
in Coeur d'Alene, in the beautifulNorth Idaho panhandle.
I rented this placefor myself, also by phone.
(Laughter)
The book "A Thousand Places To SeeBefore You Die" lists Coeur d'Alene --
it's a gorgeous paradise for huntsmen,boatmen and fishermen.
My growing golf skillscame in handy in Coeur d'Alene.
I golfed with retired LAPD cops.
In 1993, around 11,000 families and cops
fled Los Angelesafter the L.A. racial unrest,
for North Idaho, and they've builtan expatriated community.
Given the conservatism of these cops,
there's no surprise that North Idahohas a strong gun culture.
In fact, it is said, North Idahohas more gun dealers than gas stations.
So what's a resident to do to fit in?
I hit the gun club.
When I rented a gun,the gentleman behind the counter
was perfectly pleasant and kind,
until I showed himmy New York City driver's license.
That's when he got nervous.
I'm not as bad a shotas I thought I might have been.
What I learned from North Idahois the peculiar brand of paranoia
that can permeate a communitywhen so many cops and guns are around.
In North Idaho, in my red pickup truck,
I kept a notepad.
And in that notepad I countedmore Confederate flags than black people.
In North Idaho, I found Confederate flags
on key chains, on cellphone paraphernalia,
and on cars.
About a seven-minute drivefrom my hidden lake cabin
was the compound of Aryan Nations,
the white supremacist group.
America's Promise Ministries,the religious arm of Aryan Nations,
happened to have a three-dayretreat during my visit.
So I decided to crash it.
(Laughter)
I'm the only non-Aryan journalistI'm aware of ever to have done so.
(Laughter)
Among the many memorableepisodes of that retreat...
(Laughter)
...is when Abe, an Aryan,sidled up next to me.
He slapped my knee, and he said, "HeyRich, I just want you to know one thing.
We are not white supremacists.We are white separatists.
We don't think we're better than you,
we just want to be away from you."
(Laughter)
Indeed, most white people in Whitopiaare neither white supremacists
or white separatists;
in fact, they're not therefor explicitly racial reasons at all.
Rather, they emigrate there
for friendliness, comfort,security, safety --
reasons that they implicitly associateto whiteness in itself.
Next stop was Georgia.
In Georgia, I stayed in an exurbnorth of Atlanta.
In Utah, I found poker;
in Idaho, I found guns;
in Georgia, I found God.
(Laughter)
The way that I immersed myselfin this Whitopia
was to become activeat First Redeemer Church,
a megachurch that's so hugethat it has golf carts
to escort the congregants aroundits many parking lots on campus.
I was active in the youth ministry.
And for me, personally,I was more comfortable in this Whitopia
than say, in a Colorado, or an Idaho,or even a suburban Boston.
That is because [there], in Georgia,
white people and black people are morehistorically familiar to one another.
I was less exotic in this Whitopia.
(Laughter)
But what does it all mean?
Whitopian dreaming, Whitopia migration,is a push-pull phenomenon,
full of alarming pushesand alluring pulls,
and Whitopia operates at the levelof conscious and unconscious bias.
It's possible for people to be in Whitopianot for racist reasons,
though it has racist outcomes.
Many Whitopians feel pushed by illegals,
social welfare abuse, minorities,density, crowded schools.
Many Whitopians feel pulled by merit,
freedom, the allure of privatism --privatized places, privatized people,
privatized things.
And I learned in Whitopiahow a country can have racism
without racists.
Many of my smug urban liberal friends
couldn't believe I would goon such a venture.
The reality is that many white Americansare affable and kind.
Interpersonal race relations --how we treat each other as human beings --
are vastly better than inmy parents' generation.
Can you imagine me goingto Whitopia 40 years ago?
What a journey that would have been.
(Laughter)
And yet, some things haven't changed.
America is as residentiallyand educationally segregated today
as it was in 1970.
As Americans, we often find waysto cook for each other,
to dance with each other,
to host with each other,
but why can't that translate into how wetreat each other as communities?
It's a devastating irony,
how we have gone forward as individuals,
and backwards as communities.
One of the Whitopian outlooksthat really hit me
was a proverbial saying:
"One black man isa delightful dinner guest;
50 black men is a ghetto."
One of the big contexts animatingmy Whitopian journey was the year 2042.
By 2042, white people will no longer bethe American majority.
As such, will there be more Whitopias?
In looking at this,
the danger of Whitopia isthat the more segregation we have,
the less we can look at and confrontconscious and unconscious bias.
I ventured on my two-year,27,000 mile journey
to learn where, why, and howwhite people are fleeing,
but I didn't expect to haveso much fun on my journey.
(Laughter)
I didn't expect to learnso much about myself.
I don't expect I'll be livingin a Whitopia --
or a Blacktopia, for that matter.
I do plan to continue golfingevery chance I get.
(Laughter)
And I'll just have to leave the gunsand megachurches back in Whitopia.
Thank you.
(Applause)