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My road trip through the whitest towns in America

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

As America becomes more and more multicultural, Rich Benjamin noticed a phenomenon: Some communities were actually getting less diverse. So he got out a map, found the whitest towns in the USA — and moved in. In this funny, honest, human talk, he shares what he learned as a black man in Whitopia.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
13:01

English subtitles

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