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...