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The Gated Community Mentality

By Rich Benjamin March 29, 2012

AS a black man who has been mugged at gunpoint by a black teenager late at night, I am not
naïve: I know firsthand the awkward conundrums surrounding race, fear and crime. Trayvon
Martin’s killing at the hands of George Zimmerman baffles this nation. While the youth’s
supporters declare in solidarity “We are all Trayvon,” the question is raised, to what extent is the
United States also all George Zimmerman?

Under assault, I didn’t dream of harming my teenage assailant, let alone taking his life.

Mr. Zimmerman reacted very differently, taking out his handgun and shooting the youth in cold
blood.

What gives?

Welcome to gate-minded America.

From 2007 to 2009, I traveled 27,000 miles, living in predominantly white gated communities
across this country to research a book. I threw myself into these communities with gusto — no
Howard Johnson or Motel 6 for me. I borrowed or rented residents’ homes. From the red-rock
canyons of southern Utah to the Waffle-House-pocked exurbs of north Georgia, I lived in gated
communities as a black man, with a youthful style and face, to interview and observe residents.

The perverse, pervasive real-estate speak I heard in these communities champions a bunker
mentality. Residents often expressed a fear of crime that was exaggerated beyond the actual
criminal threat, as documented by their police department’s statistics. Since you can say “gated
community” only so many times, developers hatched an array of Orwellian euphemisms to
appease residents’ anxieties: “master-planned community,” “landscaped resort community,”
“secluded intimate neighborhood.”

No matter the label, the product is the same: self-contained, conservative and overzealous in its
demands for “safety.” Gated communities churn a vicious cycle by attracting like-minded
residents who seek shelter from outsiders and whose physical seclusion then worsens paranoid
groupthink against outsiders. These bunker communities remind me of those Matryoshka
wooden dolls.  A similar-object-within-a-similar-object serves as shelter; from community to
subdivision to house, each unit relies on staggered forms of security and comfort, including town
authorities, zoning practices, private security systems and personal firearms.

Residents’ palpable satisfaction with their communities’ virtue and their evident readiness to
trumpet alarm at any given “threat” create a peculiar atmosphere — an unholy alliance of
smugness and insecurity. In this us-versus-them mental landscape, them refers to new
immigrants, blacks, young people, renters, non-property-owners and people perceived to be poor.

Mr. Zimmerman’s gated community, a 260-unit housing complex, sits in a racially mixed suburb
of Orlando, Fla. Mr. Martin’s “suspicious” profile amounted to more than his black skin. He was
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profiled as young, loitering, non-property-owning and poor. Based on their actions, police
officers clearly assumed Mr. Zimmerman was the private property owner and Mr. Martin the
dangerous interloper. After all, why did the police treat Mr. Martin like a criminal, instead of Mr.
Zimmerman, his assailant? Why was the black corpse tested for drugs and alcohol, but the living
perpetrator wasn’t?

Across the United States, more than 10 million housing units are in gated communities, where
access is “secured with walls or fences,” according to 2009 Census Bureau data. Roughly 10
percent of the occupied homes in this country are in gated communities, though that figure is
misleadingly low because it doesn’t include temporarily vacant homes or second homes.
Between 2001 and 2009, the United States saw a 53 percent growth in occupied housing units
nestled in gated communities.

Another related trend contributed to this shooting: our increasingly privatized criminal justice
system. The United States is becoming even more enamored with private ownership and decision
making around policing, prisons and probation. Private companies champion private “security”
services, alongside the private building and managing of prisons.

“Stand Your Ground” or “Shoot First” laws like Florida’s expand the so-called castle doctrine,
which permits the use of deadly force for self-defense in one’s home, as long as the homeowner
can prove deadly force was reasonable. Thirty-two states now permit expanded rights to self-
defense.

In essence, laws nationwide sanction reckless vigilantism in the form of self-defense claims. A
bunker mentality is codified by law.

Those reducing this tragedy to racism miss a more accurate and painful picture. Why is a child
dead? The rise of “secure,” gated communities, private cops, private roads, private parks, private
schools, private playgrounds — private, private, private —exacerbates biased treatment against
the young, the colored and the presumably poor.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/the-gated-community-mentality.html

A Black Man's Journey Through 'Whitopia'

Linda Poon
August 12, 2015

In a TED talk, author Rich Benjamin shares his eye-opening stay in America’s whitest
communities.

The topic of racial segregation in America’s residential communities is one that’s increasingly
come into the spotlight. Whites, it seems, are increasingly seeking out predominantly white
suburban communities. But what, exactly, do they expect to find?
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For his 2006 book,  Searching for Whitopia, Rich Benjamin traveled 27,000 miles across the U.S.
to find the whitest communities in the country. He rented homes there and temporarily became a
resident of those so-called “whitopias,” where, as a black man, he’s experienced the good, the
bad, and the awkward.

Benjamin recently gave an audience a taste of his experience at this year’s TED Woman
conference in California. His talk was darkly humorous at times as he recalled trying to blend in
with his new neighbors—including attending a white supremacist retreat: “Among the many
memorable episodes of that retreat is when Abe, an Aryan, sidled up next to me,” Benjamin told
his audience. “He said, ‘Hey, Rich, 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.’"

But Benjamin’s talk challenged the audience to think about the state of residential segregation in
an increasingly diverse country. As CityLab previously reported, studies have shown that among
all races, whites most prefer to live among themselves. Having African Americans make up
just 20 percent of the neighborhood they live in is enough to make some white people
uncomfortable.

The 13-minute talk is worth watching in its entirety, but we’ve pulled out some portions
particularly worth noting.

“Golf is the perfect seductive symbol of whitopia.” A white woman in the audience laughs and
covers her face, as if to say, “I know.” Whether he was in St. George, Utah, or Coeur d’Alene,
Idaho, Benjamin always found himself golfing. In fact, he was golfing at least three times a
week, he said. That was when he got the best interviews.

Indeed, even with the likes of Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie, golf is a predominantly white
sport. As a recreational activity, it tends to attract elites who can fork over at least $700 to pay
for course fees, equipment, and apparel.

There’s a community of retired LAPD cops living in North Idaho. One of the places
Benjamin visited during his two-year trip was Coeur d’Alene, a city that is 95 percent white and
ranks fourth for the fastest-growing white population. “In 1993, around 11,000 families and cops
fled Los Angeles after the L.A. racial unrest for North Idaho, and they've built an expatriated
community,” he said.

It’s no wonder, he added, that there’s a huge gun culture there; in fact, there are more gun dealers
than gas stations. With that comes a sense of paranoia, as he observed when he tried to rent a gun
at a shooting club. The man behind the counter had been courteous—up until he saw Benjamin’s
New York City driver’s license. “That was when he got nervous,” Benjamin said.

“A country can have racism without racists.” Writing in an opinion piece for The Washington

Post in 2009, Benjamin noted that racial discrimination isn’t necessarily as deliberate and
intentional as it used to be. In Idaho and Georgia, for example, Benjamin found that many white
people emigrate to these predominantly white communities not necessarily because they’re
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racist, but for “friendliness, comfort, security, safety—reasons that they implicitly associate to
whiteness in itself.” But these qualities are subconsciously inseparable from race and class—
thereby letting discrimination and segregation thrive “even in the absence of any person's
prejudice or ill will.”

Racial segregation in housing has remained fairly constant throughout U.S. history. But by 2042,
Benjamin predicted in his talk, whites will become the minority in America. What, then, will
become of these predominantly white communities? The more gated enclaves there are, the
harder it will be to tackle the conscious and subconscious biases that lead to self-segregation—as
well as the matrix of factors that continue to enforce it otherwise.

Source: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/08/a-black-mans-journey-through-whitopia/401108/