Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Samuel Benjaminis an American actor and film director...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth22 May 1938
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
moving class white
When well-qualified, upper middle-class blacks or Latinos or Asians move to predominantly white neighborhoods, there's what's called the tipping point. That tipping point is generally 15 percent; at 15 percent you begin to see white flight.
moving order utah
I had been hearing on-the-ground buzz that white folks were moving to places like Bend, Oregon, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and St. George, Utah. That led me to discover through census data that these towns were already extremely white and they were becoming, in most cases, even whiter. Statistics could only tell me so much; in order to get to the spirit and essence of it, I had to immerse myself.
missing-you new-york moving
It's the texture of New York that people miss by filming elsewhere. There are layers and layers of character - even in the pavement - that you can't get anywhere else. And the speed that the people move. It's so different from other places.
I hope we have American-topias.
community dixie fiesta
I was surprised by how forces in the community could mobilize against a community changing. There were many examples of this. In St. George, members of the Latino community proposed having a "Dixie Fiesta." The resistance to that surprised me.
black want kind
I don't want to live in a monoculture of any kind. I don't want to live in a wealthy monoculture, a black monoculture. I don't want to live in an elitist, progressive monoculture.
people bird together
People would say, "You know, Rich, it's nature. Birds of a feather flock together." I have to point out to them that, no, that's not the case.
country engineering white
The reason our country looks the way it does is through social engineering that distinctly benefits suburban communities, exurban communities, and often white residents. And we are socially engineered in such a way as to, often unconsciously and unintentionally, but sometimes intentionally, perpetuate this divisive inequality.
issues crow tears
In the pioneer West Whitopias, immigration tended to be the dominant social and racial issue. In Forsyth County, Georgia, immigration is still an issue, but because you have that complicated history of the Trail of Tears and slavery and Jim Crow, the Whitopia has a different flavor.
atlanta class people
The interesting thing about Georgia is, Atlanta is teeming with middle-class black people and black people with money - and yet there is still segregation.
utah idaho black
Of course, there isn't really a black population in Idaho or Utah.
book heart journey
If I were an immigrant Latino not born in the US, I could not have written Searching for Whitopia: An Improbably Journey to the Heart of America book. And that is because many of the Whitopians would not have been comfortable talking about their views on immigration, talking about their views on taxes. And they wouldn't have spilled to me the new script on race and poverty as they did.
running long segregation
I concede that segregation can allay social tensions immediately, but it further debilitates us in the long run.
thinking class long
There is tremendous long-term harm when Americans accept ethnic and class balkanization as a de facto fixture of American life. I think that impoverishes our understanding of each other.