Untenable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from America's Cities

By: Jack Cashill

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Synopsis: Long accused of racism and &“white flight,&” the ethnic Americans driven from their homes and neighborhoods—the author included—finally get the chance to tell their side of the story.&“A startlingly honest and poignant look at &‘white flight&’ from the white perspective. A necessary and overdue corrective.&” —Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the Media Research Center I asked one lifelong friend, a rare Democrat among the displaced, why he and his widowed mother finally left our block in the early 1970s, twenty years after the first African-American families moved in. He searched a minute for the right set of words, and then simply said, &“It became untenable.&” When I asked what he meant by &“untenable,&” he answered, &“When your mother gets mugged for the second time, that&’s untenable. When your home gets broken into for the second time, that&’s untenable.&” In researching this project, I found myself repeatedly stunned by the failure of self-described experts on white flight to ask those accused of fleeing why it was they fled. The reason the experts didn&’t ask, I discovered, is that they were afraid of what they might learn.