This book sounds interesting and provocative enough to deserve serious attention. But so much that I hear about race seems grounded in theory and statistics rather than experience. My first wife and I and her four kids spent 20 years in a neighborhood that was maybe slightly more black than white. Looking back, it could have have been Anyneighborhood, USA. Our next-door neighbors were black and about the nicest neighbors you could hope to have. One day, though, the lady of the house talked to me about a gang that had started congregating across the street from us. It was getting bigger and louder and more unruly. She told me they were afraid to do anything because of possible reprisals. I was something of a wild man in those days, so I did something about it. End of problem. Funny thing, though. When I lived there, as often as not we didn't even lock the front door. Not too long ago I drove by the old manse and noticed how so many houses now had ADT signs. My point, I guess, is that peaceful neighborhoods have less to do with race than with just common humanity.
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