Examples Of Racism In Ecotopia

Ecotopia: Equality among Apartheid and Racism The “issue” of race has been around for as long as people could see differences in one another. Even in the most civilized countries it sometimes manages to become a way of life. In the book Ecotopia, by Ernest Callenbach, America has been succeeded by the States Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, to form the country of Ecotopia. The society of Ecotopia revolves around recycling, getting back to a cleaner earth, letting emotion fuel everyday living, and many other non-traditional ways and practices that the typical American would be shocked by. It is almost too good to be true, and in some ways the book points out how it is too good to

What is essentially problematic with the way the separation of races is handled in Ecotopia is that the issue is barely mentioned. Pages 107 to 110 of the novel are dedicated to describing the history, differences, and ways most of the “blacks”, and briefly mentioned “Chinatown”, are intentionally segregated from the rest of Ecotopia. The intentional segregation is supposedly because of a weariness of economic oppression under white control. So in this way, segregation is seen in almost a positive light, with the oppressed people groups being able to break free of their formerly oppressive society and develop somewhat on their own. The Black communities are called “Soul City” and are very developed, even going so far as to call themselves city-states. Although Soul City is said to have African and Asian influences, it is uncertain whether Chinatown and places like it have merged entirely with Soul

He states that because a higher percentage of convicted criminals were black, Soul City had a harder time with prisons and crime than the rest of Ecotopia. As a whole, select crimes in all of Ecotopia were abolished, such as loitering and vagrancy and the legalization of drugs like marijuana. This was apparently harder to deal with in places like Soul City, causing many inhabitants to be the first to speak up on prison reform. All of the reform led to the formation of a prison system that is very different than the prisons of America, whether in the 1970’s or even today. Inmates in Soul City, for example, engage under guard in the everyday life of a citizen, including a job with benefits and pay. The only explanation given to this bizarre alternative to the American prison system is that traditional prison life in the past encouraged prisoners aggressiveness and violent lifestyles. Another explanation for why there is supposedly less violent crime would be that the war games that are practiced in Soul City just as much as they are in the rest of