Communities are less tight when they’re made up of different kinds of people, says Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, in his newest report . The more diverse the community, he finds, the less its members trust each other or the government, and the less they participate in collective life or believe in their own power to change their communities and politics. He notes that there are exceptions, but ultimately, more diverse communities are less trusting, less cohesive and less participatory places to live as people tend to "hunker down" and withdraw.

Though the report may be disturbing, it is not surprising.  As one blogger wrote, "When people uproot themselves, all people—immigrant and US-born— yearn to maintain security, stability, and dignity in their new communities, especially if the environment is unfamiliar and hostile. This endeavor is as old as human history." 

While this could not be truer, conservatives like Pat Buchanan have used the report as proof that immigrants and people of color are the problem facing the nation; or as a Wall Street Journal editorialist squawked, "diversity is dead.”  They have used the findings to argue for hard-handed immigration policies and an end to race-conscious policies.

Immigration and racial/ethnic diversity, however, contribute to the overall health of the nation, says Putnam, who rejects conservative arguments about immigrants stealing jobs and draining the national coffers and who also supports affirmative action.  In all, immigration and diversity have made the United States a more creative and productive place and add to the national economies of the United States and their home countries.

Putnam’s point is that in diverse communities everyone trusts everyone a little less, whether or not they look alike or speak the same language. “In more diverse settings, Americans distrust not merely people who do not look like them, but even people who do.” 

Putnam is optimistic that this level of social isolation can be remedied by working toward what Barack Obama described as "an America where race is understood in the same way that the ethnic diversity of the white population is understood.  People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. …  But it's not something that determines people's life chances." Putnam hopes to broaden our idea of what it means to be American, and in so doing, strengthen community.

But building a society in which race does not determine people’s life chances demands policies that address the fact that it does—even if Supreme Court justices happen to disagree.  Putnam’s research does not take into account levels of racism and racist policies that weaken community and break trust between neighbors.

He advocates that we take "color-blind institutions” where race is no longer a factor as models for society in general, offering as examples the U.S. Army and American mega-churches. It seems doubtful, however, that these should be our models for a just society. Rather, any effort to increase community and political involvement, bolster levels of trust and build a more democratic society must combat policies of abandonment and punishment that define the experiences of many people of color in the United States.

A number of issues that Putnam does not think about make the report incomplete and potentially misleading.

Punitive Policy
What policies, we should ask, have brought us to the place that Putnam tells us that we are? When government is experienced more and more as a body to support corporations and conservatives, what sort of trust do we expect to be fostered?  Official policies deem Latino and other immigrants of color social leeches to be criminalized, rounded up and deported; label Black youth threats to be siphoned into the foster care system or incarcerated; and categorize Arabs and South Asians as pariahs and terrorists. Policies like these punish people of color and immigrants at the same time that they send the message loud and clear that brown and black people are dangerous and un-American.

Policies of Abandonment
Public welfare and healthcare safety nets have all but imploded. The racial wealth and income gaps are increasing and affirmative action is being flushed. If we aim to increase levels of trust within communities where people of color and immigrants live, it would seem that these policies would be the obvious place to start.  Building public programs that allow people to live with basics like healthcare and housing are necessary before we aim our social justice arrow at building a community trust.

Defining Community
In a mobile, globalizing world where more people move from country to country, state to state, city to city, “community” is a changing concept.  Increasingly, people find community outside of and between their own neighborhoods.  Practices of sending remittances and relationships that flourish across thousands of miles are very much part of people’s sense of community and social commitment.  While levels of trust may be diminished in diverse communities, new kinds of community rooted less in a particular place need consideration.

Bias and Hate
Immigrants, refugees and people of color in communities all over the country, whether in Los Angeles or Lewiston, Maine, face discrimination, political disenfranchisement and violence.  In Lewiston, one of Putnam’s 40 sample locations, Somali refugees have been subjected to racism and daily discrimination including remarks by the city’s mayor asking Somalis to tell their families to stop moving to Lewiston.  More recently, Somali community members found that a white man had thrown a pig head into a mosque and similar events have occurred in city schools.  Explicit racism on the part of officials and individuals rattles community trust. Government must take the first step by designing racially just policies.  Programs, like school and community dialogues and forums, have shown to help change levels of racism, and concerted efforts like these are needed across the country. 

Placing Responsibility
In a recent piece on the Putnam study published in the Philanthropy Journal, Gita Gulati-Partee reminds us that real community “requires a balance of power and an honest assessment of the privileged and oppressed identities among us.”  Putnam talks of community as if all its members start from the same place and have the same capacity to get involved in networks.  Realistically, people of color and immigrants have been explicitly and implicitly excluded from the social networks that Putnam values. Additionally, we know that non-profits and progressive organizations have not done enough to include people of color in their leadership and decision-making processes. Those who have been enfranchised bear the weight of the responsibility to change this.

Putnam mentions that public protests are one form of community participation on the rise in diverse communities.  This point deserves more than a passing mention.  Before communities can be thriving, interactive and, most of all, trusting places, public policy will have to stop being racist and start addressing racism and racial inequity.

The realities listed above are reason for communities to be less trusting and less communal. They tell us that progressive, race conscious policies that strive toward real equality are necessary for members of diverse communities to begin to trust each other and live together.  It looks like the people in the streets, often people of color and their allies, have been demanding just this.