Here Is New York

White muses on the relationship between The Individual and the Community, noting:

“New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute” (22).

How have the advent of social media and a constant news cycle changed the way individuals are insulated from and exposed to the events of their communities in major cities?

White claims that “in New York smolders every race problem there is, but the noticeable thing is not the problem but the inviolate truce” (47). Using historical evidence from the 1940s and 1950s, discuss the ways in which racial tensions in New York in that period could—or could not be—described as a “truce.”

In the foreword, White writes of “the swing of the pendulum” (17). What does this metaphorical pendulum represent, and why does White employ it in the text? Use evidence from Here Is New York to support your argument.