I've been to about 45 of the 50 U.S. states, and done a fair amount of road journalism, like in my book The Color of Our Future and also in the 2010 radio docs from Florida and Arizona archived on PopandPolitics.com. Sometimes I can't believe how different America is from America. State by State, city and town, we have different cultural mixes and norms; educational and labor markets; laws governing issues from guns to voting. So: while keeping our eye on the big picture, how do we make sure regionality gets its due in coverage of race and immigration? Who's doing good work? Love to see some highlights....

Farai, I have seen and experienced this myself. In some parts of America--like Silicon Valley and New York, diversity in race is the norm and people from all parts of the world are readily accepted and assimilated. In other parts, they treat these groups as inferiors--and with contempt. I suspect it is a matter of time before the entire country evolves like these technology centers have.

To be fair, even in Silicon Valley, blacks and Hispanics are to some extent, left out. Women are also not given equal opportunity. So even the Valley isn't perfect. But it is aware of its weaknesses and is working to remedy these. Here are a series of articles I have written about this topic: inc.com

You have definitely been a warrior for thinking about immigration and diversity overall in the Valley, and thanks for the link.

I do think there are different ways people experience racial and country-of-origin diversity, and they have different effects. Pop culture includes more people of different races and Gangnam Style impressed me as a cultural artifact because Americans listen to so little music not in a language they understand. There are robust ethnic radio stations across the country, but they are targeting a certain audience. Only a fraction of the K-Pop hit's listeners understand Korean, I wager.

Culture is not always deep but if there are multiple points of contact with diversity, it's important.

What's the best regional coverage folks have seen on immigration, for example?

Okay folks, we're in the home stretch. I'm really excited about our conversation going into print (edited, of course), in the March/April issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.

I'm posting this same message in all the Branches of this conversation.

Please feel free to offer any additional thoughts through the weekend.

Also: if you could leave a time-capsule recording for a journalist in 2050 on the topic of this Branch, what sort of reflection, warnings, or advice would you offer?

Thanks!