White flight? You mean from black people? Technically, most of their ancestors were not refugees or immigrants, but rather, involuntarily imported cargo.
The ultimate cause of white flight was the great migration of blacks from the South - which was encouraged by the industrial expansion of the North that had been started by massive immigration.
Yeah, we probably shouldn't bring in people against their will and force them to do whatever we want.
Its undeniable that slavery and the way we handled it turned out to be horrible.