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“Applicants to the community are screened with an in-person interview, a criminal-background check, a questionnaire about ancestral heritage and sometimes even photographs of their relatives.

The community’s two architects — a classically trained French horn player who has livestreamed his own sex videos, and a former jazz pianist arrested but not charged for attempted murder in Ecuador — say they must personally confirm that applicants are white before they can be welcomed in.
“Seeing someone who doesn’t present as white might lead us to, among other things, not admit that person,” said one founder, Eric Orwoll, who moonlights as a Platonic scholar on YouTube but is now focused on developing 160 acres in Ravenden, Ark., into a community strictly for white, heterosexual people called Return to the Land.
ImageA white two-story house with windows that have black trim has an American flag waving above the front door. The house sits on an overgrown lot with a swing set and yellow gasoline containers on the lawn.
Most of the homes on the compound were built by the residents. Some already have solar panels, generators for electricity, and septic and water systems.
The far right is surging in the United States, driven in part by white nationalists exploiting economic anxieties and a populace increasingly frustrated with the political status quo. Now, as the Trump administration rolls back diversity, equity and inclusion policies, cracks down on immigration and offers pardons to white supremacists, some see an opening. In creating their community, the founders of Return to the Land are testing anti-discrimination housing laws that have been in place for 57 years.

The community’s other founder, Peter Csere, was arrested in Ecuador for stabbing a miner and is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a vegan community there. Both he and Mr. Orwoll say they believe Return to the Land meets the requirements for a legal exemption for private associations and religious groups that offer housing to their members.

Tim Griffin, the Arkansas attorney general, opened an investigation into potential legal violations by Return to the Land after reports on the community were published earlier in the summer in The Forward and on Sky News. Jeff LeMaster, his communications director, said in a statement, “We’re continuing our review of this matter.”
ReNika Moore, the director of the racial justice program at the American Civil Liberties Union, disputed the men’s claims that Return to the Land is legal.

“Federal and state law, including the Fair Housing Act, prohibit housing discrimination based on race, period,” she said in an email. “Repackaging residential segregation as a ‘private club’ is still a textbook violation of federal law.”

Representatives for America First Legal, the conservative advocacy group, did not respond to a request for comment on the community’s legal status. Representatives for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas also did not respond to a request for comment.


Link: Racism is alive and well in America