In recent years, a far-right movement has been making waves by creating the first “whites-only” settlement in America since the end of segregation. Located in Arkansas, the Return to the Land movement has over 100 acres in Arkansas and currently is working to expand to Missouri.

The movement bills itself as uber-right-wing. Children are homeschooled. Most families (if not all) are homesteaders who have to grow their own food. It’s extremely “Christian,” in that hateful fundie way that only America seems to breed. Jews and non-whites are not allowed.

I feel like talking about these losers so that I can make fun of them. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned legal enforcement of “whites only” towns, schools, restaurants, and shopping centers. However, soft enforcement via things like redlining, having real estate agents quietly refuse to sell to minorities, or having house owners reject buyers who aren’t white. 

However, Return to the Land has been using a legal loophole and a potential federal court challenge to get their way. Basically, they are currently allowing people to move there via a private ownership gifting application. 

Officially, it’s a Private Membership Association and not a real estate company. You have to be white, Christian (or atheist), cis, and straight to join. 

This is far from the first attempt at a white ethnostate. There have been several attempts in the Pacific Northwest.

Return to the Land is not the utopia people expected it to be. You get the “right to homestead” in the community, which means you have to farm, grow crops, build your own house, and deal with other types of grueling work. 

There are no hospitals in the community. I don’t know if there are grocery stores there, nor am I fully certain that they have electricity or wifi in all the homes. They are also stuck with few paved roads, from the documentary I saw with Vaush. 

They also have no federally approved schools so, while they have to grow their own food and other bullshit, their kids are left basically unschooled. Apparently, they do have a “portacabin” schoolhouse but it does not appear to be accredited.

The overall “community” is only .25 square miles and their closest town is Ravenden, Arkansas. Only 40 people live there, and only six of them are children. So how that schoolhouse works is beyond me.

Because they’re racist, duh. 

But it goes deeper than just racism. These people view minoities as a threat. They think minorities are getting way more opportunities while whites suffer, despite white people being the number one recipients of welfare. 

They feel increasingly marginalized in America, despite the GOP basically destroying all the social advances and civil rights we fought for. Whether they want to admit it or not, they don’t think they can compete with women, immigrants, and other minorities on an even playing field.

So, being the delicate little bitches they are, they decided they need a “safe space” away from them. They also want to feel big and tough, so they decided to LARP as some homesteaders.

Creating a community that refuses to engage with people outside your demographic is an act of fear — not social or moral preferences, contrary to what they may say. 

If it sounds like GOP’s accusation of “woke” leftists are scared of facing others is projection, you’re right. What we’re seeing with these whites-only neighborhoods is just a more solid extension of that projection. 

Yes, the fact that there are little white snowflakes that scared of different people is asinine. Yes, it is insane that there are people who are able to make money enough to try to push this shit through. 

However, I have some good news for everyone who finds this as deplorable as I do: this will fail in spectacularly hilarious ways and here is why:

Racist, right-wing movements are anti-intellectual movements. That schoolhouse they have for all of six kids? Yeah, it’s not likely that the school will ever actually educate those kids enough to earn accreditation. 

Being a good teacher requires a lot of schooling on how to teach effectively. It’s not enough to just know the material. Every student learns differently and different methods will create different results. 

How do I know? My parents were both fucking college professors and I was an elite school attendee. For about 20 years of my life, all I knew was schooling, education, study methods, and books. 

Speaking as someone who has covered educational neglect in fundie circles before, most of those parents are not going to teach their kids what they need to in order to survive. It will be a fucking miracle if those kids can read by 18 years old. 

At first glance, this seems like it’s totally unrelated to the failure of these communities. Yet, it’s quite the contrary. Bad schools mean that those kids are not going to become capable adults. 

There will be no doctors, no lawyers, no scientists or architects coming out of that group. Even decent business owners might be a stretch, and I only say that because business running is common sense and networking rather than bookish behavior.

So, within one generation, those all-white communities will likely end up poorer, dumber, and less capable of holding itself up. And because they are unlikely to network with outsiders, their ability to get people to work outside of these communities will get smaller and smaller. 

Technically, this is illegal. It infringes on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s a matter of time before a legal challenge bars it from continuing on. Even if the GOP succeeds, there are going to be people who will not want to undo that act — for good reason. 

For example, how do you really define “white” by law?

People think it’s just a skin thing, but then why aren’t Ashkenazi Jews seen as white by Nazis? They’re paler than a lot of people from Spain or Hungary, right? So what gives? And what about those swarthy blue-eyed Italians? 

People often forget that Irish and Italian immigrants were not treated as white by America’s populations up until recently. Perhaps we don’t even really think about how recent it was — especially if you weren’t part of that hated group.

I was shocked to hear my friend, Street Boss, talk about how he (a very gruff older Italian dude) would be called a “nigger” by people from my hometown back in the 80s. This was the norm, not the exception, in 

In The Sopranos, the mobsters held Columbus Day in an odd reverence because that celebration was an understated way of mainstream white America finally accepting Italian Americans into their fold.

Hell, if you look in South America, the term of “white” gets thrown around in ways that would be laughed at here. Whiteness and its designation are as fluid as can be — and trust me, this will cause infighting sooner rather than later.

By nature, white nationalism gets increasingly exclusive on their own people. They likely can’t even agree on what constitutes as “white” anymore. If the courts don’t pull apart this settlement by force, the constant squabbles from the inside likely will. 

Then there’s the other issue that tends to split apart these communities: gender disparity. Statistics show that women are increasingly unattracted to right-wing politics.

Speaking as someone who grew up conservative and seen, those that do find it hot often eventually break away from it. It’s easy to see why. Right-wing beliefs come with a lot of misogyny and higher abuse rates.

That’s not sexy. Needless to say, getting and keeping women in this kind of community will be a hard, hard task…as will getting women to keep having babies.

So what happens when neighboring towns refuse to work, associate, or deliver to members of white-only areas? That’s a form of protest that is totally legal and also fairly easy to carry out. 

It also happens to be the form of protest that conservatives hate the most because it cuts off amenities and access to venues they want to have. If you ask me, it’s a matter of time before most people just turn the shoulder to these yutzes.

Imagine what happens when locals find out who lives there. Would you think that most restaurants and bars want to serve white nationalists? Perhaps, but not for the same prices — higher, of course. Would you think most Amazon drivers would stop there? Not likely. 

Of course, this part might just be my wishful thinking. But you never know.

Finally, most importantly, you can’t change the direction of the future demographics. America is going to be a minority-majority country whether white nationalists like it or not. 

So yeah…this is not going to pan out the way they hoped it will. All it’s going to do is make the residents less capable of being normal Americans, less wealthy, and less happy. 

Are there growing movements to have white-only communities? Yes. Are the people who want to live in them dealing hard in grievance politics? Yes. Are the whiny crybabies afraid to talk to people different from them? Absolutely. 

Will these communities last? Not likely. It’s not a nice lifestyle they lead now, and it’ll not be nice anytime soon. So, expect a community collapse sooner rather than later.