You might think ICE deporting people without due process is the bottom of America’s backward slide, but you’d be wrong. Now, a group of white Americans has gone a step further by building an exclusively white community, all because the presence of people with darker skin is apparently just too much for them to handle. This settlement is located in Arkansas and is called Return to the Land (RTTL). The group’s leader, Eric Orwoll, has been painfully clear about his goals. He wants to build a white nation, and he believes that starts with a white town. According to him, it’s entirely possible, and this settlement is just the beginning.
Over the past year and a half, RTTL has been working hard to become self-sustaining. They’ve built cabins, a schoolhouse, a community center, and they even keep goats for fresh milk. Their online presence began with a post on X (formerly Twitter) inviting others to join their “Whites-only community.” Today, about 40 people live in this deliberately segregated town.
Of course, this community doesn’t only exclude people of color. They also ban LGBTQ individuals, because apparently, in their warped worldview, you can be white or gay, but not both.
To justify their exclusionary practices, RTTL claims legal immunity by operating as a Private Members’ Association. By requiring all residents to join this association, they believe they can avoid being subject to federal civil rights laws, including the Fair Housing Act. In their eyes, this isn’t discrimination. It’s just “freedom of association” and exercising their “constitutional rights.”
But is that really how the law works? Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin isn’t so sure. In a public statement, he said this was the first he’d heard of the allegations, adding that racial discrimination has no place in Arkansas or any free society. He acknowledged the situation raises serious legal and constitutional concerns and confirmed that his office is reviewing the matter.
For now, the members of RTTL are enduring scorching heat, rugged land, and tick-infested woods just to live apart from people they deem different. And they don’t seem to mind. To them, the ability to choose their neighbors, so long as they’re white, straight, and like-minded, is more important than participating in the wider world.
Redditors criticized and mocked the whites-only community in Arkansas, with many viewing it as a disturbing step backward toward segregation and racism. One user commented, “It’s a cult, and if it’s not yet, it will be.”
