July 30, 2025 • 26 mins
A group of white folks in Northwest Arkansas want to expand their “whites only” community to other states. While the Arkansas Attorney General says he’s investigating the legality of the community, a larger conversation has developed about the morality of the movement. Amy and T.J. discuss the long history of these types of attempts in our country and how many examples of intentional segregation we participate in, every single day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, there are folks question for you, are you racists
if you prefer to hang out and live with members
of your own race? Well, one group in Arkansas has
taken that a little further and they're saying, not only
do we prefer to only live with our own kind,
we won't allow any other kinds into our neighborhood. And
(00:24):
with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes.
First reaction when the headlines came out that a community
in Arkansas they were developed against white's only community in
northwest Arkansas. Just you're before you read into it, now,
how do you react to seeing a headline like.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, the reaction is that it's tribal mentality. It's exclusionary.
Obviously people want to belong, but this is taking it
a step too far when you start excluding people saying
you can't live here. Look it maybe, and this is
debatable right now, we're figuring it out whether or not
it's legal or not. But moral ethical, I think it's sad. Actually,
I just think it's sad that you only want to
(01:03):
be around people who look like you, think like you,
and act like you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
You said moral exclusionary, sad, Yeah, you didn't use the
word racist.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Why because I, you know, I don't know it might like.
It wasn't the firston that popped in my mind. Do
I think it's racist? I think it could be viewed
that way, and probably is. Their argument would be, we're
not doing anything towards anyone else, We're not having any
negative opinions or comments about anyone else. We just want
(01:38):
to be with our own kind. It does, yes, it
does feel racist to me. How about you? What do
you think?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh? Yeah, Immediately my head goes there because this isn't
new stuff. We've seen movements like this in the country
for decades and decades, and they pop up every now
and then, and usually they're defuncts because they just don't
work for one reason or another. But yeah, that's the
first thing that comes to my history comes to mind.
Where I read something anything white's only blacks only, automatically
(02:06):
will will go to racism. But for a lot of folks,
if you haven't heard the story, you probably have, a
lot of people have been talking about it by now.
But the group is called Return to the Land. I've
actually never heard of them before now, and most racists
still excuse me, I'm not gonna label them, but most
groups that are I guess they don't call themselves a
(02:26):
white supremacist group. What's the word I've never heard the
phrase before ropes white identitarian? Oh, yes, I did, I've
never heard that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I didn't know what that was either, white identitarian. They
value their identity and they want to preserve it.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Just this group, Return to the Land is what they
call themselves. Theyve been around since twenty twenty three. But yes,
Northwest Arkansas. They are building a community robes that they
say that you have to be a European ancestry and have.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
To prove it, like with DNA with twenty three.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And me, I don't know what the back I actually
don't know that whatever. I didn't go through THESS some
client for membership.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Guess what You're not invited?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, oh no, I'm not invited. But they do. They
have a website, but they claim they have one hundred
and sixty acres in Northwest Arkansas. Their site says this
is a quote private membership association for individuals and families
with traditional views and European ancestry. That doesn't sound terrible,
does it?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
What are traditional views? That would be my first question?
And yeah, it does sound awful. It sounds awful that
you want to cast out anybody who looks different than you,
thinks different than you. I mean this to me, I
believe it. You have to be a Christian as well, right,
They don't want non Christian, non European. So if you're Jewish,
(03:44):
even if you're white and full of European and you're
an atheist, or you're some other denomination you identify as Buddhist, whatever,
you wouldn't be invited either.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You have to be a very certain thing to have
membership into this club. And that's a very what's the
best way to put it in their minds, a very pure,
traditional old mindset, anti diverse an idea that there is now.
They claim they're not saying they're a superior race, but
(04:15):
they don't want to have a constant mixing of the races.
They don't want to live in a multiracial, multicultural world
essentially and be exposed to it. They actually say, knock
yourselves out if anybody else wants to do that. And
I'm telling you the guy that we'll get into somebody
his quotes, the guy who's been the spokesperson. He comes
out as non offensive as you've ever heard a white
(04:37):
separatist group sound. Because you're used to seeing all these
groups and a couple of people don't seem to have
it all together, yelling and screaming and spewing all kinds
of stuff. This guy is as calm as anything robes
you've ever seen, and saying some of the both backwards
things you've also ever heard.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It genuinely hurts my heart. It does because to me,
it's almost fear based, and you're almost inciting fear. Like
we don't want to We don't want to surround ourselves
with anyone who has any diverse thoughts. Forget even diverse backgrounds,
diverse cultures. We don't want anyone who has any diverse thoughts.
(05:20):
How is that a way forward? How is that a
way to live and to improve and to grow and
to learn? Aren't we here to learn and to love?
I mean, I believe we are. And what do you
learn from people who think just like you, who look
just like you. It's as if you're trying to somehow
find some mental safety or some just you don't want
to feel like you have to question your own beliefs
(05:42):
or question how you were raised. You want to just
be in this vacuum, in this bubble of almost blissful ignorance,
and that is scary and sad to me.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But then a lot of us end up doing it.
The difference here is that they're actually putting up a
sign to say and says, nobody else is included. We often,
naturally in this country, separate ourselves. We do it on
our lunch break, we do it in our neighborhoods where
we decide to live. We do it at a party,
we'll find the group we're most familiar with. We always
(06:15):
do it. Now, obviously this is different because of what
he's saying, but some of his words Eric orwal is
his name. He's one of the founders of this group,
and he says things roe that don't sound that offensive.
When you say it's not hate, it's love for your
own community, now that's not an offensive statement.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It's not an offensive statement. And I understand. I think
everyone understands. There are levels of comfort you find with
people who who have similar backgrounds. You can have similar ideology.
It's fun and maybe even pleasant to have a conversation
who doesn't think differently than you, because yeah, that's right,
Yeah me too. I agree same, and everybody likes that
(06:57):
here and there, But to not put yourself in a
situation where you're ever faced with rethinking how you look
at the world. That's a scary place. We all need
each other to open our hearts and open our minds,
not to close them off to anyone and everyone who
doesn't think like us.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
They're trying to preserve they argue on identities we speak to,
on any other group in the country, trying to preserve
an identity of some kind in their culture and their community,
Native American, African American. You can go through a number
of groups who say this is the goal, the aim.
The difference here being that he's actually excluding. So again
he's saying things that I don't necessarily if you don't
(07:34):
just say white, if you separate into I don't know, Irish,
they have their own day right for certain things Polish
you could go through in like certain communities of white
people still celebrate particular culturals. He's just saying white American,
pure Christian. That's it, is what his argument is, and
(07:54):
that's not necessarily argument. When you say you want to
preserve black culture or Native American culture or whatever it is,
you're not making an argument that we don't want any
other influence, that we don't want to even expose our
cultures to our culture. This comes off different. But again
he has a long like a ten minute video that
he sits and he explains very calmly and reasonably. You
(08:15):
could argue, even if you're against the idea of what
he's doing, he makes a non racist argument for what
he's doing because he says they don't think they're better
than anybody.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
He says, we are not a hate group, we are
not a white nationalist group. We are not trying to
get sovereignty. And he's and he makes the point. And
this is where it is questionable because there are some
legal questions that they are on their own private land
and not taking anything from any other community.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Which is true.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
What do you think about the idea.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Knock yourselves out like I'm not in a and I
think you could argue that I and many Americans should
be upset or bothered by this just as a whole
for our country land. We got to be better than that.
We shouldn't be doing this, and that is all true.
I am just not that fired up and worked up
about a group of folks wanting to go on their
own do their own thing, and not bother me or
(09:12):
anybody I love. Right. I used to toll this growing
up as a kid, like, we don't mind if there's
a Confederate flag outside the house. At least we know
which place is to stay away from. Like do it
in plain sight, don't hide and me have to wonder,
and then you come get me in the night. No,
identify who you are and see kids. Don't go by
(09:32):
that house. You see kids at one hundred and sixty
acres over there, don't get anywhere near it. Okay, identify
yourself and I'm gonna move on. I don't have a
lot of energy and time for being worked up about
people that have this mindset.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It's so interesting you put it the way you just did.
I was reading some of the comments on several of
these articles and one stood out to me, and you
just almost set it verbatim. As a black man, I say,
let them have their community. I much rather know what
I am doing dealing with then to have to deal
with those that claim they are not biased but really
are in disguise. Post a road sign so I can
(10:06):
keep on moving. Since my youth many years ago, when
this whole integration movement started. My very wise mother taught
us that if people do not want to be around you,
then forcing them will not work. Comedian Red Fox once joked,
if you pass through a town and see that small
black iron jockey on the lawn, don't get angry. Set
a small iron white jockey out on your lawn.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And I didn't know that quote was in there, that
you had that one ray to rock. But it's that
simple for a lot. And we've been taught this since
we were kids. And this idea is this isn't new stuff.
I mean, there were places again these I don't have
the name because I didn't know it. The one in
the Pacific Northwest called the Northwest Imperative Movement. In the
seventies and eighties, there was a whole movement of white
supremacists saying they should take that land in northwest Arkansas
(10:50):
and start their excuse me, northwest part of the country,
Pacific Northwest, have their own new white country. Knock yourselves out.
It's pretty white over there already. Any So that was
kind of somewhat part of the thinking. So these things
pop up their communities right now that are whites only
they're not doing well. But these white supremacist movements, they're
just not new stuff. But it got me to thinking
(11:12):
about how we all think, how we all behave, how
we all have a tribal mentality. Sometimes don't we naturally
just separate? We do all we do?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We do we do, But I do think, especially like
a city like New York City, a lot of urban
areas where you do have a just an integration by
logistics alone, how much better and more interesting and fuller
is your life? And knowing how to deal with other
things that life throws at you. When you're around people
(11:44):
from all different walks of life, from not just a
racial standpoint, but from a socioeconomic from just a language burier,
you just learn about not only other people, but about yourself.
And isn't part of what we're supposed to do to connect?
We're all humans, you know? Race. I like those T
shirts that say that where is that in all of this?
And when you think about it, they say they're not
(12:05):
a hate group, But isn't that hate? Isn't that hate
to completely say no one else is allowed unless you
look like us, unless you believe what we believe. Isn't
that hate? Now?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I'm making a very technical definition argument to what you're
saying is that you can want to be around your
own not thinking you're better than another, not thinking I
want to want something negative to happen to that race,
so keep that race suppressed, to keep somebody else down. No, no, no, no,
(12:37):
we're just saying we're here to this is his argument.
We're just here to preserve our own race. Now, yes,
you can make a technical argument for that. But if
you're saying nobody else is allowed to this special thing
we have because we need to preserve it, saying we're
not trying to taint it because you and your black
ass coming in here.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
With tainted tainted how but that is hate to act. Yeah,
to act as if having someone from another race or
another color are or another background would taint your You
kept using the word pure, and that was always that
was just throwing me, because pure what the color, the ideology,
your heart, your intent, comor genetics. That's ridiculous, sounds very look,
(13:16):
that sounds very nazi esque to me. That's very concerning,
And to me it sounds like it's the first step
towards something that could evolve into something violent, to evolve
into a certain mindset. You're raising these kids with this mindset,
this ideology that you're separate from others because you can't
be tainted by other skin colors and other ideas coming
(13:42):
in and threatening you or tainting you like that's that's disturbing.
That is a very scary mindset.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But so many of us, like we said, we have
done it robes in hilarious ways. We will explain a
recent graduation party in which we looked in our apartment
and all the black folks will over here and all
the white folks were over there. But also that is
typical of this country. Data shows folks that even though
(14:10):
the country is more diverse, our cities are more segregated
than ever.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
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(15:02):
Head to tonaactive dot com and use code iHeart for
twenty percent off and free shipping. Welcome back to this
edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about
a white only community in Arkansas that wants to expand
(15:25):
into Missouri. And then they say their goal is to
expand in all fifty states. It's the group's name is
called Return to the Land, and the group founder says,
this freedom means you're allowed to discriminate privately if you choose.
That is up for interpretation. However, legally speaking.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
There will be some lee and we haven't mentioned yet
that the Attorney General of Arkansas has said he is
investigating this group. Obviously, you're not allowed, as a public entity,
a business, anybody who operates with the public to discriminate
like this, But hey, there have been clubs, golf clubs
and things, private men's clubs around the country who've gotten
heat for being a whites only or men's only type club.
(16:09):
Is this legal? I really do not know, and I
really I said it before we've took a break. Do
not care really what these people do and how they
do it. I see them. I know what part of
northwest Arkansas when I go back to the university for
a game in Faydeville, which they are, I think just
south of Faydeville, I know what area to stay away from. Fine,
and I just move on. But this got me to
(16:32):
thinking about so often how we do end up robes.
Naturally we call it tribalism sometimes, but we naturally gravitate
towards our own, to black folks, white folks, Asian folks,
whoever it may be. And you look at a city
like New York and we talk about the diversity, and
it is you cannot you can't survive in this city
(16:54):
without being We talk about reason. They walk down the street,
go blocks. I ain't heard an English in block.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I think that was yesterday we did. I don't think
we heard English for at least five.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Blocks in that regard. We are very diverse all over
the city, but Rome's we live and operate separately. Study
by the University of California at Berkeley's was from several
years ago. They found that in the thirty years between
nineteen ninety and twenty nineteen, that most of the metropolitan
overwhelmingly eighty percent of the metropolitan areas in this country
(17:28):
became more segregated than less.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's wild.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So the country's becoming more diverse, and we are becoming
more segregated through neighborhoods. Nowhere is it more evident. We
celebrate this diversity, But how do we live here separated?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We do.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
There's a Chinatown back this way towards us, there's a
Korea Town. And it gets even more specific than that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, there's little Italy, big ones all No, those are
the big ones, right, But in the Bronx, you've got
little Ireland in Brooklyn, you've got little Haiti and Harlem,
you have little Senegal. Where's little India.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I think that's let's say Queens because we have a Curry.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So there's Hill. So there's Murray Hill, and people call
it Curry Hill because there's a lot of Indian restaurants
and spice shops, and so it actually smells like Curry.
It really does when you walk in that area. I've
lived there, so my daughters went to school there, So
Curry in a hurry was right on the corner of
their school right there. So yes, that's very much a documentary.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It is. It's Queens. It's Queens.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's Queens. Okay, Okay, Little Odessa, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Little
Guyana in Queens. So yeah, just in this city alone,
in the five boroughs, we have segments and we have
parades devoted to those communities. I think they just had
the Dominican parade last weekend, But it seems like every
weekend there's another nationality celebrating their heritage.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Even that we think about diversity. I literally in my
hometown tracks you literally on one side of the tracks
or the other. And my folks started doing well enough
to we moved to the other side of the tracks
where the white folks were, and we were the only
black family in that neighborhood, the only one when we moved.
It got a little more diverse over the years, but
I grew up that way. I went to a school,
(19:15):
my elementary school all black kids until we moved on
the other side of the tracks where I was one
of the few black kids. Literally, this is how we now.
There are plenty of things historically that explained this, and
rules and redlining and ways that kept black folks from
having access. Yes, we still feel that, but naturally robes
(19:36):
don't you don't you Why is it we naturally do
that because we want somebody to relate to.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, I think people want to belong and the easiest
way if you physically look at someone and then there.
You know, we've even we talk about this all the time.
We still want to do a full podcast on this.
But how much we didn't realize culturally how differently our
tastes are from you know, just or just references are
even though we're around the same age, grew up around
the same area, but we have such different experiences being
(20:05):
white and being black. And that's you know, people have
to get out of their comfort zone in a lot
of ways, and so people prefer to stay where they
feel seen and understood and they belong and it just
feels it feels safer, it feels more natural. But there
is so much you lose in those moments. Look, I
went to a high school, twenty four hundred kids in
(20:28):
that high school. It's now much more diverse than it was.
But when I went to school, six hundred something kids
in my grade, not one black student, not one black teacher, zero,
not a nothing. My parents, they could do a whole
story in this. My mom was raised in Benton Harbor,
which is predominantly black. My dad was raised across the
river in Saint Joe, which was lily white, and their
(20:49):
two experiences were significantly different and actually caused problems between
the families a little bit with the start of their relationship.
But a river separated the two communities.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I knew I always liked your mom. She gets it,
she gets me.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You guys do get each other. I will I will
say that much for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Well to your point, though, it does help right when
you're exposed, and these are funny little stories about it.
We had trying to think of this same No. Two
two both having to do with you, because the majority
of my friends are black, the guys I go hang
out with brothers all the time. I don't ever just
go out with a white guy.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We just you just did actually last week. That's the
first one.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
He's from Australia, and he lives in California. We don't
spend a lot of time together, even though I love him.
But my point there still being we went out. This
was a few months back, and it was one of
the rare times I took you out with my peeps.
It ended up being a big, bigger deal. But at
the gymmy here in downtown New York, up on the roof,
(21:51):
group of ten, you were the only white girl in
the group.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And that was the first time in my life I'd
ever been in a group dynamic like that. Obviously I've
had plenty of and friend groups and going out, but
I had never been the only white person in a group.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Was amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It was amazing. Had I had an amazing night. It
was a blast.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We gave you a hard time. We didn't go to
a black place. We just happened to be at the
place and our group was ten and you were the
only white girl. And that was nothing too. Obviously, it's
no igdeal, it's nothing to it, but it was interesting
that here we are. I went out with a group,
I mean, a group that big and there's no diversity
in it. Why do I end up in a group
like that? Why do I surround myself. It's just naturally.
(22:29):
I don't know. I didn't give it a thought, but
that's who my friend group is. The other one was
your daughter's graduation. How many people were at the house
for that.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I would say fifty, yeah, avas graduation, Yes, coming and
going like all fifty And.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What would you say the breakdown black to white ones
percentage wise? Thirty percent?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I was gonna say maybe like twenty five to seventy five.
Twenty five black, seventy five white.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Okay, that's fair. That's fair enough. I will get on
board with that. And it wasn't long. It's just naturally happened.
The way our place is divided, and the kitchen and
the dining area over here, and the lounging areas over
to one side, and robes you look up. We didn't
think about it or anything. All the black folks are
on one side, all the white folks are on the other.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, it did. It wasn't that way the whole time,
but it eventually evolved into that. And I remember thinking
as I saw people I was I was hanging out
with the black folks at that point, and I was like, wait,
this is kind of weird. All the white people are
on one side all the we were all in the kitchen, right,
that's what it ended up happening. But yes, and we
had to kind of take a moment and laugh, like, wow,
(23:36):
that just naturally happened. We get that, we understand it
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But there's also nothing wrong with wanting to hang around
folks that are like you. There's nothing wrong for wanting
to hang out with a more diverse group. There's nothing
wrong and there's nothing racist about doing it. It's racist
to exclude someone from your group, period. That's the part
that's gotta be problem.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Based solely on the color of their skin and the
beliefs they hold, not based on anything else. And they
don't even know anybody else they're excluding. It's just if
you don't look like us, if you don't believe what
we believe, you are not welcome.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So are we supposed to now as we close up,
we're supposed to to shake our heads at this and go,
oh man, what a shame this is where we are,
or somebody and people our age look at something like
this and go, eh, that's about right. Like nothing. We
grew up in the South, you in the Midwest as well,
but these things just don't surprise me. And I didn't.
(24:35):
I mean at not a bit. My heart rate didn't
go up one beat.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
They don't surprise me. But I think the best way
for me to put it is that it just it
saddens me because we need to be going in the
other direction. And again I agree, you can't force people
to like each other, you can't force people to accept
each other. But when you are forced, especially like in
a city like New York City, where you are forced
to see witness, understand watch, maybe maybe you you'll see
(25:00):
the beauty somewhere where you didn't before. Maybe you'll see
how you can be a better human where you wouldn't
have before had you not had that experience, experience and
diversity and seeing the world. That to me is part
of bringing us all together. The separatism, I guess a
lot of folks say, and I understand. If you're going
to feel that way and that's how you're going to be,
(25:21):
and you're not going to change, and none of us
can change anyone else truly, then maybe it is better
if they're on their own, far away from everyone else.
I mean, I don't love it, I don't endorse it,
but you know, perhaps to what you said and what
that man wrote in the comment section. You know, the
devil you know is better the one you don't. I mean,
that's basically what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I mean, look, yes, I wish we could all do better.
I wish these things weren't still happening, but they are,
and things actually have gotten worse in some respects as diverse.
As much as we celebrate the diversity of this country, man,
something like this comes, I think, Wow, we still got
a ways to go. But it was interesting, and think
(26:03):
about that if you can. Folks today, who do you
hang around and why? I really ask yourself that honest question.
Who do you hang around and why? Is because just
just my friend group who I'm comfortable with, or are
you actually uncomfortable with another group? That's possible, but ask
yourself that question. But this was a debate that should
be had without heat, if you will, we should all
(26:25):
calmly examine what's happening, what we're all doing.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I think that's a really good plan, and I know
we've been doing that today and we hope you will
as well. Thank you for listening to us on this Monday.
I'm Amy Robach on behalf of my partner TJ. Holmes.
Thank you for listening and we'll see you soon.
Hey, there are folks question for you, are you racists
if you prefer to hang out and live with members
of your own race? Well, one group in Arkansas has
taken that a little further and they're saying, not only
do we prefer to only live with our own kind,
we won't allow any other kinds into our neighborhood. And
(00:24):
with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes.
First reaction when the headlines came out that a community
in Arkansas they were developed against white's only community in
northwest Arkansas. Just you're before you read into it, now,
how do you react to seeing a headline like.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, the reaction is that it's tribal mentality. It's exclusionary.
Obviously people want to belong, but this is taking it
a step too far when you start excluding people saying
you can't live here. Look it maybe, and this is
debatable right now, we're figuring it out whether or not
it's legal or not. But moral ethical, I think it's sad. Actually,
I just think it's sad that you only want to
(01:03):
be around people who look like you, think like you,
and act like you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
You said moral exclusionary, sad, Yeah, you didn't use the
word racist.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Why because I, you know, I don't know it might like.
It wasn't the firston that popped in my mind. Do
I think it's racist? I think it could be viewed
that way, and probably is. Their argument would be, we're
not doing anything towards anyone else, We're not having any
negative opinions or comments about anyone else. We just want
(01:38):
to be with our own kind. It does, yes, it
does feel racist to me. How about you? What do
you think?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh? Yeah, Immediately my head goes there because this isn't
new stuff. We've seen movements like this in the country
for decades and decades, and they pop up every now
and then, and usually they're defuncts because they just don't
work for one reason or another. But yeah, that's the
first thing that comes to my history comes to mind.
Where I read something anything white's only blacks only, automatically
(02:06):
will will go to racism. But for a lot of folks,
if you haven't heard the story, you probably have, a
lot of people have been talking about it by now.
But the group is called Return to the Land. I've
actually never heard of them before now, and most racists
still excuse me, I'm not gonna label them, but most
groups that are I guess they don't call themselves a
(02:26):
white supremacist group. What's the word I've never heard the
phrase before ropes white identitarian? Oh, yes, I did, I've
never heard that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I didn't know what that was either, white identitarian. They
value their identity and they want to preserve it.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Just this group, Return to the Land is what they
call themselves. Theyve been around since twenty twenty three. But yes,
Northwest Arkansas. They are building a community robes that they
say that you have to be a European ancestry and have.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
To prove it, like with DNA with twenty three.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And me, I don't know what the back I actually
don't know that whatever. I didn't go through THESS some
client for membership.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Guess what You're not invited?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, oh no, I'm not invited. But they do. They
have a website, but they claim they have one hundred
and sixty acres in Northwest Arkansas. Their site says this
is a quote private membership association for individuals and families
with traditional views and European ancestry. That doesn't sound terrible,
does it?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
What are traditional views? That would be my first question?
And yeah, it does sound awful. It sounds awful that
you want to cast out anybody who looks different than you,
thinks different than you. I mean this to me, I
believe it. You have to be a Christian as well, right,
They don't want non Christian, non European. So if you're Jewish,
(03:44):
even if you're white and full of European and you're
an atheist, or you're some other denomination you identify as Buddhist, whatever,
you wouldn't be invited either.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You have to be a very certain thing to have
membership into this club. And that's a very what's the
best way to put it in their minds, a very pure,
traditional old mindset, anti diverse an idea that there is now.
They claim they're not saying they're a superior race, but
(04:15):
they don't want to have a constant mixing of the races.
They don't want to live in a multiracial, multicultural world
essentially and be exposed to it. They actually say, knock
yourselves out if anybody else wants to do that. And
I'm telling you the guy that we'll get into somebody
his quotes, the guy who's been the spokesperson. He comes
out as non offensive as you've ever heard a white
(04:37):
separatist group sound. Because you're used to seeing all these
groups and a couple of people don't seem to have
it all together, yelling and screaming and spewing all kinds
of stuff. This guy is as calm as anything robes
you've ever seen, and saying some of the both backwards
things you've also ever heard.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It genuinely hurts my heart. It does because to me,
it's almost fear based, and you're almost inciting fear. Like
we don't want to We don't want to surround ourselves
with anyone who has any diverse thoughts. Forget even diverse backgrounds,
diverse cultures. We don't want anyone who has any diverse thoughts.
(05:20):
How is that a way forward? How is that a
way to live and to improve and to grow and
to learn? Aren't we here to learn and to love?
I mean, I believe we are. And what do you
learn from people who think just like you, who look
just like you. It's as if you're trying to somehow
find some mental safety or some just you don't want
to feel like you have to question your own beliefs
(05:42):
or question how you were raised. You want to just
be in this vacuum, in this bubble of almost blissful ignorance,
and that is scary and sad to me.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But then a lot of us end up doing it.
The difference here is that they're actually putting up a
sign to say and says, nobody else is included. We often,
naturally in this country, separate ourselves. We do it on
our lunch break, we do it in our neighborhoods where
we decide to live. We do it at a party,
we'll find the group we're most familiar with. We always
(06:15):
do it. Now, obviously this is different because of what
he's saying, but some of his words Eric orwal is
his name. He's one of the founders of this group,
and he says things roe that don't sound that offensive.
When you say it's not hate, it's love for your
own community, now that's not an offensive statement.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It's not an offensive statement. And I understand. I think
everyone understands. There are levels of comfort you find with
people who who have similar backgrounds. You can have similar ideology.
It's fun and maybe even pleasant to have a conversation
who doesn't think differently than you, because yeah, that's right,
Yeah me too. I agree same, and everybody likes that
(06:57):
here and there, But to not put yourself in a
situation where you're ever faced with rethinking how you look
at the world. That's a scary place. We all need
each other to open our hearts and open our minds,
not to close them off to anyone and everyone who
doesn't think like us.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
They're trying to preserve they argue on identities we speak to,
on any other group in the country, trying to preserve
an identity of some kind in their culture and their community,
Native American, African American. You can go through a number
of groups who say this is the goal, the aim.
The difference here being that he's actually excluding. So again
he's saying things that I don't necessarily if you don't
(07:34):
just say white, if you separate into I don't know, Irish,
they have their own day right for certain things Polish
you could go through in like certain communities of white
people still celebrate particular culturals. He's just saying white American,
pure Christian. That's it, is what his argument is, and
(07:54):
that's not necessarily argument. When you say you want to
preserve black culture or Native American culture or whatever it is,
you're not making an argument that we don't want any
other influence, that we don't want to even expose our
cultures to our culture. This comes off different. But again
he has a long like a ten minute video that
he sits and he explains very calmly and reasonably. You
(08:15):
could argue, even if you're against the idea of what
he's doing, he makes a non racist argument for what
he's doing because he says they don't think they're better
than anybody.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
He says, we are not a hate group, we are
not a white nationalist group. We are not trying to
get sovereignty. And he's and he makes the point. And
this is where it is questionable because there are some
legal questions that they are on their own private land
and not taking anything from any other community.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Which is true.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
What do you think about the idea.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Knock yourselves out like I'm not in a and I
think you could argue that I and many Americans should
be upset or bothered by this just as a whole
for our country land. We got to be better than that.
We shouldn't be doing this, and that is all true.
I am just not that fired up and worked up
about a group of folks wanting to go on their
own do their own thing, and not bother me or
(09:12):
anybody I love. Right. I used to toll this growing
up as a kid, like, we don't mind if there's
a Confederate flag outside the house. At least we know
which place is to stay away from. Like do it
in plain sight, don't hide and me have to wonder,
and then you come get me in the night. No,
identify who you are and see kids. Don't go by
(09:32):
that house. You see kids at one hundred and sixty
acres over there, don't get anywhere near it. Okay, identify
yourself and I'm gonna move on. I don't have a
lot of energy and time for being worked up about
people that have this mindset.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It's so interesting you put it the way you just did.
I was reading some of the comments on several of
these articles and one stood out to me, and you
just almost set it verbatim. As a black man, I say,
let them have their community. I much rather know what
I am doing dealing with then to have to deal
with those that claim they are not biased but really
are in disguise. Post a road sign so I can
(10:06):
keep on moving. Since my youth many years ago, when
this whole integration movement started. My very wise mother taught
us that if people do not want to be around you,
then forcing them will not work. Comedian Red Fox once joked,
if you pass through a town and see that small
black iron jockey on the lawn, don't get angry. Set
a small iron white jockey out on your lawn.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And I didn't know that quote was in there, that
you had that one ray to rock. But it's that
simple for a lot. And we've been taught this since
we were kids. And this idea is this isn't new stuff.
I mean, there were places again these I don't have
the name because I didn't know it. The one in
the Pacific Northwest called the Northwest Imperative Movement. In the
seventies and eighties, there was a whole movement of white
supremacists saying they should take that land in northwest Arkansas
(10:50):
and start their excuse me, northwest part of the country,
Pacific Northwest, have their own new white country. Knock yourselves out.
It's pretty white over there already. Any So that was
kind of somewhat part of the thinking. So these things
pop up their communities right now that are whites only
they're not doing well. But these white supremacist movements, they're
just not new stuff. But it got me to thinking
(11:12):
about how we all think, how we all behave, how
we all have a tribal mentality. Sometimes don't we naturally
just separate? We do all we do?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We do we do, But I do think, especially like
a city like New York City, a lot of urban
areas where you do have a just an integration by
logistics alone, how much better and more interesting and fuller
is your life? And knowing how to deal with other
things that life throws at you. When you're around people
(11:44):
from all different walks of life, from not just a
racial standpoint, but from a socioeconomic from just a language burier,
you just learn about not only other people, but about yourself.
And isn't part of what we're supposed to do to connect?
We're all humans, you know? Race. I like those T
shirts that say that where is that in all of this?
And when you think about it, they say they're not
(12:05):
a hate group, But isn't that hate? Isn't that hate
to completely say no one else is allowed unless you
look like us, unless you believe what we believe. Isn't
that hate? Now?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I'm making a very technical definition argument to what you're
saying is that you can want to be around your
own not thinking you're better than another, not thinking I
want to want something negative to happen to that race,
so keep that race suppressed, to keep somebody else down. No, no, no, no,
(12:37):
we're just saying we're here to this is his argument.
We're just here to preserve our own race. Now, yes,
you can make a technical argument for that. But if
you're saying nobody else is allowed to this special thing
we have because we need to preserve it, saying we're
not trying to taint it because you and your black
ass coming in here.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
With tainted tainted how but that is hate to act. Yeah,
to act as if having someone from another race or
another color are or another background would taint your You
kept using the word pure, and that was always that
was just throwing me, because pure what the color, the ideology,
your heart, your intent, comor genetics. That's ridiculous, sounds very look,
(13:16):
that sounds very nazi esque to me. That's very concerning,
And to me it sounds like it's the first step
towards something that could evolve into something violent, to evolve
into a certain mindset. You're raising these kids with this mindset,
this ideology that you're separate from others because you can't
be tainted by other skin colors and other ideas coming
(13:42):
in and threatening you or tainting you like that's that's disturbing.
That is a very scary mindset.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But so many of us, like we said, we have
done it robes in hilarious ways. We will explain a
recent graduation party in which we looked in our apartment
and all the black folks will over here and all
the white folks were over there. But also that is
typical of this country. Data shows folks that even though
(14:10):
the country is more diverse, our cities are more segregated
than ever.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
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(14:39):
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(15:02):
Head to tonaactive dot com and use code iHeart for
twenty percent off and free shipping. Welcome back to this
edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about
a white only community in Arkansas that wants to expand
(15:25):
into Missouri. And then they say their goal is to
expand in all fifty states. It's the group's name is
called Return to the Land, and the group founder says,
this freedom means you're allowed to discriminate privately if you choose.
That is up for interpretation. However, legally speaking.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
There will be some lee and we haven't mentioned yet
that the Attorney General of Arkansas has said he is
investigating this group. Obviously, you're not allowed, as a public entity,
a business, anybody who operates with the public to discriminate
like this, But hey, there have been clubs, golf clubs
and things, private men's clubs around the country who've gotten
heat for being a whites only or men's only type club.
(16:09):
Is this legal? I really do not know, and I
really I said it before we've took a break. Do
not care really what these people do and how they
do it. I see them. I know what part of
northwest Arkansas when I go back to the university for
a game in Faydeville, which they are, I think just
south of Faydeville, I know what area to stay away from. Fine,
and I just move on. But this got me to
(16:32):
thinking about so often how we do end up robes.
Naturally we call it tribalism sometimes, but we naturally gravitate
towards our own, to black folks, white folks, Asian folks,
whoever it may be. And you look at a city
like New York and we talk about the diversity, and
it is you cannot you can't survive in this city
(16:54):
without being We talk about reason. They walk down the street,
go blocks. I ain't heard an English in block.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I think that was yesterday we did. I don't think
we heard English for at least five.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Blocks in that regard. We are very diverse all over
the city, but Rome's we live and operate separately. Study
by the University of California at Berkeley's was from several
years ago. They found that in the thirty years between
nineteen ninety and twenty nineteen, that most of the metropolitan
overwhelmingly eighty percent of the metropolitan areas in this country
(17:28):
became more segregated than less.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's wild.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So the country's becoming more diverse, and we are becoming
more segregated through neighborhoods. Nowhere is it more evident. We
celebrate this diversity, But how do we live here separated?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We do.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
There's a Chinatown back this way towards us, there's a
Korea Town. And it gets even more specific than that.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, there's little Italy, big ones all No, those are
the big ones, right, But in the Bronx, you've got
little Ireland in Brooklyn, you've got little Haiti and Harlem,
you have little Senegal. Where's little India.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I think that's let's say Queens because we have a Curry.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So there's Hill. So there's Murray Hill, and people call
it Curry Hill because there's a lot of Indian restaurants
and spice shops, and so it actually smells like Curry.
It really does when you walk in that area. I've
lived there, so my daughters went to school there, So
Curry in a hurry was right on the corner of
their school right there. So yes, that's very much a documentary.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It is. It's Queens. It's Queens.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's Queens. Okay, Okay, Little Odessa, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Little
Guyana in Queens. So yeah, just in this city alone,
in the five boroughs, we have segments and we have
parades devoted to those communities. I think they just had
the Dominican parade last weekend, But it seems like every
weekend there's another nationality celebrating their heritage.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Even that we think about diversity. I literally in my
hometown tracks you literally on one side of the tracks
or the other. And my folks started doing well enough
to we moved to the other side of the tracks
where the white folks were, and we were the only
black family in that neighborhood, the only one when we moved.
It got a little more diverse over the years, but
I grew up that way. I went to a school,
(19:15):
my elementary school all black kids until we moved on
the other side of the tracks where I was one
of the few black kids. Literally, this is how we now.
There are plenty of things historically that explained this, and
rules and redlining and ways that kept black folks from
having access. Yes, we still feel that, but naturally robes
(19:36):
don't you don't you Why is it we naturally do
that because we want somebody to relate to.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, I think people want to belong and the easiest
way if you physically look at someone and then there.
You know, we've even we talk about this all the time.
We still want to do a full podcast on this.
But how much we didn't realize culturally how differently our
tastes are from you know, just or just references are
even though we're around the same age, grew up around
the same area, but we have such different experiences being
(20:05):
white and being black. And that's you know, people have
to get out of their comfort zone in a lot
of ways, and so people prefer to stay where they
feel seen and understood and they belong and it just
feels it feels safer, it feels more natural. But there
is so much you lose in those moments. Look, I
went to a high school, twenty four hundred kids in
(20:28):
that high school. It's now much more diverse than it was.
But when I went to school, six hundred something kids
in my grade, not one black student, not one black teacher, zero,
not a nothing. My parents, they could do a whole
story in this. My mom was raised in Benton Harbor,
which is predominantly black. My dad was raised across the
river in Saint Joe, which was lily white, and their
(20:49):
two experiences were significantly different and actually caused problems between
the families a little bit with the start of their relationship.
But a river separated the two communities.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I knew I always liked your mom. She gets it,
she gets me.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You guys do get each other. I will I will
say that much for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Well to your point, though, it does help right when
you're exposed, and these are funny little stories about it.
We had trying to think of this same No. Two
two both having to do with you, because the majority
of my friends are black, the guys I go hang
out with brothers all the time. I don't ever just
go out with a white guy.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We just you just did actually last week. That's the
first one.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
He's from Australia, and he lives in California. We don't
spend a lot of time together, even though I love him.
But my point there still being we went out. This
was a few months back, and it was one of
the rare times I took you out with my peeps.
It ended up being a big, bigger deal. But at
the gymmy here in downtown New York, up on the roof,
(21:51):
group of ten, you were the only white girl in
the group.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And that was the first time in my life I'd
ever been in a group dynamic like that. Obviously I've
had plenty of and friend groups and going out, but
I had never been the only white person in a group.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Was amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It was amazing. Had I had an amazing night. It
was a blast.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We gave you a hard time. We didn't go to
a black place. We just happened to be at the
place and our group was ten and you were the
only white girl. And that was nothing too. Obviously, it's
no igdeal, it's nothing to it, but it was interesting
that here we are. I went out with a group,
I mean, a group that big and there's no diversity
in it. Why do I end up in a group
like that? Why do I surround myself. It's just naturally.
(22:29):
I don't know. I didn't give it a thought, but
that's who my friend group is. The other one was
your daughter's graduation. How many people were at the house
for that.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I would say fifty, yeah, avas graduation, Yes, coming and
going like all fifty And.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What would you say the breakdown black to white ones
percentage wise? Thirty percent?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I was gonna say maybe like twenty five to seventy five.
Twenty five black, seventy five white.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Okay, that's fair. That's fair enough. I will get on
board with that. And it wasn't long. It's just naturally happened.
The way our place is divided, and the kitchen and
the dining area over here, and the lounging areas over
to one side, and robes you look up. We didn't
think about it or anything. All the black folks are
on one side, all the white folks are on the other.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, it did. It wasn't that way the whole time,
but it eventually evolved into that. And I remember thinking
as I saw people I was I was hanging out
with the black folks at that point, and I was like, wait,
this is kind of weird. All the white people are
on one side all the we were all in the kitchen, right,
that's what it ended up happening. But yes, and we
had to kind of take a moment and laugh, like, wow,
(23:36):
that just naturally happened. We get that, we understand it
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But there's also nothing wrong with wanting to hang around
folks that are like you. There's nothing wrong for wanting
to hang out with a more diverse group. There's nothing
wrong and there's nothing racist about doing it. It's racist
to exclude someone from your group, period. That's the part
that's gotta be problem.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Based solely on the color of their skin and the
beliefs they hold, not based on anything else. And they
don't even know anybody else they're excluding. It's just if
you don't look like us, if you don't believe what
we believe, you are not welcome.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So are we supposed to now as we close up,
we're supposed to to shake our heads at this and go,
oh man, what a shame this is where we are,
or somebody and people our age look at something like
this and go, eh, that's about right. Like nothing. We
grew up in the South, you in the Midwest as well,
but these things just don't surprise me. And I didn't.
(24:35):
I mean at not a bit. My heart rate didn't
go up one beat.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
They don't surprise me. But I think the best way
for me to put it is that it just it
saddens me because we need to be going in the
other direction. And again I agree, you can't force people
to like each other, you can't force people to accept
each other. But when you are forced, especially like in
a city like New York City, where you are forced
to see witness, understand watch, maybe maybe you you'll see
(25:00):
the beauty somewhere where you didn't before. Maybe you'll see
how you can be a better human where you wouldn't
have before had you not had that experience, experience and
diversity and seeing the world. That to me is part
of bringing us all together. The separatism, I guess a
lot of folks say, and I understand. If you're going
to feel that way and that's how you're going to be,
(25:21):
and you're not going to change, and none of us
can change anyone else truly, then maybe it is better
if they're on their own, far away from everyone else.
I mean, I don't love it, I don't endorse it,
but you know, perhaps to what you said and what
that man wrote in the comment section. You know, the
devil you know is better the one you don't. I mean,
that's basically what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I mean, look, yes, I wish we could all do better.
I wish these things weren't still happening, but they are,
and things actually have gotten worse in some respects as diverse.
As much as we celebrate the diversity of this country, man,
something like this comes, I think, Wow, we still got
a ways to go. But it was interesting, and think
(26:03):
about that if you can. Folks today, who do you
hang around and why? I really ask yourself that honest question.
Who do you hang around and why? Is because just
just my friend group who I'm comfortable with, or are
you actually uncomfortable with another group? That's possible, but ask
yourself that question. But this was a debate that should
be had without heat, if you will, we should all
(26:25):
calmly examine what's happening, what we're all doing.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I think that's a really good plan, and I know
we've been doing that today and we hope you will
as well. Thank you for listening to us on this Monday.
I'm Amy Robach on behalf of my partner TJ. Holmes.
Thank you for listening and we'll see you soon.
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Lauren Zima
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.