New York Times reporter Debra Kamin says the Trump administration is emboldening racists to defy 57-year-old anti-discrimination housing laws.
Eric Orwoll and Peter Csere believe their “Return to the Land” residential community development meets the requirements for a legal exemption for private associations and religious groups that offer housing to their members, and they’re using it to reserve home lots exclusively for heterosexual white residents.
When asked “Why and why now” Kamin said it comes down to who occupies the White House.
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“Racism is, as you know, definitely not anything new. But definitely ‘why now’ is because there is a feeling among the architects of this community and the people who created it that they can get away with it now, because even though the laws obviously very explicitly make it illegal to discriminate, a lot of things that we took as rules and norms just a few months ago no longer really apply,” Kamin said. “They feel that at the highest levels of government, they will be allowed to do this.”
The Times reports Csere, who was arrested in Ecuador for stabbing a miner and remains accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a vegan community there, is breaking ground in Arkansas.
Kamin told CNN while visiting the compound that founder Orwoll pulled a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, “Mein Kampf” from a bookshelf and turned it around to hide its spine just before Times photographers snapped pictures of the room. But Orwoll insists he is not a racist.
“I'm not asking for supremacy over anyone else,” Orwoll said in a clip. “Return to the Land is not a supremacist group. It's not a hate group. It's not even a white nationalist group. We are white identitarians. We value our identity and want to preserve it. That's not hate. That is love for your own people.”
Kamin said the state attorney general is investigating the legality of the development but has done nothing beyond that because “someone would have to say that they've been wronged, and that's where it gets tricky.”
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“For someone to say they've been wronged, you would have to have, someone who wants to live here and was rejected, and how many Black or Jewish or gay families are going to want to move to this compound in the middle of Arkansas?” Kamin said. “They’re clearly in violation of the Fair Housing Act, but to bring a legal case against them is going to take a few more steps."
Watch the video below or at this link.