I keep hearing about this new whites-only rural Arkansas community called Return to the Land. To live there, you must have “traditional” views and European ancestry. The group is now exploring the possibility of expanding into Missouri.
According to my Ancestry DNA test, I am 35% European. I wonder if I would be welcome in this town.
Probably not. After all, the purpose of this town is to get away from people like me.
People Like Me
People like me? Sigh.
Amazing people?
Kind people?
Intelligent people?
Beautiful people?
Part of me feels like Zora Neale Hurston when she flippantly said:
“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”
Is Racial Discrimination Legal Again?
Then another part of me wonders: Is that legal? How can that be legal? I have no interest in living in their town. I have enough self-respect to not want to be anywhere I am not wanted, but I still wonder. Is that legal? If it is, how is it legal?
And just because I don’t want to go there doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to go there.
They don’t seem to have anything I would want there, but I do not like the idea that I can’t go anywhere I choose to go simply because of the color of my skin. That premise is offensive because it means I am less free.
How is that enforced? Are we going back to the days of sundown towns, where people of color have a list of places they can’t be after dark? Do we have to live in fear of violence or being arrested or lynched because we pass through the wrong town at the wrong time?
That can’t be legal. It was never right or ethical. But didn’t we already have a Civil Rights Movement and amendments added to the Constitution that make racial discrimination illegal? We are living in some crazy times, so nothing surprises me anymore.
It is somewhat concerning. If we’re telling people where they can and cannot go based on the color of their skin, aren’t we slipping back into the Jim Crow Era? Where will it end?
I do not believe racial discrimination has a place in a civilized society. When you make laws saying that I am not allowed to live somewhere because of my skin color, you are making me less free, and I object.
I am Free!
I was born free, and I am going to die free. And not just 90% free — 100% free — free and equal. I am just as free as any white person and as good as any white person. This concept of a whites-only town is trying to convince me I am not. I don’t buy into this foolishness. I do not consent to my own subjugation.
It isn’t unusual for people with common interests and values to want to form a community and live close together. I can understand that. But the assertion that something as minuscule as the amount of pigment someone has in their skin determines their values or interests is ignorant.
Oh well, return to the land. Be happy in your ignorant bliss and bigotry. And for the record, I never left the land.
Oh America, the Beautiful!
May God shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Federico Respini on Unsplash
