Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

The Daily

One Town's Blueprint for Resegregating America

05 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What prompted the lawsuit against the whites-only town in Arkansas?

0.537 - 3.339 Paul Tenorio

I'm Paul Tenorio. I cover soccer for The Athletic.

0

3.359 - 6.162 Amy Lawrence

And I'm Amy Lawrence. I cover football for The Athletic.

0

6.522 - 14.969 Paul Tenorio

Whatever you call it, the biggest competition in the sport is happening right now. And The Athletic's World Cup coverage has everything you need to follow the tournament.

0

15.249 - 23.937 Amy Lawrence

We've got more than 70 obsessive reporters on the ground. If you're eager to know more about the teams, the matches, all the stories on and off the pitch, we've got you sorted.

0

24.197 - 28 Paul Tenorio

Throughout the tournament, you have free access to all the coverage in our app.

28.2 - 30.122 Amy Lawrence

Download The Athletic app and see you there.

32.026 - 34.752 Debra Kamin

Did you understand who these people were and what they believed in?

34.793 - 56.57 Michelle Walker

Not as well as I thought I did. Who did you think they were? They call it return to the land. So I thought they were, you know, a community of people wanting to return to the land. you know, gardening and communal type of living and things like that.

56.61 - 67.584 Michelle Walker

And if you would become a member of their club, you were able to purchase land for a thousand dollars an acre, which as a real estate investor is extraordinarily appealing because that's way under market.

Chapter 2: Who is Debra Kamin and what insights does she provide?

426.007 - 427.309 Eric Orwell

Yeah, I wanted to play the French horn in an orchestra.

0

427.289 - 435.238 Debra Kamin

He studied music in college at a very prestigious conservatory on the East Coast. And at one point he actually played in the pit orchestra for Shen Yun.

0

435.598 - 440.363 Eric Orwell

I liked a lot of how they did things, though. They're very efficient.

0

441.965 - 454.258 Debra Kamin

And he says he considers they were a cult, but he also was intrigued by the way they had their own community and they lived together and they shared a philosophy that everybody who was part of the community ascribed to.

0

455.605 - 467.252 Eric Orwell

interesting you know having a a compound like they have where they have common meals and like they have really nice architecture and i liked it up there

467.603 - 474.671 Debra Kamin

In addition to being a pit musician for Shen Yun, he also studied Greek and Latin philosophy on his own, recreationally. Just like on the internet.

474.691 - 482.119 Eric Orwell

Yeah. So I would make videos about philosophy. Uh-huh. And then I'd get a lot of comments from people who were more on the identitarian side of things.

482.139 - 489.808 Debra Kamin

He just started reading and informing himself and started making YouTube videos where he shared his views, kind of like a homegrown philosopher.

490.689 - 497.256 Eric Orwell

Well, just pointing out the rapid demographic change... In America. In America and Europe...

Chapter 3: What is the 'Return to the Land' community and what do they believe?

647.896 - 658.269 Eric Orwell

That's it. And then if you want to buy into a community, then we actually have to meet you face to face, you know, spend some time with you, and then also do a background check.

0

659.39 - 664.797 Debra Kamin

They were not willing to share it with me when I was there. But Eric did say they have a set of questions they ask people.

0

665.218 - 682.257 Eric Orwell

Well, I mean, we ask them about their ancestry, what they know of it. So it's self-report. Beyond that, verifying whiteness, we look at the person, We ask, you know, how they identify. That's basically it.

0

682.76 - 696.054 Debra Kamin

They're like gut check questions about being quote unquote sufficiently white. I'm actually making quotes with my fingers here. But really their terminology sufficiently white actually means sharing a mindset on a bunch of different issues. A mindset.

0

696.234 - 708.047 Debra Kamin

A mindset about culture, about religion, about social topics that are touchy like abortion, about all the things that are dividing society right now. They want people who fall in line with a very specific type of thinking.

708.548 - 722.046 Unknown

So we prefer to live around people who have very similar views to us. We prefer to live in an echo chamber, so to speak. We also want to raise our kids around people who have similar views. We don't want to be competing with whatever crazy thing they're teaching in public school nowadays.

722.848 - 733.163 Debra Kamin

To them, being sufficiently white means not just having the right ancestry coming from a specific European background. It also means thinking the right way about all of these issues.

733.424 - 734.846 Rachel Abrams

You will believe X, Y, or Z. Right.

734.926 - 739.733 Debra Kamin

And if you don't, you're actually not pure enough, for lack of a better word.

Chapter 4: How do members justify their segregationist practices?

876.557 - 886.731 Debra Kamin

We are not real estate developers. We are offering shares in an LLC to our members. And it just so happens that those shares come with three acres of land.

0

889.04 - 891.343 Rachel Abrams

And how does that work exactly? What does that mean, a private association?

0

892.305 - 913.917 Debra Kamin

So if people are admitted into the membership association, their membership gives them shares in the LLC. And the shares are around $6,600. In exchange for that $6,600 share, you get three acres of land where you can then build a house, raise your kids, do whatever you want if you're in the community. Got it.

0

913.897 - 925.661 Rachel Abrams

So they aren't landlords. They are, as they say, a membership club. And as a membership club, they're allowed to give preferential treatment such as housing to their members, even if it means explicitly discriminating against non-white people.

0

926.162 - 933.778 Rachel Abrams

Because just to think this through, if they were just normal landlords, they would be subject to the provisions of the Fair Housing Act that said you absolutely cannot discriminate.

933.758 - 943.832 Debra Kamin

Well, they are still subject to provisions of the Fair Housing Act. They believe that they are not because they are not landlords. That's what they've really cast every aspect of this community on that belief. Right.

944.173 - 946.156 Rachel Abrams

So how solid is their argument?

946.797 - 964.623 Debra Kamin

The best way to answer that question is for someone to file a lawsuit. When the laws are actually tested, when people have to actually argue for and against this loophole that they've staked this entire community on, then we will know how solid it actually is and if it can stand up. But the thing is... They want that lawsuit to come.

965.645 - 982.716 Eric Orwell

There may be an administration in the future or judges or a state government in the future that is hostile to what we're doing. And I would rather the discussion is had while there's a relatively favorable cultural and legal climate for it.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.