Places like this are the most common form of American life—as of 2017, 52 percent of Americans lived in suburbs. There are of course differences between, say, a suburb in Connecticut and a suburb in Texas. But they’re all variations on a formula, and lives lived in suburban areas tend to revolve around the same kinds of places, and the same kinds of ideology.

And so it makes sense that these are now the places where fascism grows; that’s what these places were designed for. The suburbs were invented as a reactionary tool against the women’s liberation and civil rights movements. The US government, in concert with banks, landowners, and home builders, created a way to try and stop all that, by separating people into single homes, removing public spaces, and ensuring that every neighborhood was segregated via redlining. The suburbs would keep white women at home, and would keep white men at work to afford that home. These were explicit goals of the designers: “No man who owns his house and lot can be a Communist,” said the creator of Levittown, the model suburb. “He has too much to do.”

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Experts say Mauricio Garcia’s apparent expression of hate-filled rhetoric fits into a modest but increasingly alarming pattern of largely men of color drawn to far-right communities. Since the election of Donald Trump, they say, more men of color have taken on leadership roles in far-right and militia groups and participated, and in some cases led, violent protests, most notably during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

For people of Latino descent like Garcia, who self-identified as Hispanic, the allure of rightwing proto-fascist politics comes from a complex and contradictory cocktail of misinformation within Latino communities, the presence of authoritarian influences from their countries of origin, and a proximity to whiteness in the US that relies more on dominance over people than one’s skin color. In this world, violence is an apt political response to threats to such dominance.

“Part of what we’re seeing – not just in the militia groups, but all across, including a clear upsurge of people of color voting Republican party – is that there’s not a necessary connection between racial identity and your beliefs,” Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, says.

He added: “It is complicated. It means disentangling your presumptions around race and political identity. We had an entire civil rights movement that was grounded on combating laws that were racially segregative. Now, we’re at a moment where it’s a bit more muddy and requires more nuance.”

The post The Allure of Fascism: Why do Minorities Join the Far Right? first appeared on Sevenelles.