HOAs were originally "White Homeowners' Associations," so after (and likely before) losing their legal purpose of being entities that enforced the racial covenants that restricted their members from selling their homes to black and Jewish people, their purpose instead became to enforce a particular kind of cultural whiteness on the neighborhood. Whites who didn't take care of their lawns or wanted to paint their houses the wrong color weren't being white well enough.

> Americans love freedom and small government so much, they have to invent a worse and more invasive replacement.

The same group of Americans, too. HOAs were like a GPL for racists.