I’m watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s 2008 documentary “The Garden,” a film about urban farmers in South Central Los Angeles and their fight against developers.
And I’m nearly speechless.
For 14 years, 350 familes grew their own food on this 14 acres, once scorched by riots and pain. It was the largest community garden in the U.S.
In 2006, the garden was bulldozed – all 150 plant species – and plans are underway to build a Forever 21 warehouse and distribution center on this land. This, even though the farmers had raised the money to buy the property from the developer. He’s on record as saying, his words smacking of self-righteous privilege, “Even if they raised $100 million, this group could not buy this property… It’s not about money. It’s about I don’t like their cause and I don’t like their conduct. So there’s no price I would sell it to them for.”
A flood of words get jammed in my fingers when I try to express how I feel about this. Did I mention that most of these farmers are Latinos and Latinas from the community? Are you surprised?
What I can manage to stammer is that this is the mark of everything wrong about the United States, about our dominator society. This is a prime example of what will destroy our national soul.
In the movie, there is footage of heavily armed police officers storming through tall rows of vegetables. If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.
The footage of carefully tended, productive, green vegetables, fruits, herbs, being torn up to put in concrete buildings just wrecks me. I feel that loss viscerally, and it makes me hungry for the social upending that will bring in a nurturing, partnership society. Right NOW.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Environment, Movies, Politics, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
There are currently 4 responses
One post-script to this entry, because I can’t help but see and recognize the way human beings will always take awful events and spin them into what’s next.
In this case, it’s that an entire community chose, repeatedly, action and engagement over the forces of destruction. From their creation of the farm in the wake of the 1992 riots, to their organizing to legally fight their eviction, the tools this community have created and honed will serve them for generations.
This is just one of those excruciating stories that make me less positive about our collective capacity to back away from the brink of collapse. Most days I’m cheerful enough to get by, but some days…. Oy.
“If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.”
So well said, Jennifer.
Richard, I’m with you 100%. I try to acknowledge the darkness while keeping my attention on the ways humans are fantastic, but sometimes, I just fill with rage and have to point at the insanity.
And Martha, thanks for reading and for your comment. I wish it were fiction.