The rotten tree

Polarisation and police violence are as American as apple pie, but a collective veil has started to lift and white Americans are realising that their privilege makes them complicit by association

- JENNIFER ALISA SANDERS

There is an avocado tree in my backyard that grows creamy, delicious fruit, but I suspect the roots are rotting. Some branches have hollowed out and when it storms, they crack and fall off. The leaves brown around the edges and sometimes the avocados are speckled and browning inside. Unless we can remove what is attacking its roots, it is just a matter of time before the whole tree dies.

My country’s roots are rotten, too. Some have known this for a while. Some are just discovering this with protests over the on-camera police killing of George Floyd. And some have chosen to ignore the signs and continue eating avocados. Because they are what is causing our roots to rot, and if we do not get rid of the cause of this sickness called racism, the whole tree will die. This is 2020 in the United States of America.

The New World was only new to the Europeans who sailed into it accidently in the late 1400s. In what we now call North and South America, there were already millions of people living in sustainable, thriving societies. These “Indians” were not Christian or “civilised” to European eyes, which claimed the lands for the Catholic church and the resources of the land for the nobles, merchants and royal venture capitalists who funded their travel. This is when the roots began to rot….

After the native inhabitants rebelled, attacked settlers, escaped into the hinterlands or were massacred by guns, swords and Old World diseases like smallpox, the invaders realised they needed another workforce that was inexpensive and virile. They turned to Africa.