I’ve been spending a significant amount of time digging up roots and weeds in my yard.
It’s been occupying my evenings and weekends. Surprisingly, it is a nice change of pace from working from home. For as much uprooting I’ve done, I’m not very good at it nor do I think it’s very enjoyable. But, I do it and am usually sore the next day.
One thing I’ve been amazed at is the strength and depth of roots. Some dandelion roots have been over a foot long. Vine roots are incredibly long and are just under the surface of the dirt. Some bushes I had to dig up had roots a few feet deep.
In our backyard is a tree that was once covered in vines. Around the base of the tree are huge vine roots that had been cut down but never uprooted. My wife and I decided to dig them so we could lay mulch around the tree. The more we started digging, yanking, and pulling the more we realized it was going to be a more difficult job than anticipated.
We started with a hand shovel thinking we could easily yank them up. Quickly, we realized we needed a shovel to dig deeper and wider. We discovered what seemed like full vine stumps underground. As we ripped up the roots, dirt flew everywhere; on our clothes, on our faces, in our mouths. A few times, I yank a root so hard that when it snapped off I fell to the ground with it.
Our son kept yelling at us, “Are you ripping up the tree roots? Are you going to dig up the whole tree? Don’t kill the tree.” We kept reassuring him that we were taking up the vines that were inhibiting the tree from growing. “We’re trying to save the tree” we kept saying.
It was hard, difficult, messy, and even painful work.
I think this is an apt metaphor for the work white people need to do concerning racism and white privilege.
Racism has deep and strong roots in our history and culture. There is an entire system that is full of injustice, deep and long just under the green grass, that is inhibiting growth. Yet, for most of us, we don’t see it. Or should I say, we refuse to see it.
There are racist roots in our culture, permeating many of our systems, and deep within our own hearts. And if we continue to let it, such roots will overtake and wreak havoc on every aspect of the garden.
We need to dig them up. We need to uproot them. This is our problem, my fellow white people. It’s our problem to name, uproot, and fix.
It’s going to be hard, messy, and painful work. The more we dig up, the more ugliness will we find. We will get covered in dirt. We will fall down as we rip things up. We will probably be sore the next day. And when we start naming and uprooting the weeds, people will yell at us, “Are you ripping up the tree roots? Don’t kill the tree. Why are you making this a race issue? I’m not racist. I didn’t own slaves.”
We need to learn our history, acknowledge the reality, speak up and out, repent, and apologize. We need to name it. We need to call it out. We need to repent. We need to find the roots of racism within our own hearts and lives.
But more than that, we need to uproot the entire system and fix it. Get your gloves and shovels. We’ve got work to do.
And while you’re at it, a few great books for you:
White Privilege: Let’s Talk UCC Curriculum
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stamped From The Beginning, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
How To Be An Antiracst, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein