Racism in My Town & Lawn Obsession

A few months ago I wrote about how white supremacy affects everything, including gardening. On the surface it seems insane that these two topics can intersect, but they don’t exist in a vacuum- gardeners are people with experiences, prejudices, and privileges based on race (and economic status), and all this influences how we interact with the natural world around us and each other.

In my neighborhood, it was recently discovered that a Black woman was being harassed by her white neighbors (news video above), and the situation had gotten to a point where the woman affixed a giant letter to her front door detailing the harassment and asking for help. The image of the the door started circulating through local town groups on Facebook and there was a mix of outrage and incredulity. Unsurprisingly, most of the people who didn’t believe this woman or wanted more facts were white. As the days went on, more information was posted, including short surveillance videos of her neighbor throwing dog feces onto her property and walking around outside with a gun. Many white folks in the groups “couldn’t tell what was being thrown” and had “no issue with the man walking around with his gun as long as it was legally registered.”

It was amazing to me that they couldn’t or wouldn’t see these actions for what they were: harassment and intimidation. I later learned that the same neighbor had also called the town on this woman multiple times for dog poop on her property (the poop they threw over; she doesn’t have a dog) and for tall grass. The woman received multiple fines for these offenses. At some point, she took her neighbor to court and won a judgment but I don’t know the details of that. Altogether, in the past 3 years, the police have been called almost 50 times by both her and her neighbor, yet somehow it wasn’t until this case became publicized and state representatives stepped in that the police suddenly decided to provide a one night 24 hour watch outside her home. Up until that point, according to the woman, the police told her that they couldn’t help her unless she was physically harmed. Funny how things change once a case gets media exposure. But there are still people who doubt this woman’s story, or if they believe her, they don’t believe that it is racially motivated. In fact just a few days ago, the Nassau County Police released a statement saying that there was no evidence of this case being related to racial bias. Yeah, okay.

As more information has been posted online and in local Facebook groups, some of the comments have been truly horrific from blatantly calling her a liar to implying that she deserved it because according to them, she wasn’t taking care of her property.

As a single mother and essential worker, it seems she may not have had the time and luxury of being completely obsessed with her lawn in the silly way that most suburbanites are. By the way, this obsession with lawn and neatness is killing our wildlife and poisoning our water supply (fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide run off), and is a problem in itself. In any case, from all the interviews I have seen, her lawn looked just fine. In one news interview she mentioned that she had done a lot of work on the property and had been keeping it up. It was almost as if she was trying to convince suburbia that she was a good person that had not brought this on herself. I remember thinking wow, this is what happens when a Black woman reaches out for help: she is doubted, vilified, blamed, and then has to work extra hard to convince everyone of her humanity. In the end, NO ONE deserves this kind of harassment- I don’t care what their property looks like- and I really hope code enforcement changes their procedures so as to not be used as a weapon against other residents. What would have happened if code enforcement had simply reached out to her to find out what was going on or if she was struggling with maintaining her property instead of writing tickets and adding to her harassment? What would have happened if the police had tried harder to keep her and her young daughter safe? As it is, the woman has stated that she hasn’t used the backyard much because she fears for her and her daughter’s lives since the neighbor has made it clear that he owns several guns and apparently practices shooting a bb gun in the back yard. She hasn’t been able to enjoy the property she has been working so hard to maintain. It’s an outrageous situation and I can’t believe it has gone on so long without any intervention

Lawn & Order

Aside from all the infuriating details of this case, I can’t help but notice that the state of this woman’s lawn has gotten A LOT of attention compared to the racist harassment she has experienced. So many people in suburbia make moral judgments about those who do not keep their properties in pristine condition. In my area, which is close to the Queens border, people always talk about how our town is “turning into Queens” and I have come to realize that this is code for saying that ‘our town is becoming less white (or more brown) and that’s bad.’ It seems somewhere along the line unkempt lawns and house exteriors have come to be associated with non-white areas probably due to the white supremacist belief that white people are “civilized” and care more about their properties than people of Color, but also because suburbanites tend to be wealthier and have more money to spend on repairs and lawn maintenance, so they expect that everyone can do the same.

In any case, this obsession with lawn and order at its root is a white supremacist ideal dating back to 16th Century European royalty and the fact that it is codified into local American law today means people are being forced to keep their property in a way that conforms with this ideal; when they don’t conform, then code enforcement is weaponized against them. In cases like this one we see that people of Color and low income people can be (and often are!) harassed by code enforcement and encouraged to leave the area by being ticketed unreasonably. This is all to maintain the “suburban look” of the community which is sterile, lacks color and diversity, lacks wildlife, and above all maintains the status quo. Racism, a lack of diversity, redlining, exclusion of low income people, pollution, wildlife on the brink of extinction– none of this matters as much as keeping a green carpet around your property that in most cases, you don’t even use. If you don’t have this, then you are not a ‘model citizen’ and you deserve all the disdain in the world.

But what about property values??? What about them? A few years ago, just around the time I received a fine for tall grass, a man was murdered a few yards from my home outside a bar that had been a blight for many years. And the bank by my house has been robbed more times than I can count. And I constantly find empty liquor bottles and drug baggies on the sidewalk. And property taxes keep going up each year. All of these things affect my property value more than any tall grass but I guess it’s easier to focus on the grass than deal with the realities of life and all the systems that keep people sick, addicted, incarcerated, and tormented. The suburbs were planned as a white utopia, but as time goes on we see just how far from utopia these suburban towns are. When you raise these issues in an online forum, most people will tell you to leave. “If you don’t like, then move.” No, I choose to stay and help improve my community instead of blindly accepting racism and bully tactics in suburbia that pretend to be a desire for neatness and order. You may not fathom racial harassment in your neighborhood but it’s happening all the time, and in suburbia, the lawn and everything it represents is definitely playing a part.

• There is a peaceful march/rally today ( July 16, 2020) at 5pm at the Valley Stream LIRR station and I plan to attend and add my support.