FEET ON THE GROUND, SKIN IN THE SUN

They call it the concrete jungle. Piles of rock, and manufactured earth for miles. So much it is the most widely used substance on the earth, besides water. But ever notice how redlined communities, communities of color, are sparsely populated with trees? It wasn’t always this way. In communities that have traditionally been of wealth and prestige, there are streets dense with treelined streets and canopies. These routes are showered in the shade, and visual beauty, which increases desirability. Trees provide habitat for animals, which give biodiversity and richness to their immediate vicinity. People are exposed to these things, especially kids, and they learn and benefit from it tremendously. Trees absorb a lot of CO2, which means healthier air for people to breathe in.

Communities of color tend to be bounded by highways and train lines, industrial factories, and plants, parking lots, old buildings that are falling apart, and more, which corral in smog and cause many health problems. There are many reasons people of color have higher rates of blood pressure levels, diabetes, and many other health issues. Trees help conserve energy, soak up water to help minimize the effects of floods, and provide food from fruit and nut trees. Suburban areas have boulevards and roads that can at times have up to ten lanes, and not all areas have sidewalks, let alone trees. However, those areas are more open for space to disperse these pollutants throughout the air. In dense urban areas, people are trapped within dense clouds of hard poison.

Lancaster County is an area that displays a great deal of incredibly dense compact areas surrounded by sprawling-and growing, suburban communities, with rich, rural, hilly farmland and rocky forests. Lancaster County, Pa has a very rich and diverse environment.

Lancaster city, where all major roads either lead to or from within the county, is lucky to have parks throughout and immediately outside the city’s limits. Within the densest of neighborhoods, there is a lack of trees or not as many as in other areas. In Lancaster city, compared to many other, and larger cities, it seems to not be as bad. This means there is a great opportunity to expand and bring in a new generation of flora and children to help love and foster the new growth, as they grow. If we were to create urban forests amongst the concrete jungles and combine that with urbanized sustainable farming we would tremendously impact communities of color.

One Lancaster resident, Hawa Lassanah, is working hard to change, or reverse the effects caused by decades of domination and neglect. The disorientation of three generations deep being dominated by indoctrinations of gaslighting, coupled with environmental racism, (yes its a thing), leave whole swaths of cities packed with folks of color lacking the natural skills they could have to survive, that they used to have when, historically, if you take a look at where we came from, it was not always this way.

People of color in America, whether your family derives from Haiti, you’re from Guatemala, or Puerto Rico, are the descendants of the African American slave, and during the Great Migration your family moved up north from Alabama, ancestrally, and instinctively, it is within you to breathe the natural air, to be one with the forest around you if you choose, not be locked in, and kept from it, whether it be gardens for vegetables and herbs, plants, or trees, even ones that provide fruits and nuts.

Hawa runs a local urban micro-farm right outside the city and she also sells items she gets straight from the farm. She knows the importance of self-sustainable urban farming for people of color and poor people as well, especially within Lancaster. The greater county is full of farmland.

Lancaster county holds some of the richest farmland in the world, yet people mere miles from these farms don’t have access to this produce. Many farmers would love to not see excess food go to waste, yet they truly do not have the time to find anyone to take it off their hands before it goes bad. There is a great disconnect, some brought on by years of physical segregation, and therefore lack of understanding and at times, empathy. The connections between food scarcity and insecurity, food apartheid, malnourishment and impoverishment, racism, capitalism, high crime, and mental health issues amongst many other things, are way too numerous to go through. However, the proof is in the pudding. 

In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, at the height of the white flight, whites took whatever resources and leisure activities the urban cores had with them, which included the new sensation at the time- malls, along with grocery stores, pools, and services that required money, like upkeep of parks, new amenities, tree-lined streets, new infrastructure in general, and more. As the good ol’ ‘burbs grew in size and capitalism roared its way through the end of the 20th century, more of these services were kept out of the cities, which in turn promoted more big named stores to flourish in the suburbs as well, not wanting to “risk” losing merchandise in a “high crime” area. 

Property is shown to be more important than people in a capitalistic society that favors those at the top, over those of whose backs it was created on. Historically Black and brown folk have always seemed to respect the land and only take what is needed. Ancestrally, we used medicines provided by mother nature to cure ailments. As we were taken from our lands and were forced to work on these new lands we now call home, when we escaped or, became free we learned the new medicines of this continent. And with some help from the indigenous peoples already here we were truly living off the land in no time. 

Just as predictable as the rest of history goes with “white conquests”, white slave owners and former slaveowners didn’t like Africans living off the land and not having to rely upon them. This is where trespassing laws took root. One can think it was only natural for these descendants to enact further laws to entrap and attempt to make whole entire populations reliant upon them.

Taking your shoes and socks off and feeling the earth has great benefits to not only your mental health, but your physical health as well. The earthly scent of soil has chemicals that literally calm you. The microscopic organisms that are contained in even a teaspoon of soil are full of life that being around for periods of time will give you great gifts. Gardening, playing sports, hiking, and fishing, are all examples that have amazing health benefits.  Lancaster county provides so much rich soil, even in the city’s densest pockets. It is waiting to be tapped into. Alexis Nikole Nelson, aka BlackForager on TikTok, teaches folks, especially Black folks, their history of foraging, the benefits, and how you not only can make full vegan meals right from your hood, but also how to cook them, along with knowledge on the foods your cooking.

Mother Earth wants to feed us, even through the cracks of the concrete we think nothing of, every day.

Even though pockets of the inner urban core of Lancaster city may hold some challenges in providing spaces for huge swaths of forest, there is still potential for lots of growth. 

The more folks that take root like Hawa, and start micro-farms, or set examples for how you can attain food sovereignty, like Alexis, the more we can rely on ourselves and mother nature to provide us with what she intended for us to have, to be healthy and thrive, healed as a people.