The Metaphor:

So, I planted a rosebush next to my mailbox. I thought it would be a beautiful thing. I thought it would grow up and have pretty pink flowers and like so many of my neighbors’ mailbox flora would adorn our neighborhood quite well.

Well, after a few months, my rosebush did grow. And it did soon put forth pretty pink flowers. But perhaps I wasn’t thinking about the full essence of rosebushes when I planted it. It wasn’t long before I started hearing from the kids in the neighborhood. “Mr. Sadler, can you please remove that rosebush. Every time I ride my bike past it I get pricked by thorns.” Soon it wasn’t just the kids as the mail carriers confronted me as well. “Mr. Sadler, could you please remove your rosebush. Every time I put mail in the box I get pricked.”

So reluctantly, I began to plot the demise of my beloved rosebush. One day I decided to bite the bullet and cut it down. I cut down the bush and discarded it with a few moments of regret.  I was relieved, however, that I had been a good neighbor, and that life would go on even without my mailbox beautification scheme.

It wasn’t three months, however, until my rosebush had grown back. Actually, it grew back bigger, and bolder than it was before.  At that time it did not have flowers, but what it did have was thorns…ample thorns.  Soon I was getting the same complaints from the neighborhood kids and from the mail carriers. So near the end of the season, I cut it down again thinking that over the winter, the bush would certainly die off.

The next spring, guess what happened. The rosebush grew back. Is was then that one of my neighbors who owns a landscaping company told me what I was doing wrong. “Rodney,” he said, “you can’t just remove the bush, you have to remove the root, or otherwise the rosebush will keep coming back. The life of the bush is in the root.”

The Meaning:

My attempt at yard beautification has come to symbolize for me the way that race works in America. Perhaps the idea was originally planted as a useful means of defining identity, a notion that might yield some kind of practical value, something that might prove helpful to understand human difference. It has grown, however, into a perilous thorny bush.  The dangers of the idea of race can be seen in so many instances in our society. The thorny bush is seen as police killings of black men; as schools that fail black and brown children; as the mass incarceration of millions of black bodies for non-violent drug offenses; as the disproportionately high number of deaths among African-American and Latinx people during the pandemic.  The thorny bush is evident as the presenting problems of racism seen all around us.

In America, we often see the bush, instances of racist abuse, and disparity. Its thorns are felt digging deep within our skin. We would all in some respects like to be rid of this unfortunate bush; yet it lingers.

Let me say this another way. In America often we make the mistake of trying to eliminate instances of racism, to resist racist actions, to change racist policies, to retrain officers to think in non-racist ways to cut back the proverbial bush.  Inevitably our best intentions, our policy reforms, our cultural tweaks, our kumbaya “interracial” relational activities fail. Because of this I no longer think that dealing with racism and cutting back the thorny bush is a useful activity. Dealing with racism is not enough. I think instead, we have to deal with the root!

Just like that rosebush by my mailbox, if we are to solve the presenting problems of racism, then we have to address the root.  We need to uproot the issue of race itself.

Pulling up the root:

When I talk about race, I don’t just mean the fundamental descriptive categories that are framed by our outer appearances.  If this was all that race was, perhaps it would be innocuous, harmless descriptions of our physical features.  As I say this, I want to be clear that I’m not talking about fostering some sort of colorblind ideology. I’m not talking about ignoring people’s heritage or the legitimacy of the diversity of their origins. I am not talking about, failing to appreciate the beauty of our distinctive colors or cultures. What I am saying is that the concept of race is that which needs to be eliminated.  

When I talk about race, I fully intend to discuss the prescriptive dimensions, those that correlate internal traits with external features, those that prescribe positions in a hierarchy of humanity predicated on hue.  This is where the danger lies in race as it pretends at description while enabling the prescription of access, options, and opportunity. 

The fundamental idea that we are categorically different from each other is the root issue and play in instances of racism. It is this idea that we are ontologically, biologically, genetically Inherently, and essentially different from each other that is the fundamental problem with racialist thought. Even as biologists, anthropologists, and geneticists have all declared that the idea of race is fallacious, baseless, completely non-scientific, and fundamentally dangerous, we as a society still act as though it was a legitimate as a means of describing human communities, this to our own peril.

Race is the root of our problem.  We have to recognize that as long as we continue to hold to the notion that the concept of race is in any way, shape, or form valid, we will inevitably have instances of racism, the presenting problem, the rosebush, replete with its ample thorns.

Let me say this another way; if we want to eliminate racism, then we have to get rid of the idea that there are races. It is the concept of race that gives us the notion that there is a hierarchy of human types with some of lighter complexions at the top of the ladder and others more deeply melaninated relegated to the bottom rung. It is the concept of race itself that enables us to believe that there are essential characteristics of people that can be correlated with the color of those people’s skin, the kink of their hair, the breadth of their noses, and the prominence of their lips. As long as we ascribe legitimacy to this ideology without attending to its social potency to delimit access to wealth, power, and privilege premised on appearance and assumed correlated traits, racism is inevitable. As long as this concept persists, moreso as long as we continue to give this fallacious idea validity, it will continue to divide us, imperiling some while giving others undue privilege.

It is time that we address the issue of race, recognizing that this is truly a root issue that undermines our potential to live into the vaunted ideals that should make us “exceptional” as a nation.  Our Declaration of Independence proclaims, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all [humanity] is created equal.”  This statement in and of itself is antithetical to the notion that we are divided by race, hierarchically pigeonholed, and inherently unequal.  The concept of race presumes inequality.  Hence the principal schism in the American psyche; we are either equal or we are racialized…we cannot be both!

The irreconcilable division between equality and racialization is the root issue that must be addressed if we are ever to become the model of democracy in this world that we have historically asserted that we are.  We cannot be who we claim to be…we cannot even claim that it is an aspirational goal until we excavate the root problem that is race!

An Epilogue on Bushes vs. Roots:

As I close this reflection out one last thing I want to say is that the tendency to address the presenting issue and not the root is not only a concern as we address racism. In so many instances in our society, we tend to address the surface issues, the presenting thorny bushes, while failing to address the root issues.  For example, when we talk about gun violence, if we recommend any changes at all (and our Congress is tends towards impotency in relation to this issue) we may talk about limiting access to semi-automatic weapons and background checks for mental competency.  Rarely do we mention the root issue of our lack of value for human life and care for children of God made in God’s image.  When we explore issues of homelessness and rising rates of poverty, we talk about building buildings and accessing living wage jobs. But we tend not to talk about the root issues that our government policies have created homelessness and exacerbated poverty and that we have failed to make housing and living wages human rights.  Avoiding the root issues tends to be our way as Americans, and our problems continue to mount.  Perhaps it’s time to stop trimming branches and cutting bushes, and instead to dig out the root issues, undergirding all of our problems as a nation.

It’s time that we addressed the root of our issue in America. And this route really does undergird and support, much of what undermines the potential for quality. Raise the root of race has its tentacles in the production of poverty. It also influences the crisis of affordable housing as there’s little concern for the dislocation of black and brown people. The tentacles of the root of race Shape everything from employment potential to educational attainment to the ability to attain wealth in society. Until we address, the issue of race itself, until we uproot this most dangerous idea, we are inevitably to see the presenting issues of racism in our community.

Tallahassee coach talks about race as a, racist idea idiot up at self. Kwame, Anthony Afia says that Reese is a necessary precondition for racism to exist. If we want to address racism, we will first have to deconstruct the concept of race, dismantle our social systems, predicated on this idea, and reimagine what America can be.

Frankly speaking, until we eliminate Reese from our equation as a nation, we will never be able to attend the aspirational goal that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all human beings are created, equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. The concept of race, inevitably limits people’s pursuit of happiness, as evidenced by mass incarceration can influence their liberty, and most important of all Kent Kurtas Yale People’s lives. We have to do more if we want to overcome racism in America. More than just confronting individual racist policies, we have to Uproot this perilous concept from the American ground of the American psyche.

God bless!

By Rev. Dr. Rodney S. Sadler