Issue 2: Roots Routes

The colonial garden was pruned to the point of predictability. No weeds were allowed to grow, no “exotic” flowers were allowed to bloom, and no other garden was to be imagined. The garden was a project that could not accommodate a diversity of vision and growth. In our efforts to uproot this imaginative roadblock, we challenge you to plant your roots and to find new routes out of this dull and deceptively beautiful garden. We seek not to build a better garden, but a more engaging and inclusive one.

Necessary to any progressive and productive discourse on race and racial issues, is a determination to conceptualize theories and ideas in different ways, venturing on new pathways and articulations. Sometimes to create something new we must revisit the roots and foundations of the issues. Roots can be cultural and historical, but they can also be theoretical. The roots we are trying to cultivate grow above ground. They make visible what was previously hidden and less understood. They create new routes and channels for discussion.