My thoughts in response to one of the memes going around, saying we should plant fruit trees in public spaces. In this meme, it gave a popular objection, “But what if people steal the fruit?” And the meme rejoinder was, “Why should taking fruit off a public tree be stealing?”
My thoughts:
Yes and we need to not accept the thought-terminating clichés like “but rats” and “but liability” lol.
Regarding rats, anyone who has ever lived in a city knows that rats survive and thrive everywhere whether or not there are any fruit trees.
And the biggest “LIABILITY” is OURSELVES being undernourished, broke, and pharmaceutically dependent. And overheated and flooded because of not enough trees and shade.
The powers-that-be (with just a few exceptions) don’t care (they actually have many incentives for not caring), WE the ordinary people are the ones who have to care and make it happen. <long row of fruit and veggie emoticons>
And:
And while we’re at it, we need public restrooms and benches everywhere. And we need to not accept the thought-terminating clichés like “but homeless people will use them.” (Yeah, and ????)
I’m not trying to be selfish but I’m in my 60s, and even though I’m in pretty good shape for a person in her 60s, I still really need to go to the bathroom, and take a sit down break on a bench, more than I used to when I was young and skinny lol.
I am obviously not the only old person in Volusia county, none of us are getting any younger! We need shade, benches, public restrooms, and yes plenty of fruits and vegetables and medicine growing everywhere.
And (in response to a friend who commented that it’s government ptb, as opposed to public attitude, that is driving the “liability” response):
In [my country,] the USA, “liability” is used as a thought-terminating cliché by BOTH everyday citizens and public officials. Government attitude and everyday public attitude often overlap on this topic.
Granted, it may be that the citizens parroting this are just parroting the public official line in order to terminate discussions. And their underlying motive might be more NIMBY.
Re liability — Cities have legal departments for this kind of thing. My city included. If a city’s insurance company or whatever is threatening something, then we have to push back against it.
There is also a NIMBY component that citizens have. Can’t have that in my neighborhood etc. Don’t want that it will bring down property values etc.
And [friend commenting] or anyone reading this, feel free to share if your city has found some helpful responses and solutions that have helped overcome the knee-jerk “liability” response. My intuition tells me that the cities that have overcome it are simply the ones who have stood their MORAL ground. Moral ground is powerful in helping people and orgs push through legal/financial fears.
Moral ground also powerful and pushing through NIMBYism. It may be the only thing that gets through the dense defensive barrier of fear regarding property values, the presence of “strangers” and “the other,” etc.
BTW anyone reading this, if you notice yourself harboring a lot of fear about strangers, the other, etc., I highly recommend doing shadow work! And especially recommend it in the context of decolonization and anti-racism study & practice.