Get out: Racist Trees

RACISM / A row of tamarisk trees along a huge golf course in Palm Springs begs the question, can a tree be racist? As a critic who’s long enjoyed covering the Palm Springs International Film Festival – and even served on its doc jury this year – Sara Newens and Mina T. Son’s brilliantly conceived Racist Trees was an IDFA must-watch for me, and a film that ultimately made me rethink that sunny California fest’s host city in an unexpected, simultaneously laugh-out-loud and horrific way. To say that Racist Trees – which takes a deep dive into the origin of a line of trees separating a massive golf course in Palm Springs from the historically Black neighbourhood of Crossley Tract (named after its founder, African-American entrepreneur Lawrence Crossley) – is not your average work of investigative journalism is a vast understatement. In fact, the doc hews much closer to the absurdist satire of Jordan Peele (whose work can be seen as its own form of public service, I suppose). The «villain», as the title alludes, is what would at first glance seem to be an innocuous shrub but, upon closer examination, is actually a terrifying invasive species. One which not only keeps rich whites from having to interact with (or even see – literally «there’s nothing to see here» for these folks) the poorer and darker community next door but is actually wreaking havoc on those residents (from serving as an enticing home for the area’s numerous snakes and rats, to actually combusting in the hot desert sun). And while the citizens of Crossley Tract have fought for decades to have these dangerous nuisances destroyed, the gaslighting, Hollywood expat crowd on the other side insists there’s no reason to remove these natural, aesthetically-pleasing plants. Oh, and by the way, neither they nor their harmless tamarisk trees are racist; they’ll have you know.

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