Chantel's Reviews > The Trees

** spoiler alert ** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on graphic racism, bigotry, racist vernacular, violent crimes, grief, racial injustice, & others.

To understand who we are we must look over our own shoulders. Over the course of time, the intention behind the documentation of human activity has garnered disgust. It has been said that that which lies in the past is dead. The excavation of the facets of our existence as a species raises eyebrows; we view ourselves as we were yesterday via a dissociated lens. It is perhaps easier for us to approach the day tomorrow will bring if we forget what happened on its eve. It is no secret that we have garnered distrust among each other. We sanctify bloodshed & burn books; looting spaces dedicated to intellectual property in the name of shadowing ourselves from the person that we are. We loom in the damage of our own actions with a rage rippling the cuticles of our fingers. We are as we have always been, hard as we try to hide it.

Before continuing, I would like to make it explicitly clear that this book includes ideology & terminology that is rooted in bigotry. The purpose of this story highlights that the system of personal & institutional beliefs that allows & encourages racist behaviour exists today. Therefore, throughout this book words are included that might render the reader uncomfortable, or remind them of a time wherein they felt unsafe. I encourage readers of the book & my review to approach both with caution.

After reading this book I found myself in a state of reflection. It has taken me several attempts to breach the first paragraph of this review. I find myself unable to pick a starting point. This story presents an interesting premise; the violent terrors that once openly befell territories of people have rounded on themselves to become a witch hunt. Yet, that sentence does not necessarily feel like it does the story justice. It is no secret that the history of Black folks in the United States is tormented; raunch with horrors so terrifying, they could only have been the result of intentional action.

Yet, within this truth, there is the main obstacle which the reader is meant to overcome. Does the code of Hammurabi leave everyone blind or are we better set to face life equally if our collective vision is diminished? Within the town of Money, Mississippi, the inhabitants have been unable to find their way through the history that guides them. It would be ignorant to state that the first chapter of this history opens on a vast & empty plane. Many Indigenous peoples saw their lives slashed in a petrifying genocide that has lasted until the present day. Indigenous peoples are still here, as we shall be tomorrow, as we were before. This fact makes the turning of the tides all the more saddening to behold.

Hidden in plain sight are the antagonists of this story. These same familiar faces can be found in any society of people. One would know them as the boasting, bellowing, voices ringing through the streets of truths only they have to share. In more modern times, or in the case of a collective shunning of such intentional ignorance; these same people find their way through the channels that plague the virtual world. When once we thought we might be able to share in a nice thing, we are swiftly proven wrong.

Within the context of this story, the online world plays a key role in gratifying the original intention. Who pays the price for that which has been done? We find ourselves, perhaps, at another crossroads. I shall not pretend to understand the intricacies of the United States Justice System but, I would not need to be an expert to note that the system suffers from a lack of a clear mandate. Are people meant to be discouraged from crime or are people to serve as examples to one another? Here we come upon another problem; who punishes the inner workings of villainy if all who perpetrate violence lean on one another for support through the action?

This very question is asked repeatedly throughout this story. Readers are brought to a fork in the road where they must question their own understanding of jurisprudence. The victims in this story are of two groups, it depends entirely on the reader to decide who deserved to die. This statement alone feels extreme & yet that is the way I intended it. When people are hung from trees to be skinned alive by racist goons can we not conclude that this behaviour is extreme? When people evict to reprimand everyone whom they believe to have ties to an ideology based on physical traits, can we not conclude this to be extreme? Who deserves to pay for these actions? Who is to be held responsible for the continued violence that is perpetrated throughout our species?

I believe that life is filled with nuance, enough to allow us a moment to truly think about things. When the groups of alleged vigilantes in Money, Mississippi, decide that they are going to go about murdering the descendants of men who horrifically murdered a 14-year-old Emmett Till, they do not think about the precedent that their actions set. In their minds, they are doing what is right by eviscerating the bloodline of those who committed violence from the world. The same can be said for the zombies that are brought forward. The problem with extreme ideologies is that they often do not leave room for the truth.

No child deserves to be massacred, ever, let alone for a bewilderingly stupid accusation. Justice is done by bludgeoning idiot customs to allow our communities to function peacefully. The men who were murdered by the vigilantes & by the zombies were people who were actively perpetrating hate. You will not hear any complaints from me when it comes to ridding the world of atrocities. How do we choose who is good & who is bad?

This might seem like a silly question. Certainly, as within the book, those who massacre are evil. Those who engage in hate are evil. Those who harm children are evil. The original group of vigilantes wanted to feel a sense of retribution for the crimes that had gone unpunished. It seems to them that the descendants of violent crimes are able to waltz through life without worry. There is no sufficient penalty for causing the unjust death of a person, especially that of a child. Murdering these men leaves behind crumbs uncollected. These men have children who are now affected by a lifetime of grief.

We come again to a fork in the road. Many readers will have come upon the age-old question regarding Hitler as a baby & whether or not his birth meant the rise of terror that was seen in WWII. It might feel good to say that one death to save the lives of millions is worthwhile. This is also a gruesome oversimplification. Just as we might note that ideologies are supported by the angelic figures of the righteous, so too are ideologies supported by the cruel carapaces of the vile. The death of the face of a movement does not demolish the ideology; these things live in us.

Therefore, which death will serve as the final sacrifice needed to set our societies right? The children of the men who were killed because they were saturating the world in bigotry & hate will still have to live with the consequences of pain. These children will grow up without a person that society says is meant to be a representation of love. Whether or not these men were wonderful fathers is beside the point. These children are now faced with an adult problem.

It is difficult to vocalize how vital safety is in our lives. When you grow up in a home in which you do not feel safe, the world is set in front of you like a minefield. You are forever hoping that your shin does not get blown through your leg muscles; the world is as cruel as your first experiences of it. Will the vigilantes feel safer in the world after they have killed three (3) people? Will their lives be altered for the better knowing that these men are no longer around? That is for them to answer. The story seems to indicate that they do not have the chance to ponder this question as the tide turns to revel in a rise in openly violent crimes.

I hesitate to say that violent crimes are on the rise, or that the crimes in this book are now being done openly whereas once they were hidden. As I stated before, times only change for those who are standing on the iceberg as it slowly melts. For those who have been accustomed to the freezing waters in which they are meant to float, the circumstances of these crimes are nothing new.

This leads me to my final point, the insurgence of what I have, up until now, referred to as zombies. I do not have the knowledge of calling them by another name. What is important to remember here is who these people once were. When we are first introduced to them, they are hidden within stacks of filling in the home of an old woman. They are known only to us as the victims of heinous crimes. As the story progresses they become names. They are listed to the reader as people.

When we name something it becomes real. This is a belief system that many people hold which is why certain unfavourable aspects of life remain nameless or are shunned from their vocabulary. For some people, when you name a thing it develops an essence—something of a livelihood that it did not have before it was called upon. I very much appreciated the inclusion of this belief system in this story because it gave weight to the distress that lived in the hearts of all.

After the names of the deceased were said out loud, after they became, once more, the people they had been in life, their stories were real. The ethnicity of people I am part of believes very actively in the power of stories. For us, when you share a part of a memory you have of someone, you are allowing that person to live forever. Emmett Till lived in the memories of people even more than 60 years after his murder. By calling him by his name; sharing his story; vocalizing his reality; his essence was able to glide through time & connect once again to his body.

We are so much more ourselves when we understand that a part of us lives in the hearts & minds of those around us. We are someone to those we meet at the grocery store as well as the people who love us dearly. The names of the victims of violent crimes are people that were loved, even if they didn’t know it. Their names deserve to be shared & their lives deserve to be remembered. This story employs a magical realism approach to ghosts in the world of the living. Someone is not truly gone for those who remember them.

Where does this leave the reader? Perhaps it is uncomfortable to think about all of the complexities that exist within our history & the things that are shadowed by newsstands in the present day. It is not a good feeling to know that someone is hurt on your watch. It is a worse feeling to know that something could have been done to prevent harm, & yet it was not done. At the end of the day, we are responsible for the world that we live in. My actions are a reflection of my beliefs & of my person. It is my responsibility to ensure that what I put out into the world ensures the peace I hoped to find myself.

When all is said & done, I appreciated what this story sought to achieve. The questions posed within this narration are an acute reflection of the disturbances we meet in everyday life. Negligence to listen to stories incites poverty of the soul. It is not an accusation when someone shares with us the pain that they hold or the ways in which they experience the world. To ensure that rotted apples do not poison a tree we need the diligent hands of an esteemed & tender gardener. The orchard houses many trees but the trees whose roots are deep, those that understand the benefit of ecologically sound, nutrient-heavy, well-tended soil, gift the world crisp reminders of interwoven life.