Choose your mother, or a conversation amongst southerners

Exploitation and degradation, of land and people, have long been tied to crop cultivation under western, and now global, capitalism. It has been difficult to disaggregate this exploitative relation from the sustaining and balanced activity of cultivation that is necessary to human, animal, plant, and planetary survival. This essay attends to how historical shame and class prejudice influence resistance to cultivation and considers eco-ontological approaches to land relation that eschew the logics of chattel enslavement and capitalism, insisting instead on balanced futures. It highlights the intra-racial, interregional class distinctions between urban and rural that have animated Black communities’ conversations about our relationship to land and exploitation for generations before and after the colonial encounter. The essay argues for the purging of shame and the choosing of our mother, the earth, in our continued strivings towards self-determination and liberation.