Lawns are the perfect metaphor for neoliberal imperialism and settler colonialism. A thread (pt 1/n) https://twitter.com/caucasianjames/status/1254444839481028609

2/n Lawns in the US are made single-species monocultures I’d introduced European cool-season grasses. These grasses have shallow root systems that are evolved for cool, overcast climates. In hot and humid American summers, they struggle without pampering and copious irrigation

3/n Turf grass is the most irrigated crop in the US, meaning more water goes to lawns than to any edible crop! Turf grass uses 30-60% of urban fresh water, and in some cases more. 70% of Los Angeles’s water usage in 2008 was lawns!

4/n Lawns cover at least 40 million acres of land in the continental US. That means that 2% of the USA is occupied by water-needing inedible European grass, while our diversity of native wildflowers is threatened. Many are now only found in nature reserves.

5/n Lawns began as a means for English nobility to perform their class and status. Flash forward to upper-middle class American suburbia, and ope

6/n It’s time for a GRASSROOTS revolution! Replace your lawn with native wildflowers or a vegetable garden or native warm-season grasses like buffalo grass

I will come back to this thread later to add more when I don’t have several assignments due, but please know that I will die on this hill.

If I am to die on this hill, though, I will remove any turf grass first.