“We almost died for these greens”: A journey through my food desert

These new kids will never know what it’s like to get your head busted over some lettuce and I’m thankful for that

By D. Watkins
Editor at Large
Salon
Mar 13, 2024

Excerpt:

Urban farming is changing the world and leaving me more optimistic than my 14-year-old self could ever imagine. I truly believe that easy access to fruits and vegetables will not only heal our bodies, but transform our communities in general.

I say this, because I was driving down Whitelock, a block in west Baltimore a few weeks ago and saw a scrawny kid running up the street with a pillowcase-sized bag of what looked like kale or collards or something. He was in a black Nike Tech suit and some semi-laced Jordan 4’s. “Shorty, hey kid,” I yelled to the spindly boy through my driver side window, “What’s up?”

The kid shot me a confused look, before he spat, “What you need OG?”

“I’m not trying to be funny, but where you get those vegetables from?”

He pointed down the block to a place called Whitelock Community Farm.

I Googled the spot, came across their Instagram and found a glorious collection of images of beautiful Black people growing fruits and vegetables. “I wonder why we didn’t have this when I was coming up?” I thought to myself.

Initially, I wanted to roll up on them to buy a big bag of greens like the kid, or grapes or something, but I had so much running around to do and wasn’t sure of when I would make it back to the house to put the groceries away. So I called my boy Dro, who started his health kick before me to put him on with Whitelock. “Yo, I’m over west,” I say. “They have a farm for the people around there. What east Baltimore have?”

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