![]() The Crossley tract in eastern Palm Springs was built by Lawrence Crossley, an early Black developer who wanted to provide higher quality dwellings for the city’s Black residents, who often could only find sub-standard housing. As the documentary explains, the possibility that the trees could have been planted with the intent of segregating the neighborhood from the golf course, plus the nuisance the tamarisks were continuing to create, raised issues of equity in the community. ![]() The feature docu, which is seeking distribution, recently premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival and screens this week at Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.īut despite the Fox News outrage, it wasn’t that the trees themselves were racist. Originally conceived as a shorter pilot for a possible docuseries, “Racist Trees” turned into a feature doc after Wayfarer Studios came on, with help from producers including Joanna Sokolowski and Courtney Parker. “We just immediately thought there was not only a visual metaphor going on here, but this hidden part of the city that we had no idea about, and figured a lot of people outside, or even inside of Palm Springs, maybe didn’t know either,” says Newens. The article also piqued the interest of documentary directors Sara Newens and Mina T. Reported by Corinne Kennedy, the piece drew worldwide attention, and the idea of “racist trees” riled up Tucker Carlson and other right-leaning media outlets, which fanned outrage over the idea that trees could be cut down as “punishment.” The controversy over whether the trees should be removed might have remained a small local issue if it wasn’t for a 2017 article in the local paper, the Desert Sun.
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