Over the past five years, the shadow of conflict and genocide has darkened the lands of Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, and even the United States, each bearing unique scars yet sharing a common tragedy.

In Palestine, olive groves—symbols of endurance and peace—have been uprooted as ancestral lands are contested, threatening a cornerstone of Palestinian identity. In the Congo, the fertile soils that yield cassava and plantains, staples of local diets, have been soaked in the blood of those caught in cycles of violence fueled by resource exploitation. Sudan has witnessed renewed waves of ethnic cleansing, displacing communities whose lives were intimately tied to the cultivation of sorghum and millet, grains that have long sustained its people. Libya, fractured by war, has seen its date palm oases neglected, their fruits, once symbols of abundance, withering under the weight of instability. Lebanon, grappling with political collapse and sectarian strife, has seen terraces of olive and grape cultivation—pillars of its Mediterranean diet—left vulnerable.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Black Americans continue to face an ongoing genocide through systemic violence, mass incarceration, economic disenfranchisement, and cultural erasure. These atrocities, whether marked by war or the slow grind of institutional racism, share a common thread: the deliberate dismantling of communities and the attempted erasure of histories and identities..