Chris, I sure like your anger, and I need to hear it. When the land acknowledgement thing started up, I wasn't sure how to respond. It has always felt hollow to me, most of what's on social media does, which is one reason I finally made my escape from every platform. Social media is a place where people can persuade themselves they have acted, when really, they have done nothing but scream, shame, and act concerned. That doesn't give me insight into what is right and good action, but I know that piling on hollow statement after hollow statement is utterly pointless. I want connection with real people. I want to talk--for real--about hard stuff and good stuff and worthwhile stuff. And, btw, reading your book made my life a little better for a while--hard, real and worthwhile. I loved it. I'm going to read it again.
IMO acknowledgement is necessary but not sufficient. As are small steps like recognizing nations and returning land (eg the Bison Range). It's obviously not my place to decide what *is* sufficient, but a blind man can see what is insufficient. They certainly should have done more at the inauguration.
In contemporary white America, we're struggling to get as far as virtue signaling, rather than the vice signaling we've been wallowing in.
I totally get where you’re coming from re: land acknowledgements as hollow empty, virtue-signaling gestures. Still, on formal, public occasions (like city council meetings where they could do that instead of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance), I don’t think you can remind people enough that the foundation of this country was theft. Most land acknowledgements I hear, though, are too passively worded. They should also acknowledge the acts of violence that enabled the theft. Like Missoula area LA’s should mention the Hellgate Treaty and the bullshit coercion that underpinned it.
Thanks for the surprise shoutout Chris. One of the many frustrations of the "give Biden time" comments is how they derail discussion, which is what happened in that Twitter exchange - suddenly it's about Biden and not about the education offered by an incredibly well respected writer and teacher. It's a total whitewashing (and it took me two comments before I realized "hey wait a minute!") I only discovered Estes a few months ago and I really admire his work. I'll probably be adding Our History is the Future to my tall stack of reading soon!
Thanks for your anger Chris, so important to hear. During that entire ceremony I was wondering “where are the Indigenous Americans?”
The path forward is so overwhelming—there is so much wrong in this country! When I first heard an acknowledgement of “the land we stand on...” (a few years ago at a conference
in Colorado) I thought, wow, we’re finally getting somewhere. But now I hear it and I cringe. It’s like: well, the Blackfeet used to live here a long time ago but, too bad, they don’t anymore; we do. Pisses me off!
I so appreciate your writing. Thank you for all your words.
My main thoughts right now regarding Biden are simple: forward progress right now is simply turning away from the cliff we've been trying to fling ourselves off. True progress is a ways off. It's not helpful that there are many who feel that a Blue Congress and White House means there's no more work to be done.
I’ve been thinking a lot about being a good ancestor recently. The dominant culture is so focused on success for yourself, or self-actualization, that trying to think of being a good ancestor takes extra effort. But when I think of the grandparents whose characters and choices push me to be better, I realize that the examples of humanity they left me with was worth far more than any personal achievements.
Hi Chris - as a "Colonial" (or so i am constantly pushed to accept these days) i am overjoyed that the indigenous were instrumental in shutting down the Keystone XL. I am also an Albertan, by the way, a member of the community poised to be most economically compromised by this decision, one that not a few indigenous peoples up here are NOT happy about. They'd rather have the pipeline, factions of them. But hey, the entire machine age has been a disaster to the living planet. Good riddance to the Alberta oil industry, come what may. (Good riddance to the machine age, whenever that happens. It will.) These not my people for the most part anyway, these Albertans. Pretty sure i have no people. Scattered sympathetic individuals is as good as it gets.
Pertaining to "stolen land" on the this continent. I would really enjoy hearing an indigenous take - cleansed of rancor, of clouding emotion, a "just the facts" take - on this subject placed not in the accepted political context of our time, which is at least 50% emotion/outrage-driven, but rather in the full quiet context of history. For instance, I am native to what was once Attawondironk land, land of the "Neutrals." They were once the largest Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nation of the eastern woodlands, with permanent settlements of thousands in what is today southern Ontario. They were ended up slaughtered to extinction by other, genocidal Haudenosaunee nations. Their land not just taken, but made extinct as a people. A total genocide. Then how about Lakota? As recently as the earlier 19th century, while colonials were wrapping-up their stealing of land in the east, the Lakota were in a profound expansion phase on the plains. Where were they expanding to? Other indigenous lands, lands they stole, driving out the former occupants. Why were the Lakota on the plains in the first place? Their original lands were stolen from them, by the Ojibwe. How about the Comanche, rulers for hundreds of years of a vast southern plains empire known then as Comancheria? How did this empire come to be theirs? They stole these lands - from the Apache whom they drove remorselessly onto the most marginal desert wastes to sink or swim.
I am honestly not trying to inflame here, i am significantly on the indigenous side of things. I would like to know how they are so upset over this "stolen land" thing when the people who stole it were simply behaving as they had behaved not just for a few hundred, but for some 14,000 years, more or less. A standing policy of land theft, and if genocide was the cost, was there any sleep lost over this, by the Haudenosaunee say? We came here, we did just like you did only on a much larger scale, (and this also goes for exterminating the bison, a whole rich assemblage of other plains megafauna having already disappeared at indigenous hands long before the place got even a whif of a European colonial.) And you hate us for it. What about this double-standard? Where is the discussion here? Can we address this without losing it? I grant it's all profoundly inconvenient to the pure, black/white victim/oppressor narratives that are all the fashion right now.
Anyways, my guess is few of the current thieving occupiers of what was for a span the stolen lands occupied by various thieving indigenous bands are gonna give 'em all back to their most recent previous thieving occupiers any more willingly than the thieving Comanche were about to give up their stolen Comancheria. It's all water-under-the-bridge. I honestly don't think the divisive narratives of today are going to work for humanity, and that's what we all are now, just humanity. One people, like it not. Fact is, this continent was overpopulated by hunter-gather standards before the colonials got here, or why else was so much indigenous land-theft going on? It's now grotesquely overpopulated by ANY standards. We have oil to thank for that, so once again good-riddance to the Keystone. In the meantime how long do you suppose it will be before all these divisive narratives drive us to mass bloodshed again amongst our shared humanity? Seems to me when apprised of the record (and most are not apprised of it) we were ALL a bunch of rotten bastards through large swaths of the historic record. Even in this we share a common humantiy. Perhaps we should finally start behaving like it. We an all do better than this. That's my take, anyways. What say you on the subject? - Jon www.roughbeast.blog
Chris, I sure like your anger, and I need to hear it. When the land acknowledgement thing started up, I wasn't sure how to respond. It has always felt hollow to me, most of what's on social media does, which is one reason I finally made my escape from every platform. Social media is a place where people can persuade themselves they have acted, when really, they have done nothing but scream, shame, and act concerned. That doesn't give me insight into what is right and good action, but I know that piling on hollow statement after hollow statement is utterly pointless. I want connection with real people. I want to talk--for real--about hard stuff and good stuff and worthwhile stuff. And, btw, reading your book made my life a little better for a while--hard, real and worthwhile. I loved it. I'm going to read it again.
Your honesty helps me be to want to be something more than a self-congratulatory progressive. I'll keep reading, you keep being honest.
I fucking love every word of this.
IMO acknowledgement is necessary but not sufficient. As are small steps like recognizing nations and returning land (eg the Bison Range). It's obviously not my place to decide what *is* sufficient, but a blind man can see what is insufficient. They certainly should have done more at the inauguration.
In contemporary white America, we're struggling to get as far as virtue signaling, rather than the vice signaling we've been wallowing in.
I totally get where you’re coming from re: land acknowledgements as hollow empty, virtue-signaling gestures. Still, on formal, public occasions (like city council meetings where they could do that instead of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance), I don’t think you can remind people enough that the foundation of this country was theft. Most land acknowledgements I hear, though, are too passively worded. They should also acknowledge the acts of violence that enabled the theft. Like Missoula area LA’s should mention the Hellgate Treaty and the bullshit coercion that underpinned it.
Wandered away to read Nick Estes's TRN pamphlet and loved this line: "We make and steward the world together."
Thanks for the surprise shoutout Chris. One of the many frustrations of the "give Biden time" comments is how they derail discussion, which is what happened in that Twitter exchange - suddenly it's about Biden and not about the education offered by an incredibly well respected writer and teacher. It's a total whitewashing (and it took me two comments before I realized "hey wait a minute!") I only discovered Estes a few months ago and I really admire his work. I'll probably be adding Our History is the Future to my tall stack of reading soon!
Thanks for your anger Chris, so important to hear. During that entire ceremony I was wondering “where are the Indigenous Americans?”
The path forward is so overwhelming—there is so much wrong in this country! When I first heard an acknowledgement of “the land we stand on...” (a few years ago at a conference
in Colorado) I thought, wow, we’re finally getting somewhere. But now I hear it and I cringe. It’s like: well, the Blackfeet used to live here a long time ago but, too bad, they don’t anymore; we do. Pisses me off!
I so appreciate your writing. Thank you for all your words.
My main thoughts right now regarding Biden are simple: forward progress right now is simply turning away from the cliff we've been trying to fling ourselves off. True progress is a ways off. It's not helpful that there are many who feel that a Blue Congress and White House means there's no more work to be done.
I’ve been thinking a lot about being a good ancestor recently. The dominant culture is so focused on success for yourself, or self-actualization, that trying to think of being a good ancestor takes extra effort. But when I think of the grandparents whose characters and choices push me to be better, I realize that the examples of humanity they left me with was worth far more than any personal achievements.
Keep preaching. I’m here for it. Thanks for this post and for speaking truth into the public space.
Hi Chris - as a "Colonial" (or so i am constantly pushed to accept these days) i am overjoyed that the indigenous were instrumental in shutting down the Keystone XL. I am also an Albertan, by the way, a member of the community poised to be most economically compromised by this decision, one that not a few indigenous peoples up here are NOT happy about. They'd rather have the pipeline, factions of them. But hey, the entire machine age has been a disaster to the living planet. Good riddance to the Alberta oil industry, come what may. (Good riddance to the machine age, whenever that happens. It will.) These not my people for the most part anyway, these Albertans. Pretty sure i have no people. Scattered sympathetic individuals is as good as it gets.
Pertaining to "stolen land" on the this continent. I would really enjoy hearing an indigenous take - cleansed of rancor, of clouding emotion, a "just the facts" take - on this subject placed not in the accepted political context of our time, which is at least 50% emotion/outrage-driven, but rather in the full quiet context of history. For instance, I am native to what was once Attawondironk land, land of the "Neutrals." They were once the largest Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nation of the eastern woodlands, with permanent settlements of thousands in what is today southern Ontario. They were ended up slaughtered to extinction by other, genocidal Haudenosaunee nations. Their land not just taken, but made extinct as a people. A total genocide. Then how about Lakota? As recently as the earlier 19th century, while colonials were wrapping-up their stealing of land in the east, the Lakota were in a profound expansion phase on the plains. Where were they expanding to? Other indigenous lands, lands they stole, driving out the former occupants. Why were the Lakota on the plains in the first place? Their original lands were stolen from them, by the Ojibwe. How about the Comanche, rulers for hundreds of years of a vast southern plains empire known then as Comancheria? How did this empire come to be theirs? They stole these lands - from the Apache whom they drove remorselessly onto the most marginal desert wastes to sink or swim.
I am honestly not trying to inflame here, i am significantly on the indigenous side of things. I would like to know how they are so upset over this "stolen land" thing when the people who stole it were simply behaving as they had behaved not just for a few hundred, but for some 14,000 years, more or less. A standing policy of land theft, and if genocide was the cost, was there any sleep lost over this, by the Haudenosaunee say? We came here, we did just like you did only on a much larger scale, (and this also goes for exterminating the bison, a whole rich assemblage of other plains megafauna having already disappeared at indigenous hands long before the place got even a whif of a European colonial.) And you hate us for it. What about this double-standard? Where is the discussion here? Can we address this without losing it? I grant it's all profoundly inconvenient to the pure, black/white victim/oppressor narratives that are all the fashion right now.
Anyways, my guess is few of the current thieving occupiers of what was for a span the stolen lands occupied by various thieving indigenous bands are gonna give 'em all back to their most recent previous thieving occupiers any more willingly than the thieving Comanche were about to give up their stolen Comancheria. It's all water-under-the-bridge. I honestly don't think the divisive narratives of today are going to work for humanity, and that's what we all are now, just humanity. One people, like it not. Fact is, this continent was overpopulated by hunter-gather standards before the colonials got here, or why else was so much indigenous land-theft going on? It's now grotesquely overpopulated by ANY standards. We have oil to thank for that, so once again good-riddance to the Keystone. In the meantime how long do you suppose it will be before all these divisive narratives drive us to mass bloodshed again amongst our shared humanity? Seems to me when apprised of the record (and most are not apprised of it) we were ALL a bunch of rotten bastards through large swaths of the historic record. Even in this we share a common humantiy. Perhaps we should finally start behaving like it. We an all do better than this. That's my take, anyways. What say you on the subject? - Jon www.roughbeast.blog