They’re fucking passive. They should directly implicate the US. Instead of “We are on unceded land of the Salish people” we should say “The US government stole this land from the Salish people and genocided their tribe”
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The problem with them is that they’re bullshit. We have them here in Australia “We recognise that this is the land of XYZ”
No you don’t. You haven’t given those people any legal right over their land. You might as well be saying nothing.
Yeah each one should at least come with “we donated x% of our proceeds from this to [the tribe]” or whatever. Something actually tangible. Otherwise it’s just, and we all know this to be true of course, self righteous lip service
It’s actually worse than saying nothing, it’s basically sarcastic and kicking them while they’re down
“Oh yeah? You want your land back? Well too bad”
Aw well, bud, seems like you ain’t a fella Canuck?
Well, I stay by your statement: land acknowledgements are, at best, useless, if not patronizing…
My problem with land acknowledgements is that they don’t come with any concrete action afterwards. The passive voice “land was taken from you” would almost be bearable of they followed it up with “here’s a qr code to donate” or something.
To me it almost feels like bragging about the land you took. There’s never any intention to do reparations or anything like that.
It does have a bit of the same energy as listing each privilege you enjoy in excruciating detail before you voice your opinion.
Yeah at this point everyone fucking knows the land was stolen. It just seems like a condescending brag at this point
This is a good point.
I think there are probably a lot of things wrong with them. By example, I know of groups that use land acknowledgements and are also Zionist, which should say a few things about how land acknowledgements are understood (performative) and what impact they really have (a spirit of virtue signaling and whitewashing). Basically… these are people that would happily give land acknowledgments for a (hypothetical) future ethnically cleansed Palestine but will actively promote the ethnic cleansing when it’s right in front of them.
The only good ones I’ve seen throw some very serious Land Back claims in there along with other demands.
There is an organic food farm around here that lets local leftist groups use it for training. I went there once and the owner woman was all land acknowledgement this land acknowledgement that, I’m just taking care of this land for the local indigenous tribe. Then I go on her instagram and it is stuffed full of zionist shit lmao. These things are somehow totally compatible.
If I had to guess they’re probably in that sect viewing zionism as a wildly successful indigenous land-back movement for Jewish people (as though this pasty white woman were indigenous to the Levant or israel’s land claims have any historicity at all) and so tell themselves they have solidarity with indigenous people on occupied Turtle Island as a “displaced” person.
“I have an announcement: I recognize that I stole this hat from you. I’m interested in showcasing the history of this hat when it belonged to you by including images of you on the back of it.”
“Oh cool, but can I just have my hat back?”
“No, it’s too late for that, I’m already wearing it.”
I think land acknowledgements should only be used as a bit, like before sex or bowling. All current situations where companies and governments are doing land acknowledgments should, at the very least, be a check for reparations and ideally some form of reform to integrate indigenous leadership into positions of power.
Your issue made me realize how land acknowledgments are basically the equivalent of those little provenance placards in every Western museum: “This masterful example of 17th West African jewellery is from Mali.” The way people puff up their chests from making those little land acknowledgment declarations compared to that.
Okay, cool story, so how did it get here then, to where it is now? Crickets, of course, from the curators. And sure, if you consider it better than the alternative of them straight up claiming it materialized out of thin air and rendered corporeal form inside the glass case or them lying that the West African jewellery was actually made in Birmingham, thus making it their national property, it is “better” than those things.
But there’s no acknowledgment of the process; the nature of now things ended up as they are now; whether maybe, just maybe, there should be more sharing with the descendants of its original owners rather than hoarded by the failsons of Western imperialism, let alone reparation and repatriation.
Through this, it also reveals the fundamental conceit of land acknowledgments. They’ll never get away with declaring some random Anglo-Europeans autochthonously sprung out of the dirt, making them indigenous to their stolen lands. They’re too proud of the claim to heritage to old Europe and their perception of the settler-colonial story, in any case. As such, these land acknowledgments are no concessions at all for them to make. There’s no threat of cognitive dissonance to their settler narrative when they spout such acknowledgments. All the thorns of the real flower have been trimmed away, leaving just the plastic rose petals representing their modern narrative of “reconciliation” glued on top.
I mean if you’re org is doing land acknowledgements then it’s free to say them as aggressively as they want. Or even better, actually do something about it. For us the passive language came from the local first nation itself so I’m not really gonna question it. I’ve always read the request to do land acknowledgments as “In case of revolution, we call dibs”.
I wish people would stop unironically saying “genocided” or “doing a genocide”
‘Genocide’ seems to be one of those words that will eventually verb its way to new usage in common language.
what’s the correct term to use?
committed genocide
When people say “X were genocided” they mean the victims of genocide, not the perpetrators. What’s a word to describe the state of having genocide done to your people?
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Eh, the meaning is clear, and it’s not diluted. Language is a tool not a rule
Sorie 😞
I’ve always felt uneasy about them. They seem like gloating if there’s no action involved.
What’s a land acknowledgment? Is this a thing that happens in some countries?
A purity ritual done in the west to absolve guilt, like a prayer at a beginning of a meeting. As OP said, if it was serious about actually trying to be decolonial instead of just posturing it wouldn’t use passive voice but would point to a guilty party and advocate action, instead of just passively acknowledging defeat over and over
It’s a thing lib governments/companies do in the US/Canada/Australia, typically at the start of presentations or as part of an e-mail signature, where they say something like “We recognize that we are on the unceded land of local indigenous people”. Depending on who’s saying it, it can be either sincere (but misguided) or virtue signaling (typically from the government entities that would actually have the power to do something: “People care about this so we’ll say it but we’re sure as hell not doing anything”).
IMO it’s a lib way of recognizing that we stole and genocided our way through the land of the US/Canada/Australia and we feel bad which ironically makes it less likely for people to do anything to actually support righting those wrongs because they feel that at least something is being done. Kind of like how voting in our sham federal elections that will result in no change is 100% of the political activity of the average american, and they feel like they’ve done their part.
ironically makes it less likely for people to do anything to actually support righting those wrongs because they feel that at least something is being done
I don’t actually think this is true. I guarantee you if you talked to people who do land acknowledgements they’d be more in favor of land back policies than your average USian who has never even thought about it.
I believe it started in academia, in sociological or anthropological circles. It was a thing that the more left-leaning or social-liberal professors started to do to challenge their students and raise awareness in a somewhat non-confrontational manner (If you started telling all the rich white liberal kids that they were the enemy and beneficiaries of genocide right off the bat they will go aggro and storm out and clam up).
From there it got co-opted by the administrative class that rent-seeks off the massive cost of higher education, and from there it jumped from consultants to HR departments to PR departments of corporations and NGOs, and eventually to the DNC. It really gained speed during 2020 during the George Floyd protests as yet another way to jump on the bandwagon of progressive causes like BLM.
That’s such an odd thing to do lol like I get it if your heart is in the right place but actually doing something would go a lot farther.
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i like the ones where they thank native peoples for allowing them to hold an event and its like what do you mean stupid it was conquered by force. even the “freely signed” contracts ceding territory were agreed upon under implicit threat of military action.
I get what you’re saying. At the same time, I’ve gotten so fed up with certain mayos that I almost completely disregard white leftists’ (often terrible) opinions about marginalized racial and ethnic groups. I’m never gonna scold some random aboriginal person for doing a Welcome to Country and any non-aboriginal who does needs to mind their fucking business instead of messing with native people.
Can you elaborate on why you disregard white leftists’ opinions on race? Also what do you mean with “mind their fucking business”?
I don’t disregard their opinions. I’m just skeptical of certain, anti-idpol leftists who constantly talk down to marginalized groups and minimize their cultures, desires, fears, existence, etc. They complain the most about white guilt but clearly must feel it the most if they can’t stop picking apart land acknowledgments and other, minor, progressive acts that aren’t directly centered around their needs.
I think this is a mischaracterization of both my post here as well as the general attitude of leftists towards this issue. I don’t take issue with someone who isn’t white talking about the experiences and political goals relevant to them. I take issue with liberals making a land acknowledgment as a means of rinsing their conscious and postering themselves as allies to marginalized people, when liberalism itself is antithetical to the advancement of marginalized people. An indigenous person saying “you’re on unceded territory” is way different than a white person saying “you’re on unceded territory” — I’m taking issue with the latter because it’s the latter that’s the problem when in passive voice. Such a person isn’t sacrificing anything anyway. And so it’s egregious to me that, given that’s the reality, they can’t even be inconvenienced to actually point a finger toward the legitimate enemy in a such a moment. Like even doing that very small, minimum effort thing to put a spotlight on why the territory is unceded, would apparently cause them too much discomfort and would break this conscious-rinsing social paradigm. Generally it’s white people, it’s liberals, etc making land acknowledgments to other white people and liberals. And I don’t think a land acknowledgment is a silly thing in itself, I just think they’re being disingenuously utilized to shore up the status quo even more. And I’d say that is what the vast majority of leftists correctly think on this issue
I haven’t met a leftist, white or otherwise, that does that. If there are indeed leftists like this then they must be baby-leftists who still need deprogramming. Where I’m from it’s basically impossible to be a leftist while having reactionary views on race, even if you’re white.
