Land Acknowledgments

[downer]

I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Obviously, from a theoretical point of view, Thrasymachus was wrong. But pragmatically, well, he had a point.

[marshwiggle]

I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Here's an analogy to illustrate that point:

Suppose you buy a car, and after a few months you find out that the car was stolen. You didn't know it was stolen when you bought it. You would probably feel bad about it. You could give the car back to the original owner if you were really serious about "justice". If you claim to feel "guilty" about owning a stolen car, you could even turn yourself in to police and have yourself charged with theft.
What's far more likely is that you'll demand that the original owner gets "compensated", by either the insurance company, the government, or both. (NOT by you.)

In reality, I haven't seen a single person advocating "apologies" who has given their own property and assets to any indigenous person or group. What people claim as "feeling guilty" seems much more like moral Munchausen Syndrome.

[mahagonny]

How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

[Parasaurolophus]

I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Here's an analogy to illustrate that point:

Suppose you buy a car, and after a few months you find out that the car was stolen. You didn't know it was stolen when you bought it. You would probably feel bad about it. You could give the car back to the original owner if you were really serious about "justice". If you claim to feel "guilty" about owning a stolen car, you could even turn yourself in to police and have yourself charged with theft.
What's far more likely is that you'll demand that the original owner gets "compensated", by either the insurance company, the government, or both. (NOT by you.)

In reality, I haven't seen a single person advocating "apologies" who has given their own property and assets to any indigenous person or group. What people claim as "feeling guilty" seems much more like moral Munchausen Syndrome.

Do you not know what happens when you're discovered to be in possession of stolen property? You don't get to keep it. You're the one on the hook.

Besides, what, exactly, is wrong with advocating or demanding compensation? Especially when the harms at issue happeneda in living memory or, in some cases, ongoing?

How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

Well, social groups have different rules, called 'laws', which are enforced at the group level by the people in charge. These laws outline things like land title and transfer or extinguishment of title. Processes that adhere to these laws are called 'legal', and are not counted as 'theft'. Processes which do not adhere to these laws are called 'illegal', and do count as 'theft'.

More importantly, extant law here requires that the government enter into treaties for use of all the land. It did so for some of the country's land, but not the vast majority. At this point, settlement and so on on some of that territory is a fait accompli, but the situation is different for sparsely-inhabited but resource-rich land a few hundred kilometres north of the American border. In those cases, however, the state has a long history of murdering (engineering famines, etc.) or displacing people to appropriate land. In some cases, those forced displacements are within living memory. The state also has a long and recent history of just going in and building whatever, legal duties to consult be damned.

[mahagonny]

How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

Well, social groups have different rules, called 'laws', which are enforced at the group level by the people in charge. These laws outline things like land title and transfer or extinguishment of title. Processes that adhere to these laws are called 'legal', and are not counted as 'theft'. Processes which do not adhere to these laws are called 'illegal', and do count as 'theft'.

Laws: you are referring to things like 'society prohibits you from setting fire to police cruisers and stealing from retail stores even though you may be very upset because George Floyd has died.'
Why am I listening to you?

[Parasaurolophus]

Because I'm right?

And because we aren't talking about Black people?

[artalot]

It seems to me there are two levels: peoples who inhabited the land before the arrival of Europeans but who no longer existed at the time that Europeans arrived in the Americas (a very small number of named and known peoples); and a much larger group of Indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed, systematically wiped out and with whom treaties were made and then often broken.
The first group are part of the history of the Americas, and like the Celts in Britain, should simply be part of our history. Yet, they are not. My guess is that most people here have heard of the Celts but not the Hopewell or Tiwanaku peoples, which is just silly when you think about it. The second group have been done material and cultural harm by Europeans and continue to be underrepresented as both students and professors at institutions of higher education. And, again, if you know who the Italians are but not the Caddo, that is a relic of Euro-American colonialism. We don't need to be told that the Saxons inhabited Britain. We do need to be told that the Kickapoo once inhabited lands in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, but were forcibly removed to Texas and Northern Mexico, then again to Oklahoma, where most of their land was taken when the US government disbanded the reservation in 1893.
Land acknowledgements remind us of our American history, something which began long before the founding of the United States and that continues to be made today. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that the reservations of five nations in Oklahoma were never legally and that the Muscogee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole peoples still own that land.

TL;DR - if you are American and you know who the Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Britons, etc. and not the names of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas, you have proven that land acknowledgements are necessary to the understanding of American history. 

[bio-nonymous]

"TL;DR - if you are American and you know who the Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Britons, etc. and not the names of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas, you have proven that land acknowledgements are necessary to the understanding of American history. "
[/quote]

There are 574 federally recognized tribes (those with whom formal treaties were made with the USA), and countless others either extinct or who did not enter into treaties; thus i would hazard that knowing them all or even most would be a pretty difficult task. If reparations were in order for anyone, giving federal land back to the Native Americans, including the mineral rights!, should be at the top of the list. How many treaties were torn up once gold or oil was found? I am not saying that any of us alive are responsible, but a lot of Robber Barons and so forth made a lot of money and their descendant still benefit from those shady dealings--never mind shooting all the bison and letting them rot... OK /offsoapbox!

[jimbogumbo]

l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

[downer]

l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

That is a good example.

How much land could be returned to native peoples?

[mahagonny]

l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

That is a good example.

How much land could be returned to native peoples?

Surprising to me that you are taking such an interest in this question here. Aren't you a part-time adjunct professor? If any land were to be returned to someone you won't get any credit for it.

[Anon1787]

While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

[Parasaurolophus]

While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

What makes it insidious? What makes it dogma? And what makes it an attempt to impose dogma? I see a lot of assertions, but not much argument.

You'll recall that syllabi are required to contain a lot of information beyond the basic course outline.

[Anon1787]

While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

What makes it insidious? What makes it dogma? And what makes it an attempt to impose dogma? I see a lot of assertions, but not much argument.

You'll recall that syllabi are required to contain a lot of information beyond the basic course outline.

The additional information in a syllabus tends to focus on academic regulations, legal requirements, additional resources for students, etc. The topic is irrelevant to the subject matter of the course.

It is dogma for UW to insist that only its approved message on the topic may and should be included in the syllabus.

[mamselle]

It can also just be policy, and you do it.

M.