Land Acknowledgments

[marshwiggle]

This is how it seems to me, as long as the term "stolen land" keeps coming up, as it has in this thread. If the university had a statement acknowledging that "We employ slave labor", wouldn't that require said employees to be released?  "We built the student centre with laundered money from drug cartels". Should the student centre just go on as normal?

If the institution is suggesting some sort of historical, voluntary or involuntary, complicity in crime, what's the point of doing so if it lacks any specific action of sufficient scope to count as reasonable redress?

Oddly, I agree.

Why "Oddly"?

Of course, tearing down the student union wouldn't help anyone. The money has been spent and the thing has been built. If the institution could afford it, I think you'd say that the right thing to do would be to donate the money to an appropriate group or cause. However, most institutions probably couldn't do that without significant, and possibly ruinous, financial hardship. It isn't really reasonable to say "well, we screwed up and accepted money from the wrong people so lots of people uninvolved in that decision are going to lose their jobs."

However, yeah, restitution is about actually taking substantial actions. It's good for people to be aware of the history behind institutions, but that isn't about wallowing in guilt-it should be about figuring out what the institutions could do going forward to address the systematic inequalities they have participated in-and often continue to participate in.

Virtue-signalling is like moral deficit financing. People or organizations who want something now that they haven't earned take on debt. Individuals who want credit now for some action they imagine themselves doing in the future virtue-signal.

Remember in 2015 when Justin Trudeau was elected and wept for all of the oppressed groups of people he was going to help? Has his performance in the past 7 years been substantially better than all of his predecessors, say in matters like  providing  clean water and sanitation in indigenous communities?

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

[Anon1787]

I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

[Parasaurolophus]

I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

And sure, I'm an asshole for using bad words to describe someone. But if you aren't willing to apply the principle of charity to make your point, you can't expect it to be applied to you in return.

[mahagonny]

I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

And sure, I'm an asshole for using bad words to describe someone. But if you aren't willing to apply the principle of charity to make your point, you can't expect it to be applied to you in return.

You don't have tenure, do you? Is part of this that he gets to be an asshole in public, and you have to use a moniker.

[Anon1787]

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

As Locke observed, burning zeal bends "all its Nerves either to the introducing of Ceremonies, or to the establishment of Opinions." A bit of satire of the land acknowledgement ritual is treated like blasphemy and the guilty should be subject to Two Minutes Hate. Things might be better if all universities went back to their religious roots so that there would be no uncertainty about whether people are expected to adhere to the local dogma.

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

[marshwiggle]

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

Absolutely. Looking at an earlier post, I realized something:

So: as I see it, the purpose of a land acknowledgement is to prepare the ground for a genuine apology, and for moving forward productively. How and where we move forward from a land acknowledgement is, of course, a complex matter. But it's not all that different from how we respond to apologies. Some apologies are hollow non-apologies, and those aren't productive. Some are just pro-forma, and those aren't productive either. But when we receive a genuine apology, we can begin the process of moving forward.

The implication here seems to be that it's possible somehow from the expression of the apology to differentiate between words that will lead to significant action from those that won't.  Anyone who has heard enough affirmations of faith will know that's totally false. (The most obvious problem is that many who may feel totally committed one moment will fail to follow through at a later date when the cost is too high.)

[mahagonny]

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

Absolutely. Looking at an earlier post, I realized something:

So: as I see it, the purpose of a land acknowledgement is to prepare the ground for a genuine apology, and for moving forward productively. How and where we move forward from a land acknowledgement is, of course, a complex matter. But it's not all that different from how we respond to apologies. Some apologies are hollow non-apologies, and those aren't productive. Some are just pro-forma, and those aren't productive either. But when we receive a genuine apology, we can begin the process of moving forward.

The implication here seems to be that it's possible somehow from the expression of the apology to differentiate between words that will lead to significant action from those that won't.  Anyone who has heard enough affirmations of faith will know that's totally false. (The most obvious problem is that many who may feel totally committed one moment will fail to follow through at a later date when the cost is too high.)

They probably figure that any sacrifice made by a university will be compensated by the government, so the worst that will be experienced is inconvenience, followed by praise for their generosity and enhanced stature. so why would the prospect of following through on the apology be frightening? Someone else will do the paying.
In terms of people caring enough to actually give something up: Imagine a legal finding that declares  Para's home is on someone else's land and must be returned. What will he do then? What any normal person with money in the bank would do. Hire a real estate attorney and fight.

[mamselle]

This institution:

   https://thewalters.org/

has a good layout: it's an optional click-on, near the top of the main page, with a considered, well-developed text and discussion:

   https://thewalters.org/about/land/

M.

[Istiblennius]

I'd like to share a brief story that I find meaningful to the discourse.

Three years ago I was asked at the last minute to make opening remarks for a campus event. At the time, our campus had no formal land acknowledgement practice, but a colleague I find to be thoughtful and engaged with student-centered practice had shared a land acknowledgement at a recent workshop. So I took a moment and (kind of clumsily) began my remarks with a land acknowledgement.

I found out later in the day that at least one indigenous student had been there, and apparently approached one of the conference organizers with tears in her eyes to comment on how she felt seen and valued by hearing that land acknowledgement. This student knew that no-one was going to be returning anything to her and her community. But she also felt like the people in power at this institution cared about her and her experience as a fellow human.

[mamselle]

Which is exactly the point.

I've had something similar happen on tours, when I describe gravestones for enslaved blacks and the two we know of for assimilated/ acculturated/ enslaved (their histories are complex) indigenous individuals with the same level of detail and attention to their lives' stories as that given to white settlers.

And for naming them as 'enslaved,' not glossing over their condition as having been, simply, 'servants,' (which their stones do) but saying, "OK, look at how they're named. There's no last name. Do the other stones all give first and last names? So what does that really mean?"

People just want to know they're not invisible...not too much to ask, nor to hard to accommodate.

M.