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Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

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Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#11

Post by joshuakelly »

Gunax wrote: post #10
joshuakelly wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please try to make high quality comments on Hacker News. Here are the public guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html There are plenty of high quality, _critical_ comments and discussion to be made on this submission and broader subject - why eschew that in favor of flamebait? edit: You've since edited your comment, but I still think it could be substantially improved if you want an interesting (a…

I don't agree that's its flamebait, and I am even skeptical of the concept of flamebait as one person's flamebait is another's honest opinion. In fact I think the comment in question is a strait forward and honest opinion that is just missing the usual euphemisms and massaging that usually accompany such controversial topics. And I also think that questioning whether tribal pseudo sub-states should exist is completel…

The original comment has changed significantly. It was much more terse in its initial posting. I think another important factor to keep in mind here is age of account.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#12

Post by baddox »

simonsarris wrote: post #4

Somehow I doubt the Russians, English, Spanish, French etc that arrived in the Americas landed on a Westphalian continent. I think maps like this give the wrong impression. Wabanaki (among others) invited French colonists to settle Quebec in part to check (and perhaps attack) the Mohawk, among other conflicts. ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars I think it is almost universally agreed that the French treate…

This map contains a lot of overlapping and very rounded regions that I think convey that it's rough areas of settlement rather than some internationally-recognized partition of the land.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#15

Post by notJim »

baddox wrote: post #12
simonsarris wrote: post #4

Somehow I doubt the Russians, English, Spanish, French etc that arrived in the Americas landed on a Westphalian continent. I think maps like this give the wrong impression. Wabanaki (among others) invited French colonists to settle Quebec in part to check (and perhaps attack) the Mohawk, among other conflicts. ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars I think it is almost universally agreed that the French treate…

This map contains a lot of overlapping and very rounded regions that I think convey that it's rough areas of settlement rather than some internationally-recognized partition of the land.

The FAQ also contains this, and more nuanced discussion about what the map means.

Why are we recognizing more than one Nation on this territory?

Indigenous history stretches back thousands and thousands of years. Some Indigenous nations were nomadic, while many had permanent communities and seasonal communities. Often, boundaries between territories overlap because the Indigenous Nations were continuously sharing the land and negotiating agreements through their own diplomatic and legal systems.

But heaven forbid we try to understand something before immediately assigning it to a particular side in the culture war du jour.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#16

Post by S33V »

dlivingston wrote: post #6
hhernandez wrote: post #2

"Indigenous Nations" are ethnotribal-pseudostates. They are racist and problematic. Claiming that some land is "Native Land" is the same as claiming some land is "White land". This is not flamebait. The reservation system is a relic of a time when both the white European settlers AND the Natives saw themselves as separate enough to be unable to live together in a single Nation. It is time we undo these artificial rac…

Can you explain further? I don’t see how you reach your conclusion from your premise. Or, how you reach your premise at all.

Not the original commenter, but what I'm taking from it is that the notion of land ownership was/is foreign to indigenous people. Given that, using the term native land can be misrepresenting native history. I'm not sure what the alternative verbiage would be to describe an area has inhabited by an indigenous tribe. Urban Native Era, a pretty large Native movement/brand, holds the slogan "You Are On Native Land" and I believe they are holding themselves to a pretty high standard of racial sensitivity.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#17

Post by baddox »

hhernandez wrote: post #2

"Indigenous Nations" are ethnotribal-pseudostates. They are racist and problematic. Claiming that some land is "Native Land" is the same as claiming some land is "White land". This is not flamebait. The reservation system is a relic of a time when both the white European settlers AND the Natives saw themselves as separate enough to be unable to live together in a single Nation. It is time we undo these artificial rac…

> If we decide that White land is a racist concept, which it is, how can we not apply that same reasoning to everyone else

I think there's a pretty obvious difference between referring to land in historical North America as "Native land" and calling it "White land." And the specific label doesn't matter much, you could say "European land" or "colonized land" and the point remains unchanged.

Your comment seems like the standard appeal to "colorblindness," as if one group of people can invade or otherwise oppress another group, actively set up a vastly unequal distribution of resources and freedoms, and then claim that the only way forward is to deliberately ignore the history and even the existence of the different groups. But of course, to ignore those now is to explicitly support the status quo, and the status quo is still dominated by the historical unequal distribution of resources and freedoms between the groups.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#18

Post by Gunax »

So the case at hand is about the prosecution of a tribal member by the state court.

While I think the SC made the correct legal decision, I am worried about the implications of this. Do we really want to have separate legal systems based on ethnicity or tribal membership? What if the tribe legalizes marijuana but the state doesn't? What if the punishments in one are more severe than another?

Typically the jurisdiction of crime is based on territory, not ethnicity.

Im not a lawyer and I'm not American, so I could of course be completely misunderstanding what the implications are.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#19

Post by dextralt »

dlivingston wrote: post #6
hhernandez wrote: post #2

"Indigenous Nations" are ethnotribal-pseudostates. They are racist and problematic. Claiming that some land is "Native Land" is the same as claiming some land is "White land". This is not flamebait. The reservation system is a relic of a time when both the white European settlers AND the Natives saw themselves as separate enough to be unable to live together in a single Nation. It is time we undo these artificial rac…

Can you explain further? I don’t see how you reach your conclusion from your premise. Or, how you reach your premise at all.

It is a very widely accepted notion (among everyone who matters) that ethnostates have no place in the modern world. Hell, it is nearly as universally accepted that the very concept of "ethnicity" is problematic. So why should it not be applied in these cases? Why do some groups deserve their own land, but others don't? Either we all do or nobody does.
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