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Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

whose.land

61–70 of 264 posts

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#61
post #35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also read it in it's initial form, and my reply was based on that. I hate to detail so much from the article content. I strongly disagree with the flagging of that comment. Accusing a nation of being a racist ethno-state is completely on topic, even if controversial. And we regularly see the same accusations levied at America or Israel (I would not want those removed either). I fear a double standard is developing.

Is there any way to refute a flagging? I think the original comment spawned some great conversation which relies on it being visible.

If you had more karma, you could "vouch" for the comment. If enough people were to do so, the [flagged] status would disappear. Failing that, you could email the mods to draw their attention to unfairly flagged comments. They do have good taste, however, so they're likely to leave the comment in question [0] flagged. Unlike IRL, the system at HN is rigged against racist dog whistles. If one is ever tempted to write the sentence "This is not flamebait.", one should think more deeply.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23794262

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#62
This is an informative project that originates from Canada that shows just how many different peoples, nations, and polities used to lie hundreds of years ago on pockets of land that's now largely under the sovereignty of post-colonial megastates.

Their coverage is focused on North America, but there's also entries in South America, Australia, and New Zealand.

This isn't a critique of this project, but a question about the spirit of acknowledgement and reconciliation embodied by this and other projects: Africa bore a crushing toll under colonialism. Its people were kidnapped and sold to slavery, which persisted for hundreds of years. In many cases, they weren't even afforded the dilemma of making unequal treaties. Those who remained in Africa lived under colonial powers until after WWII, then in artificial states inheriting the old colonial borders. Many of these places descended into civil war shortly after their independence, and even today their human development lags behind the rest of the world. Ought we not reconcile that?

Of course, it's not a competition. Injustice done to one ought to stand on its own, without comparison to injustice done to others. But the promise of multinational, classically liberal states like Canada, the United States, Colombia, Australia, is that their people are empowered with the right to thrive regardless of how they found themselves in the country, by blood of conquerors, blood of indigenous peoples, blood of slaves, or as recent immigrants. Belief in this lofty ideal, which doesn't always work in practice when one starts much further behind, is also what sets the stage for the self-reflection, compassion, and the desire for reconciliation.

Other parts of the world aren't so keen on this movement. In Europe, similar desires to recognize past inhabitants of a land are painted as irrendentism, hurt by the association with today's xenophobic nationalists and past conquerors who turned to total war and genocide. In Asia, powerful states regularly engage in the subjugation of ethnic groups to this day, but the powers are too significant to world trade and world peace to condemn and alienate. Preservation of life and limb are surprisingly powerful motivators in suppressing this kind of examination elsewhere. Stability, a reduced level of fear, and a latent sense of guilt among the dominant group in power appear to be the necessary preconditions for this kind of movement to emerge and thrive. This isn't a cynical point, but we ought to collectively acknowledge that.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#63
Human history is a story of conquest, and Native Americans fought - fought, not rolled over on their bellies - and were conquered by white settlers. It might not have been a very fair fight given the disparity in technology but it was a fight nonetheless.

The natives were certainly fighting each other before whites arrived, too - the warrior role is an important part of many tribes' culture.

Should the Comanche give reparations and land back to the Apache because they drove them out and slaughtered them almost to complete genocide?

Should the Ojibwe (who I share blood with) apologize for teaching white settlers the name "Sioux", meaning "little snakes", for the Lakota (their enemy)?

The USA should honor its treaties and acknowledge any wrongdoings, but these land acknowledgements that state the land is "occupied" by a foreign power are absurd and I'll continue to strongly object to them.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SCOTUS left the door open for Congress to change or nullify the treaty that created the reservations in OK. If we (American society) decide we'd rather not deal with the complexities of a massive reservation that overlaps half of OK and includes one of OK's largest cities, we can ask Congress to change the rules.

SCOTUS can't close the door on congress changing the law, though. That's the purpose of congress.

True, poorly phrased - the judgement explained quite plainly that Congress is the correct body to clear up whatever mess exists. And that SCOTUS can't simply throw-away/ignore an otherwise legal treaty.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It almost as if your definition of ‘hear me’ really means ‘silently agree with me and acquiesce to all remedies that I alone propose’.

Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.

Interesting that you seem to be assuming a particular result from "hearing", excluding the reaction of "I hear you, and I just don't care." which is surely a possibility?

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#66
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened in the past, good or bad, is unchangeable. The only way forward is a colorblind approach as building specific policies around race simply encourage further racial division and entrenchment. Preventing racial discrimination (a good thing) should not lead into encouraging racial division, but unfortunately our well meaning desire to be equitable often causes that to happen.

> What happened in the past, good or bad, is unchangeable. The only way forward is a colorblind approach as building specific policies around race simply encourage further racial division and entrenchment. Of course that's definitely not the only way forward. You can fix unequal distributions of resources by, well, redistributing the resources, which requires acknowledging the existence of different groups and the hi…

The problem isn't remediation for an injustice. The problem is the overt and explicitly racial language and philosophy behind your arguments for remediation. The problem is the inability to remediate history. There is no such thing as cosmic justice.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#67
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It almost as if your definition of ‘hear me’ really means ‘silently agree with me and acquiesce to all remedies that I alone propose’.

Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.

You failed to presume that the OP did that and thereafter still came to their conclusion.

Instead, once you realised that the OP had not capitulated to your point of view, you belittled and dismissed it as not listening/hearing

How else does one hear you and then answer: ‘nah you are wrong, and here is why...’

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened in the past, good or bad, is unchangeable. The only way forward is a colorblind approach as building specific policies around race simply encourage further racial division and entrenchment. Preventing racial discrimination (a good thing) should not lead into encouraging racial division, but unfortunately our well meaning desire to be equitable often causes that to happen.

The concept of a colorblind approach ignores the existence of historical context. One might as well take a disability-blind approach to whether buildings need wheelchair ramps.

People today are generally not limited by the historical context from which they come. Your parents' individual personalities and ability to raise you does matter, but broader historical context matters very little, unless we try to make it so and that generally just causes conflict.

People in wheelchairs are on the other hand affected by the presence or absence of wheelchair ramps.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#69
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.

Interesting that you seem to be assuming a particular result from "hearing", excluding the reaction of "I hear you, and I just don't care." which is surely a possibility?

I'm talking about hearing from the heart and not just in the technical sense that might say "Ok, you said your piece and I heard it, now can we just move on". I believe that most people won't respond dismissively to the suffering of others, if the conditions for hearing each other, really listening and acknowledging, are in place. But it's painful and we avoid those conditions as much as possible. For example, I heard a story about a little girl at one of the residential schools in Canada where the teacher would stick a pin through her tongue when she was caught speaking her native language. It's really hard to hear something like that. Much easier to say "I don't care", although we normally put it that in more self-serving language. And underlying "I don't care" is something more like, "I can't bear this".

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#70
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happened in the past, good or bad, is unchangeable. The only way forward is a colorblind approach as building specific policies around race simply encourage further racial division and entrenchment. Of course that's definitely not the only way forward. You can fix unequal distributions of resources by, well, redistributing the resources, which requires acknowledging the existence of different groups and the hi…

The problem isn't remediation for an injustice. The problem is the overt and explicitly racial language and philosophy behind your arguments for remediation. The problem is the inability to remediate history. There is no such thing as cosmic justice.

Are you saying that, unlike other injustices where we as a society generally approve of at least attempting to correct the injustice, this particular injustice is unique, and we shouldn't even attempt to remediate? Or do you oppose all attempts to correct past injustices because "cosmic justice" doesn't exist? I don't hope for cosmic justice, I think justice is up to us humans.

Nothing about my argument relies on racial language or philosophy, any more than my argument for returning stolen property relies on "'thief'-like language or philosophy." My argument for remediation is simply that the injustice occurred, and I think our society should attempt to correct this past injustice just like other past injustices.

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