Since we are repatriating artwork, do we need to discuss…

[UnseenParticipant]

repatriating Native American lands? Should we return the entire land mass of the United States to Native American control? And if not…why not? Might they not manage it better?

Why wouldn’t the logic of repatriating art also apply to land?

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Why not? We could all just move to Palestine.

[_Robert_Participant]

We can’t fix everything so let’s do nothing. That’s the Republican way. It’s exactly what the rich and powerful love. The status quo.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

We can’t fix everything so let’s do nothing. That’s the Republican way. It’s exactly what the rich and powerful love. The status quo.

It’s hard not to read that as, yes, they should control the stolen land, once it’s repatriated.

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Why not? We could all just move to Palestine.

Pelestine? I would think moving us whiteys onto reservations would be more logical and just, assuming we don’t want to go back the UK, France, Spain, etc.

I’m pretty sure the environment would be managed far better.

[AutumnParticipant]

First, I think we can make a distinction between art and land. At a basic level, the utility and need for either is vastly different, and what it means to restore one or the other to its original owners is also vastly different. Which is not to say we shouldn’t return stolen lands; it’s just to say we should not do it because we are repatriating artworks. We should do what is right in either case based on what makes sense for each.

Second, I’ve not understood movements like Land Back to want some sort of absolute return to the past. The intersection of Indigenous Peoples and colonizers isn’t something that can just be undone. However, the way the relationship moves forward could very much change. At a bare minimum, certain lands can be returned without much conflict, sovereignty can be properly recognized and respected, and the resources can be allocated over a long period including plans for healing intergenerational trauma as a result of harms inflicted amongst other things.

When it comes to lands occupied by colonizers, I don’t think there are many suggestions that the current inhabitants be evicted, but rather that land ownership is recognized and that lease agreements are formed for use of the land.

I don’t know what the path forward should look like. But yes, a lot has to be changed and land has to be restored to Indigenous Peoples.

[AutumnParticipant]

[UnseenParticipant]

Native Americans should play a major role (veto power?) in matters involving the environment. Not just in the U.S., but everywhere in the Americas where Europeans have taken power.

Agree? Disagree?

[AutumnParticipant]

In principal. In practice maybe that’s cart before the horse. Indigenous people aren’t a hive mind, and I know in Canada at least, we fucked up their systems of governance. If we look at the case of the Wet’suwet’en and proposed pipelines, there ended up a considerable disconnect between the elected council and hereditary leadership with the former supporting the pipeline and the latter opposing. The Canadian government, of course, is going to recognize the elected council first and foremost when it suits our interests and count that as Indigenous autonomy despite the elected council being a product of an imposed governance method. Which is not to suggest the elected council doesn’t adequately reflect the will of the Wet’suwet’en people, but rather to say we shouldn’t assume as much because that’s not for us to decide.

Custodianship of the land is a matter for everyone who lives on it. So there has to be a cooperative agreement on how to manage moving forward, which is something even most colonizers don’t have. The right to a clean and safe environment isn’t something well recognized for anyone, so cementing that right properly is probably a good starting point. And Indigenous sovereignty should be intrinsic to the recognition of such a right.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

The people who got here first exterminated the Wooly Mammoth and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger and practiced slash-and-burn with forests and fields just so they could get a bead on their prey. Also the Mound-Builders in Ohio, the Pueblo, the Aztecs, the Toltecs, and the Mayans all built cities and no doubt had all the environmental problems associated with cities of their time, without, mind you, the benefits of running water and sewers.

Say what you will about indigenous rights to land, but to say that it would be better environmentally is just “Golden Age/Noble Savage” fantasy talk.

Disclosure: I say all this and have Cherokee and Blackfoot in me.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Changed "zso" to "so.". Wrong Hemisphere
• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Disclosure

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, The people who got here first exterminated the Wooly Mammoth and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger and practiced slash-and-burn with forests and fields just so they could get a bead on their prey. Also the Mound-Builders in Ohio, the Pueblo, the Aztecs, the Toltecs, and the Mayans all built cities and no doubt had all the environmental problems associated with cities of their time, without, mind you, the benefits of running water and sewers. Say what you will about indigenous rights to land, but to say that it would be better environmentally is just “Golden Age/Noble Savage” fantasy talk. Disclosure: I say all this and have Cherokee and Blackfoot in me.

You haven’t been paying attention, Enco, because today’s Native Americans are not ignorant of what we’ve learned from the environmental sciences, but I think that they’d apply the science without feeling that they need to make a profit first before they do anything, which is what we have now.

I took a very good course on Native American anthropology and history, and the instructor once quipped about white people claiming Native American “blood.” “Funny that people only claim heritage of tribes featured in the movies or TV. Cherokee, Navajo, Apache. Why are none of them claiming to have Flathead or Kickapoo blood?”

Also, the quasi-racist fallacy Elizabeth Warren was suffering from is thinking that having Native American DNA somehow makes her a tribe member. Native Americans don’t reckon membership by “blood” and certainly not by DNA. They are more like a social clique. You’re in if they want you in. Theoretically, you could be 100% redheaded and freckly Irish person and be a Navajo…if they accept y0u. And you do that by earning your way in. At the same time, they can banish a member with a 100% blood right to membership, if they find him dangerous, disgusting, or reprehensible in any way.

[Doug HanlonParticipant]

Of course, the Americas were taken from the original inhabitants by force.

If we should ‘cancel’ people — like Thomas Jefferson — who were slave owners two hundred years ago, ie judge them by the standards of civilized countries in the 21st Century, then of course we should return these lands to the descendants of the people who were the subjects of this grand armed robbery.

But that would inconvenience the virtue-signallers along with all the other descendants of the original robbers, so of course it cannot even be considered.

[Author]

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