Land acknowledgments in the problem of Israel, June 22, 26.

Introduction.

So let us talk about that impotent contemporary ritual called the land acknowledgement.

Nowadays, when an event or activity is going to be taking place somewhere or an institution is opening,

the proceedings will often begin with a land acknowledgement.

This is a little empty gesture recognizing the indigenous people who used to live there,

along with the implication that nothing will be done about it.

For example, the recent opening of the Obama Library in Chicago, that architectural freak show,

began with a land acknowledgement.

There was a veritable festival of tribes involved, and I don't know French, so pardon my

pronunciations here. First came the Ojibwe, the Odawa, the Potawatomi Nations. Also Rans included

the Miami-Mia, Ho-Chunk, Minomi, Sack and Fox, Peoria, Kaskia, Wea, Kickapoo,

and the Mascutin.

Now, of course, such hat-tip land acknowledgments make no practical difference whatever to these

indigenous peoples who are still as displaced as they ever were.

But it does help individuals who have that itch of white self-loathing to scratch that

itch and in public too.

Some practical problems.

The first big problem with land acknowledgments is the practical one.

Pretty much nobody is living where they should have been living had everybody behaved

as they ought to have done.

Where would we all be living had there been no sin in the world?

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