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1. Embed this notice
   Luis Villa (luis_in_brief@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 04:50:51 JST Luis Villa

   Welp, may have to take 30 seconds in my next public presentation for this idea.

   To be clear, most North Americans live on stolen land! But reciting that mechanistically before completely unrelated conferences, with no plan, possibility, or even real desire to give the land back, numbs people to genocide without creating action.

   In contrast, every conference is inevitably related to capitalism, and every participant can chose to make capitalism better or worse. https://social.coop/@luis_in_brief/110051208247493374

   • Embed this notice
     Valerie Aurora (vaurora@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 04:50:44 JST Valerie Aurora

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer

     @luis_in_brief @chrisjrn here's my take on this kind of reaction to land acknowledgments: they are highlighting cognitive dissonance enough to make you want to take action. Some land acknowledgments include a "and here's what you, an ordinary mortal, can do to move us in the direction of justice." I'm guessing those aren't the ones you are hearing

   • Embed this notice
     Luis Villa (luis_in_brief@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 04:50:45 JST Luis Villa

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer

     @chrisjrn To put it a different way: it always feels to me like absolution, not awareness-raising. “I don’t have to do anything more, I gave an acknowledgment!”

     It is possible I’d feel differently If I’d seen even a single one that had a link to a concrete, specific plan of restitution. Could be anything: National Park transfers, seats in Congress, etc. But that would force people to grapple with actual action, and no institution will admit to that as a goal.

   • Embed this notice
     Luis Villa (luis_in_brief@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 04:50:47 JST Luis Villa

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer

     @chrisjrn I’m glad they’re useful in the .au context, but very skeptical that’s the impact in the US.

     It’s so transparently obvious that the entities involved have exactly zero intent to ever give back a square inch of land. If you called them “genocide acknowledgements” they’d be a lot more accurate, but then no one would do them, which… says something, I think.

   • Embed this notice
     Christopher Neugebauer (chrisjrn@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 04:50:49 JST Christopher Neugebauer

     in reply to

     @luis_in_brief
     This take is bizarre.

     Land acknowledgements -- now universal in Australia -- have been key in making awareness of indigenous issues pervasive in settler society, which is, in turn creating space to discuss reconciliation in a more meaningful way.

   • Embed this notice
     Valerie Aurora (vaurora@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 08:07:11 JST Valerie Aurora

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer
     • pchestek

     @pchestek @luis_in_brief @chrisjrn I would advocate for adding a calm to action rather than ending the practice. The Overton window has opened another inch

   • Embed this notice
     pchestek (pchestek@fosstodon.org)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 08:07:15 JST pchestek

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer
     • Valerie Aurora

     @luis_in_brief @vaurora @chrisjrn My experience matches Luis's

   • Embed this notice
     Luis Villa (luis_in_brief@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 08:07:16 JST Luis Villa

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer
     • Valerie Aurora

     @vaurora @chrisjrn Granted my survey is not comprehensive, but I’ve literally never seen that, nor “here’s what we, an institution, are doing (other than performative statements like this one)”. Maybe that sort of call to action is best practice, but it does not appear to be widely-adopted practice (or anecdotally, adopted-at-all practice).

   • Embed this notice
     Valerie Aurora (vaurora@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 20-Mar-2023 09:38:37 JST Valerie Aurora

     in reply to

     • Christopher Neugebauer
     • pchestek

     @pchestek @luis_in_brief @chrisjrn also note that the New Zealand federal government is, literally, giving land back in non-trivial amounts according to treaty, and land acknowledgments are pretty standard there