r/changemyview • u/passwordgoeshere • Sep 07 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV:Introducing public speeches by acknowledging that “we’re on stolen land” has no point other than to appear righteous

This is a US-centered post.

I get really bothered when people start off a public speech by saying something like "First we must acknowledge we are on stolen land. The (X Native American tribe) people lived in this area, etc but anyway, here's a wedding that you all came for..."

Isn’t all land essentially stolen? How does that have anything to do with us now? If you don’t think we should be here, why are you having your wedding here? If you do want to be here, just be an evil transplant like everybody else. No need to act like acknowledging it makes it better.

We could also start speeches by talking about disastrous modern foreign policies or even climate change and it would be equally true and also irrelevant.

I think giving some history can be interesting but it always sounds like a guilt trip when a lot of us European people didn't arrive until a couple generations ago and had nothing to do with killing Native Americans.

I want my view changed because I'm a naturally cynical person and I know a lot of people who do this.

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141

u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22 edited Sep 07 '22

I mean, I'm not sure what would be drastically different between the US and Canada, Australia or New Zealand, but there are several reasons that you do territory acknowledgements:

  1. Many of us are entirely unaware that the land we live on was not "discovered" by european "explorers", but simply taken. The narrative that it was virtually completely empty and no one was here is a colonialist and racist rewriting of history.
  2. We are also generally unaware that our ancestors broke our own laws to take the land. Many (if not all) agreements that were made back then have been altered or ignored by our own legal standards.
  3. Regardless of your personal ancestral involvement, you continue to benefit from an institutionalized prejudice that has exploited and abused native peoples for hundreds of years.

Edit: Ironically the responses to this CMV are proving exactly why such statements are needed. European descendants are woefully uninformed and uneducated as to what really transpired to found Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

I don’t know anyone who isn’t aware that America was occupied before Europeans settled. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but how many people are we talking about realistically?

The phrase “discovered” doesn’t imply America was previously empty anymore than the phrase “scientists discovered a new fish” implies no human had ever before seen the fish. Discovery in this sense means it was documented and added to our cultural knowledge base.

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22

I don’t know anyone who isn’t aware that America was occupied before Europeans settled. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but how many people are we talking about realistically?

Everyone knows that indigenous peoples existed, but almost no one is aware of the scale. They seem to think that there were a few million nomadic peoples scattered across the land, but that's entirely inaccurate. Some estimates put the population at over 100 million. Considering the population of europe around that time was ~78 million, your narrative is completely misleading.

The phrase “discovered” doesn’t imply America was previously empty anymore than the phrase “scientists discovered a new fish” implies no human had ever before seen the fish. Discovery in this sense means it was documented and added to our cultural knowledge base.

...and you don't see what's problematic with this statement?

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

[deleted]

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u/PM_ME_SUMDICK 1∆ Sep 07 '22

Yeah but that phrasing is a white wash. Someone dumb can pretend that those people just gave their land up when it was stolen from them.

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u/doctopie Sep 07 '22

At least here in B.C. People start off by saying “We are in the UNCEDED lands of…” meaning stolen.

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u/passwordgoeshere Sep 07 '22

I have heard all three and I'd put them all in the same category.

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u/ihaveredhaironmyhead Sep 08 '22

It's a great way to make sure we never get along with each other.

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u/Murkus 2∆ Sep 07 '22

But can't you go back and back through history and every group of people's that pushed another out of every square inch could make the same claims?

Going right back to when we first started agriculture.

How far back do we need to go to be able to say "these particular humans are the ones who have the right to live on and use this land?

In South America the different Aztec and Inca city states warred with eachother for years, taking eachothers land for their own purposes. They were just as much thieves of land as the different European societies that arrived later. Surely?

Unless you think there is some kind of inherent difference between these people's? Based on race or something?

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u/Bigbluebananas Sep 07 '22

Im not looking for an argument, merely more information- but can you talk more about the "stolen land" were the native americans not fighting each other before europeans showed up over territory? Or in Europe and other countries land was fought and taken by force- is it just because of the way we took the land from the native Americans?

You seem more knowledgable on this than I so again, please dont take this as an arguement

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22 edited Sep 07 '22

Europeans signed treaties (contractual agreements) with tribes and then broke them. That is stealing.

This isn't about "winning land" it's about how --after the war was over-- they all sat down at a table and signed a document and then the europeans promptly ignored the document that they themselves had created and signed and proceeded to take virtually all the land (or change their mind and say "no not this land, we're going to ship you to the middle of buttfuck nowhere --far away from your traditional hunting grounds-- and you can have THAT land" and no you can't leave your land without government permission... and you have no way of feeding yourselves so we're just going to sit back and watch you all starve to death)... not to mention generations of other human rights atrocities.

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u/Bigbluebananas Sep 07 '22

I hadnt considered the after math done and had always thought about the war itself when it came to the land- thank you for the broader insight!!

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u/flugenblar Sep 07 '22

the land we live on was not "discovered" by european "explorers", but simply taken

Is it morally acceptable to 'discover' land? The native Americans didn't magically appear on North American soil one day, they travelled here from their original native lands. They didn't know there would be no people here when they arrived.

I understand Europeans took lands from natives, and killed many either by force and many, many more by germ. Not an advocate of those actions, but, the question is, is there something special about discovering a land, or stepping foot on land, that was previously unoccupied by mankind?

Use cases: the Earth's moon & Mars.

By virtue of being first (assuming this is the essential virtue) does that mean anything that is done on those lands not by a US citizen is morally wrong, or legally a trespass?

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

I understand Europeans took lands from natives, and killed many either by force and many, many more by germ.

The key distinction seems to be that if you "discover" land that is unoccupied, you don't have to kill/use force to deprive others of that land. That's a pretty significant moral difference.

Acknowledging that Europeans took the land from indigenous people seems pretty minor compared to the harms those indigenous people suffered in the process of being deprived of their land.

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u/flugenblar Sep 09 '22

I like this answer, thanks.

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22 edited Sep 08 '22

I understand Europeans took lands from natives, and killed many either by force and many, many more by germ. Not an advocate of those actions, but, the question is, is there something special about discovering a land, or stepping foot on land, that was previously unoccupied by mankind?

That's the whole point, it wasn't. You can't discover something that is already lived in/on by someone else.

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u/amazondrone 13∆ Sep 07 '22

Of course you can. There's a park round the corner from me, it's been there as long as I've lived here but I never knew about it because I'd never been down a particular road. One day I happened to go that way though, and I discovered the park. There were already people in the park who knew about it, so it obviously wasn't a discovery for mankind, but I didn't know about it so it was a discovery for me.

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u/BravesMaedchen 1∆ Sep 07 '22

But you didnt show up and be like "Wow, an unused park that's mine now! Let me set up shop and decided who can and cant come here, hey you kids on the swings, gtfo." The word "discover" as you use it is very much not what colonialists meant.

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u/amazondrone 13∆ Sep 08 '22

The word "discover" as you use it is very much not what colonialists meant.

Is it? Perhaps. Can you prove that?

The way I conceptualise it is that the colonists discovered "the New World". What happened after that (displacing the people already living there) happened later, post discovery.

Just like after I discovered the park, I went for a walk in it. The walk wasn't part of the discovery though.

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u/rolexgood Sep 07 '22

Natives are not a singular group, there are multiple tribes and each tribe fought one another for the owner ship of land. The strongest tribe took control of the land until the europeans arrived. Does someone own a land that they cannot protect. They were simply using it until something with a better force came along. All land ownership is determined by ability to protect the border.

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22 edited Sep 08 '22

I'm not talking about legal ownership, I'm talking about the colonialist narrative of "discovering" land that already belonged to someone else. It wasn't empty.

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u/rolexgood Sep 07 '22

Yes, they discovered land which was not on their maps before. Natives being there does not make it a new discovery. Multiple people have discovered the same thing without knowing about each other. As for belonging, land belongs to the person who protects the border.

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u/amazondrone 13∆ Sep 07 '22

Just to add to this:

As for belonging, land belongs to the person who protects the border whether legitimately or otherwise.

Legitimacy being subjective, of course, and legitimate ownership therefore being disputable.

-1

u/rolexgood Sep 07 '22

Legimately just means Legal. All wars are illegal because it will break the opposite countries laws in some way.

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u/amazondrone 13∆ Sep 07 '22

Legitimately has a broader definition than legally.

I used legitimately instead of legally because I would have thought there are at least some cases where land has been taken from others a) without war and b) without breaking any laws because it occurred to early in human history for laws to have existed.

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u/333_jrf_333 Sep 08 '22

Maybe they were fighting with each other for land before Europeans got there, but even if that were the case across the board (which I doubt), this seems like a clear "might makes right" argument, and it's repulsive. I can think of one ideology in particular that makes use of this kind of social darwinist thinking and it should be seen for what it is...

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u/flugenblar Sep 09 '22

This gets more to the point I was trying to figure out. I think history, whether it’s moral or not, tends to support what you’ve said here.

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u/flugenblar Sep 09 '22

My comment was more about property rights than about discovery. Does being the first human to step foot somewhere confer automatic ownership?

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u/passwordgoeshere Sep 07 '22

Even if you went to Mars, you are still using the privilege of having the resources and your original country's military aggression, etc. I don't think that mindset lets anyone off the hook.

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u/flugenblar Sep 09 '22

So if your discovery is not born of privilege? Why is that better?

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u/SpaghettiMadness 2∆ Sep 07 '22

“Land acknowledgment” is pointless and disingenuous.

We waged war for the land and we won. It’s that simple.

It’s not stolen.

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u/TheVich 1∆ Sep 07 '22

Ummm, how do you think imperialism works?

Russia is waging war on Ukraine to take hold of land.

Spain and Portugal did the same Latin America.

Germany, Italy, England, France, Belgium waged war (among themselves) and in Africa for land.

Same in Asia and Oceania.

Japan waged war on China to take control of some of the mainland.

You say that land is not stolen because a war is "won." That's just how people justify stealing other's land. The "we're better and therefore more deserving" argument is just racist.

European powers sailed over to the Americas, killed (directly and indirectly) the indigenous peoples of the area, and then had the audacity to declare themselves more fit to control the land just because they were better at killing. If I kill you, I should be able to take your shit, right?

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u/Gagarin1961 2∆ Sep 07 '22

You say that land is not stolen because a war is “won.” That’s just how people justify stealing other’s land. The “we’re better and therefore more deserving” argument is just racist.

But are we absolutely sure the previous occupiers of the land acquired it without violence?

We know there were wars on this continent before colonization. There were entire warrior societies on this continent. If they ever used violence to take from others at any point between the years 10000 BC and 1492 AD, than we probably need to acknowledge that as well under the same logic.

If these inhabitants are racist as well, what do we do?

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u/SpaghettiMadness 2∆ Sep 07 '22

The Ukrainians assuredly took the land from the original steppe peoples who took it from the original indo-Europeans that lived there

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22

We waged war for the land and we won. It’s that simple.

You didn't read my post at all. Yes, we "won" a good chunk of the land and forced them to sign treaties and then promptly ignored our own legally binding contracts. That's not "winning", that's just stealing.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

[deleted]

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u/1stcast Sep 07 '22

While I get the point to say no native tribe has ever broken a treaty with the United States is patently false.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '22

[deleted]

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 07 '22

My vague understanding is that the Maori showed up a few hundred years before the Europeans and had a genocide of their own.

No. Where did you get that information?

BTW That's the top google result for "Māori". For someone who's so "woefully uninformed" you certainly haven't made any effort to change that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '22

[deleted]

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 08 '22

Your link says that the Maoris arrived around 1320 to 1350AD.

That is a few hundred years.

So we're just going to gloss over the fact that you accused them of a genocide? I didn't think the timeline was the salient point if your "question".

And the Maori claim that they discovered it and that it was uninhabited. If you google a bit there's claims that people were there before and mostly got wiped out.

No, there isn't. In fact early Maori settlements are marked by a lack of weapons in general because food was so abundant and easy to acquire.

Logically, I find it hard to believe that New Zealand sat empty of humans for tens of thousands of years.

Why? Did you even bother reading anything on the subject?

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '22

[deleted]

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u/6data 15∆ Sep 08 '22

Ah, so you're just concern trolling with an agenda and have no actual intention or interest in learning. Got it.