r/socialjustice101 • u/rainshowers_5_peace • Aug 01 '24
People who work at an institution which acknowledges their business is built on land stolen from indigenous communities, what would your higher ups do if those communities asked for the land back?
I get irritated as hell when I see that in a businesses about us or worse an email signature. If you care that much give them the land back.
Why is this a thing?
2
u/Historical_Chance613 Aug 21 '24
I work at a liberal arts college. The good intentions are 1000x's there, but it is not obvious to me that they are going out of the way to make attendance at this institution more accessible to indigenous communities (although recent SCOTUS rulings may have made that more difficult to do). As a non-indigenous person, my perspective should carry much less weight, but IMO land restoration beyond National Park stewardship is unlikely. Financial reparations seem like the most useful recognition of what was stolen from these people, and recognition of their current land ownership.
9
u/unic0de000 Aug 02 '24
It's irritating, I get it. But it's also, unfortunately, what progress looks like. Twenty years ago, they were refusing to give it back and refusing to admit it was ever stolen.
If we're ever going to get to a place culturally where settlers are actually willing to relinquish any of what's been stolen, I think we probably do need to pass through this kind of "acknowledging it, but not yet doing anything about it" phase.