Showing posts with label Kim TallBear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kim TallBear. Show all posts

Saturday, March 09, 2019

Are you planning to do a Land Acknowledgement?

This post on Land Acknowledgements is long over-due. I promised to do it last year, but one thing after another meant I put it off. This morning (Saturday, March 9, 2019) I did a twitter thread about land acknowledgements, and am pasting that thread here. There's more to say, but I hope this is helpful. 




1) More and more I am seeing people in the US talk about doing a Land Acknowledgement at their meeting, conference, or event.

2) If you're wondering what a Land Acknowledgement is, it is opening remarks that say the land that the event is on is (or was) the homeland of a specific Native Nation. It is meant to create awareness.

3) At first glance, cool, right? Progressive-minded, right? They have a lot of appeal, for sure. But... that is where they can go wrong.

4) I've seen scripts that people write that a presenter/speaker can use. The use of it is well-meaning, but we all know about good intentions, right?

5) If you do one because you think you should, but that's as far as you go with it in your own thinking or what you impart to others, you're just doing it as a box-checked sort of thing that is no good.

6) If you're not mindful of what you are doing, then, you are turning a land acknowledgement into a token. It becomes an empty gesture to "honor" Native people. It becomes this century's mascot.

7) Listen to Hayden King's 'I regret it' about his reflections on a land acknowledgement he helped draft at his university. He makes many excellent points. Listen and share it! He's Anishinaabe.

8) If you're going to do one, you gotta do some research! If, for example, you are in Oklahoma, you might want to acknowledge one of the 39 tribal nations there today, but you know (right?) that many of them are there because of the Indian Removal Act.

9) How might you incorporate that history into your acknowledgement?

10) Find out what the nation(s) you are naming in your acknowledgement are doing, today. Tell your audience about it. Tell them how they can support that nation's work. See? That means you have to do some research so your Land Acknowledgement is meaningful.

11) Annoying fact: lot of people think children's literature is not worthy of the same kind of study that English departments give to bks for the adult market. But you know that people want their kids to read! In your Land Acknowledgement, recommend a book by a Native writer!

12) I've got links to lists of books by Native writers, here: Best Books I'd love to see ppl who do Land Acknowledgements in California say "hey everybody, ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS is not a good book." Because it isn't.

13) And, I'd love to see people in California who are doing Land Acknowledgements say "hey everybody, let's look critically at the mission projects teachers are doing..." Start by reading Teaching the Truth about California Missions.

14) And, wouldn't it be terrific if Land Acknowledgements in California and Alaska and Georgia included "let's think about the impact the gold rush had on Indigenous people..."

15) In other words: do some work before doing a Land Acknowledgement. Make it meaningful. Give your audience a task.

16) And when you speak those words... don't do it in a somber tone. You're not in church! When you're teaching, you don't speak in a reverent, prayer like way. Don't do it for a Land Acknowledgement, either.

17) By this point in this thread, some of you are wondering what to do. How, you might wonder, can you 'get it right' (or close to right)?

18) Most of you have a lifetime of unlearning to do. Some of you have a family story about a Native ancestor and you think that puts you in a place to say this or that about an issue, but if you don't know more than just "Native ancestor", you're probably relying on stereotypes.

19) Some of you might have taken a DNA test and in your head and heart, think that validates your family story, but it doesn't. To understand why it doesn't, read Kim Tallbear's work. Start with her article, 'There is no DNA test to prove you're Native American' Get her book, too. And follow her on Twitter.

20) Most of the mainstream media does a terrible job reporting on Native issues. They can flail about as they've done for hundreds of years, or they can take a look at the resources developed by the Native American Journalists Association.

21) There are resources available from the American Indian Library Association, too:

22) Do you listen to podcasts as you drive, walk, or exercise? Subscribe to All My Relations: And Media Indigena.

23) And give a listen to Henceforward.

24) One issue you could address in your land acknowledgement is mascots. There are far more than you may know. Zoom in on this interactive map. Note on Oct 30: the interactive map is offline for revisions.



25) And if you want to incorporate something about why mascots are unacceptable, start by reading Stephanie Fryberg's research.

26) Get a copy of Daniel Heath Justice's WHY INDIGENOUS LITERATURES MATTER. It doesn't matter what YOU teach... we all read, buy, and share books... Daniel's book will help you a lot.







That's it for now...

---Back to add one more tweet---

28) This is a great resource for doing land acknowledgements. Make sure you read the articles there, and take a look at the teacher's guide, too! Here's the link that will take you right to the map. Read the disclaimer that pops up when you go to the map.

---Update on Oct 30, 2019---

In August, I was at the Indian Ed for All conference, held on the Pala homelands in California. There were several excellent presentations but my reason for doing this update today is because some of the most powerful remarks came from Dr. Joely Proudfit. She's the chair of the American Indian Studies at Cal State San Marcos, and the director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center. She said a few things about Land Acknowledgements that prompt me to add what I'm saying next.

When the acknowledgement is a "thank you" it suggests that you (the speaker) are replying to someone. Is it a specific person in a tribal nation? Or, is it Native peoples in the abstract as in no-longer-here? If it is the former, name that person. If it is the latter, reconsider saying it because it comes off as prayer-like.

When you say you're a guest on a specific nation's homeland, it implies that you were invited. Were you, in fact, invited to be there by someone of that nation?

Some people say "uninvited guest" but doesn't the word "guest" embody invited?




Monday, October 22, 2018

Some thoughts on Native identity, in response to #ElizabethWarren (again)

Eds note: Below is a compilation of a tweet thread I did from Oct 20-21. (If you do tweet threads and want to compile them, try Spooler. That's what I used for this post.)

Thinking, today, about Native identity, and how we speak of it. 

I used to say "tribe" but realized that just "tribe" wasn't sufficient. For those who did not (and do not) know that we are sovereignty nations, "tribe" alone let them place us as a race or a cultural group. 

I can talk all day long about growing up on our reservation, doing the things we do as Native people there, and say things like "moccasins" and most people in the US would nod because it would fit with what they know of us as peoples with distinct cultures. 

But doing that is not enough. So--I use "nation." When I'm giving a lecture, I give an example of what it means to be a sovereign nation. A simple one: we decide how fast you drive on our reservation. If you go too fast and get a ticket, it is paid to our tribal gov offices. 

The US has many racial groups and many cultural groups but they don't have a land base over which they have jurisdiction such that they can set speed limits. 

If you're following the #ElizabethWarren news, you may have seen the word "citizen" or "citizenship" or "tribal member" or "enrolled." You may have been surprised to hear those words and/or to learn that tribal nations determine who their citizens or tribal members are...

But, that is how it works. Each tribal nation has ways it decides who its members are... and you can look that up if you know the name of the nation you're interested in. 

As I'm laying it out, it might seem pretty simple but... this is all political! Our tribal leaders and councils and the requirements are imperfect because, we're human beings. 

One of my top concerns is fraud. There's so many people that outright lie about a Native identity. It gets them jobs, or cred in some places, that they ought not have. 

Some people get jobs and cred by claiming it, but they're not outright lying. They really believe a family story. When someone asks for specifics, it can get uncomfortable for everyone. 

Someone who can't get enrolled, but who is definitely Native--that's an entirely different story. 

But those folks can generally point to cousins who are enrolled, who are kin. Those folks are usually known in the nations who they name as theirs. People in the nation will speak for them. 

I've been fooled by someone's claim to Native identity--more than once. When you find out that people tried to tell that person to stop identifying that way and they did it anyway... And they still do it... it is hard! 

There's resources out there. Books that can help you learn some of the nuances of all this. Eva Garroutte's REAL INDIANS is one.



Because of Warren, DNA [testing] is the big topic of the moment. It won't help you [get enrolled with a nation]. Read Kim Tallbear's book: NATIVE AMERICAN DNA: TRIBAL BELONGING AND THE FALSE PROMISE OF GENETIC SCIENCE


Speaking of myself, I am tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo, a sovereign nation that Spain, Mexico, and then the US regarded as a nation. We were a nation before the United States was a nation. 

Some universities, in an effort to stop fraudulent hirings (and there are MANY) are trying to figure out how to stop that kind of fraud. 

There's so many ways I could go with this thread. Things in my head. Like--years ago, Scott Lyons wrote an article in a newspaper, about tribal nations that were disenrolling Black people. That whole convo is very complicated, but, one

... one thing that Scott said was that tribal nations have to exist as nations, and that if we disenroll Black people, we were engaging in a form of ethnic cleansing. 

Some articles, books, etc. have helped me understand many dimensions of the politics of Native identity. Scott's is one of those. Wish I could find it. He's right. Those disenrollments were wrong. 

Native America Calling has had some very good segments on disenrollment. Here's one: Wednesday, April 6, 2016. Disenrollment. 


A lot of people think that it is racist to ask a Native person for "proof" of the identity. They're using a racial framework, and if this was a racial issue, it would be racist to ask -- but Native citizenship isn't about race. It is about nationhood. 

It is more like asking someone for proof that they're a US citizen. That's fraught, too, esp right now with this racist administration in DC, but that's [nationhoood] the framework where the question belongs. 

And--friends/colleagues who are Indigenous--if you see a tweet in this thread that needs clarification, please let me know. 

Another Native scholar who helped me clarify how I speak about Indigenous identity is Elizabeth Cook Lynn. I used her work to write a post for my site, titled Are We People of Color? 

I try to listen, weekly, to @mediaINDIGENA's podcast. I learn a lot from the guests there. Go here, and scroll down to episode 119. It was about DNA testing. 

People who follow me know that most of my work is in children's and young adult literature. My blog, American Indians in Children's Literature, has 11 years of posts on it. ELEVEN YEARS. That's a lot of content, available to you, at no charge. 

I said "at no charge" because most of the writing that we do is in journal articles, magazines, books... that cost money to get to. So--as a former schoolteacher, I do what I can to provide resources to people who want/need them. 

Most children's/YA books out there that teachers assign are deeply flawed. Like, ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. Ugh. Don't assign that, please. Here's my critique of that book.  

Books like that one are huge obstacles to progress in terms of getting Native writers published, and getting their books read or assigned in schools. Seems ppl prefer long-ago-far-away "Indians" over stories that are real! That show our lives as we live them. 

Coming up soon, I'll be on the #NIEABookClub to talk about two excellent books by Native writers. 

One is @DanielVandever's picture book, FALL IN LINE, HOLDEN, which is about a kid in boarding school, where the goal was to stop Indigenous kids from being Indigenous. So--about identity. And asserting identity. 

The second one is @CynLeitichSmith's HEARTS UNBROKEN, where a teen girl in a suburb is navigating challenges to her identity. There's an important thread in Smith's book--about L. Frank Baum. Native ppl know why that's in there. 

Most non-Native people see "L. Frank Baum" and think 'yay' but they don't know that Baum wanted to exterminate Indigenous people. 

Europeans wanted us out of the way. But our ancestors fought back. That's why we're here, today, saying 'nope' to those who misrepresent us in children's books or in national politics. 

Vine Deloria Jr -- in volume 1 of DOCUMENTS OF INDIAN DIPLOMACY -- wrote something abt treaties that sticks with me. To Indigenous leaders/ppl, they were about relationships. To Europeans/Americans, they were about resources. Interesting, eh? 

Circling back to the Elizabeth Warren situation. So many Indigenous people are getting trolled by people who seem to think that, in speaking up abt what Warren did, we are choosing trump or GOP, as if our existence is one or the other. 

That kind of trolling demonstrates a lack of understanding, or, a lack of care if there is some understanding. That kind of response isn't helpful to anyone. 

The response that is needed, is one that is issued after you've read Native writing(s) about identity--specifically right now--about Warren. To help with that, I'm creating a list: A Curated List of Native Responses to Elizabeth Warren 

When I was at U Illinois, we had a couple of instances of ppl making claims... and so we drafted a statement: Identity and Academic Integrity 


I'll be adding to this thread as I see other items that are of relevance. See Dr. Arica Coleman's article in Time magazine: and get her book, THAT THE BLOOD STAY PURE. (time.com/5430057/elizab…)



See Kim TallBear's threaded response to Zerlina Maxwell's remarks on MSNBC a few days ago:



See Ebony Elizabeth Thomas's thread, with its link to an article by Henry Louis Gates:


As noted in tweets 8, 11, and 12, being a citizen or enrolled in a tribal nation is messy. I'm glad to see threads from friends/colleagues who can add to my/our/your understandings. See Elissa Washuta's thread:
Being an enrolled citizen in a federally-recognized nation is not the only way to be Native. I do not think DNA is valid in determining Indigeneity, but I'm concerned about the reductive takes I'm seeing that equate Indigeneity to citizenship.


See Daniel Heath Justice's thread, too:
In the wake of the Elizabeth Warren debacle, let’s not forget another way in which racial logics have displaced kinship in our own politics and relations: the continuing struggle for Freedmen descendants to be recognized as enfranchised citizens and relatives in the Five Tribes.


And, see Rebecca Nagel's Facebook post about ongoing conversations about Cherokee Freedmen: Here's a screen cap of the first two para's of her post.