Why does this bug me?

[Jose Fly]

At my place of employment, it's recently become a trend for people to have as their email signature something like....

"I acknowledge that [insert city], where I live and work, rests on the traditional village sites of the [insert names of Tribes]."​

Now, I'm fairly liberal and think of myself as culturally sensitive, but this sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way. When I see these signature statements, I immediately think "Who is this for? What is your goal here?"

I get that maybe they're just trying to show that they're aware. Um....okay....you're aware. So what? That seems to me to be little more than virtue signaling.

Plus, I keep imagining myself as a Tribal member and upon seeing that asking "So are you going to give those places back?" And when they answer "no", I'd say "Thanks for nothing."

Am I just getting old and cranky?

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Am I just getting old and cranky?

Depends. Do I look fat?

 

[Jose Fly]

Depends. Do I look fat?

Pass!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

At my place of employment, it's recently become a trend for people to have as their email signature something like....

"I acknowledge that [insert city], where I live and work, rests on the traditional village sites of the [insert names of Tribes]."​

Now, I'm fairly liberal and think of myself as culturally sensitive, but this sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way. When I see these signature statements, I immediately think "Who is this for? What is your goal here?"

I get that maybe they're just trying to show that they're aware. Um....okay....you're aware. So what? That seems to me to be little more than virtue signaling.

Plus, I keep imagining myself as a Tribal member and upon seeing that asking "So are you going to give those places back?" And when they answer "no", I'd say "Thanks for nothing."

Am I just getting old and cranky?

Pretty common here (Australia) to have the Aboriginal tribal names on the Council signage for each area.
And Australia Post have just moved to add a section to addresses which allows for the indigenous area name to be included.

Australia Post push for Aboriginal place names on mail (msn.com)

Council meetings here as well as school meetings commonly start with acknowledgement of the indigenous people who lived on the space.
I'm not sure it makes much difference to anything (to be honest) but it's certainly normalised for my kids, even if it feels a little bolted on for me.

 

[Jose Fly]

Pretty common here (Australia) to have the Aboriginal tribal names on the Council signage for each area.
And Australia Post have just moved to add a section to addresses which allows for the indigenous area name to be included.

Australia Post push for Aboriginal place names on mail (msn.com)

Council meetings here as well as school meetings commonly start with acknowledgement of the indigenous people who lived on the space.
I'm not sure it makes much difference to anything (to be honest) but it's certainly normalised for my kids, even if it feels a little bolted on for me.

"Bolted on"....I like that. It describes how I see these email sigs pretty well.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

"Bolted on"....I like that. It describes how I see these email sigs pretty well.

It might be that you and I are not the target demographic.
The identification of preferred personal pronouns is also sometimes seen in corporate email sigs here in Australia now.
Again, the intent is less anything direct as it is to normalize discussion and consideration of these things.
I'm unsure how effective it is, but it costs me nothing.

 

[Revoltingest]

Am I just getting old and cranky?

Yes.
And as such, you aren't woke.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Am I just getting old and cranky?

No, it seems like self-righteous douchery just pat themselves on the back.
Do they actually know anything about these tribes? Do they know anything about their culture? Do they know any of their songs? Have they tried any of their food?
I suspect the answer is an overwhelming no from an overwhelming majority.

 

[Stevicus]

At my place of employment, it's recently become a trend for people to have as their email signature something like....

"I acknowledge that [insert city], where I live and work, rests on the traditional village sites of the [insert names of Tribes]."​

Now, I'm fairly liberal and think of myself as culturally sensitive, but this sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way. When I see these signature statements, I immediately think "Who is this for? What is your goal here?"

I get that maybe they're just trying to show that they're aware. Um....okay....you're aware. So what? That seems to me to be little more than virtue signaling.

Plus, I keep imagining myself as a Tribal member and upon seeing that asking "So are you going to give those places back?" And when they answer "no", I'd say "Thanks for nothing."

Am I just getting old and cranky?

I've never seen nor heard of this practice until now. Seems kind of pointless unless (as you say) they're planning to give it back. If not, then why bother?

I recall talking to someone about a related topic, and they thought that not only should European-Americans give back all the land, but that Native Americans should be entitled to grab large chunks of European land as punitive damages.

At least I know that the name of my city is derived from the Tohono O'odham name. So, there's no need to change it.

 

[AlexanderG]

At my place of employment, it's recently become a trend for people to have as their email signature something like....

"I acknowledge that [insert city], where I live and work, rests on the traditional village sites of the [insert names of Tribes]."​

Now, I'm fairly liberal and think of myself as culturally sensitive, but this sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way. When I see these signature statements, I immediately think "Who is this for? What is your goal here?"

I get that maybe they're just trying to show that they're aware. Um....okay....you're aware. So what? That seems to me to be little more than virtue signaling.

Plus, I keep imagining myself as a Tribal member and upon seeing that asking "So are you going to give those places back?" And when they answer "no", I'd say "Thanks for nothing."

Am I just getting old and cranky?

I think it may be because of all the recently discovered mass graves full of Native American children, next to the Catholic schools to which they were forcibly relocated throughout the last century in order to destroy their language, culture, and history via indoctrination and abuse. In the face of something so overwhelmingly tragic, some people are probably flailing around looking for a way in which they can personally show compassion or solidarity. Sometimes when tragedy strikes, we want to do something, anything, to feel like we're making things better.

Are email signatures very useful? No. Are they rather clumsy and poorly crafted? Yep. Are people just trying to make the world incrementally better? Yes, and that's a good thing.

 

[RestlessSoul]

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by stories of the past. Recorded history in the British Isles began with the Romans, but of course the place was already occupied when they got here. The people who lived here before the Romans left artifacts, stone circles, burial mounds, but no written records. They still fascinate me, and I like to acknowledge their having walked this earth before those of us who do so now..

 

[Jose Fly]

It might be that you and I are not the target demographic.

Probably so.

The identification of preferred personal pronouns is also sometimes seen in corporate email sigs here in Australia now.

Yep, we have that as well. That didn't stand out to me or strike me in the same way as the tribal lands sigs.

Again, the intent is less anything direct as it is to normalize discussion and consideration of these things.
I'm unsure how effective it is, but it costs me nothing.

In terms of effectiveness, I'm not even sure what the desired outcome is.

 

[Jose Fly]

No, it seems like self-righteous douchery just pat themselves on the back.

Thank you! That's exactly what it immediately struck me as.

Do they actually know anything about these tribes? Do they know anything about their culture? Do they know any of their songs? Have they tried any of their food?
I suspect the answer is an overwhelming no from an overwhelming majority.

It's funny....some of us do work with various tribes quite a bit, but it's the ones who generally don't who have these email sigs. I wonder if there's something to that? If you work with tribes (as I do) you understand how the sig could be taken as a bit insulting and condescending.

 

[Jose Fly]

I've never seen nor heard of this practice until now. Seems kind of pointless unless (as you say) they're planning to give it back. If not, then why bother?

I'd love to ask that, but with our workplace culture it wouldn't go over very well.

I recall talking to someone about a related topic, and they thought that not only should European-Americans give back all the land, but that Native Americans should be entitled to grab large chunks of European land as punitive damages.

Now that would be something! On the other end of the spectrum, we recently got an email from a person who apparently objected to us working with a tribe on a project. In his email, he basically said "They are a conquered people who lost a war. The sooner we all accept that fact and stop giving them things, the better."

At least I know that the name of my city is derived from the Tohono O'odham name. So, there's no need to change it.

Same here...a lot of places are named after tribal members or the tribes themselves.

 

[Jose Fly]

I think it may be because of all the recently discovered mass graves full of Native American children, next to the Catholic schools to which they were forcibly relocated throughout the last century in order to destroy their language, culture, and history via indoctrination and abuse. In the face of something so overwhelmingly tragic, some people are probably flailing around looking for a way in which they can personally show compassion or solidarity. Sometimes when tragedy strikes, we want to do something, anything, to feel like we're making things better.

I guess that could be the case, but I recall fist seeing them before the recent reports of the boarding school mass graves.

Are email signatures very useful? No. Are they rather clumsy and poorly crafted? Yep. Are people just trying to make the world incrementally better? Yes, and that's a good thing.

I see your point, but if I were a tribal member I'd have a hard time not seeing it as a bit condescending.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

At my place of employment, it's recently become a trend for people to have as their email signature something like....

"I acknowledge that [insert city], where I live and work, rests on the traditional village sites of the [insert names of Tribes]."​

Now, I'm fairly liberal and think of myself as culturally sensitive, but this sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way. When I see these signature statements, I immediately think "Who is this for? What is your goal here?"

I get that maybe they're just trying to show that they're aware. Um....okay....you're aware. So what? That seems to me to be little more than virtue signaling.

Plus, I keep imagining myself as a Tribal member and upon seeing that asking "So are you going to give those places back?" And when they answer "no", I'd say "Thanks for nothing."

Am I just getting old and cranky?

I've never seen this in an email signature, but I frequently see land acknowledgments at the beginning of public meetings.

As for their importance:

Norman says land acknowledgements have become increasingly common in non-Indigenous spaces in the last few years, especially since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on residential schools released its 94 calls to action in 2015.

"Many organizations, libraries, governments and school boards are all thinking about what we need to do to respond to the TRC," she said. "It's about thinking about what happened in the past and what changes can be made going forward in order to further the reconciliation process."

Craig Waboose, who belongs to the Eabametoong First Nation in northern Ontario, is working with Toronto city councilor Mary-Margaret McMahon to help "Indigenize" city hall and implement the TRC calls to action.

"A lot of people are unaware of Canada's actual history and this gets people talking and conversations starting," he said. "Personally I feel like I can have a conversation about who I am, where I'm from and what I'm doing in the city."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/territorial-acknowledgements-indigenous-1.4175136

No, it seems like self-righteous douchery just pat themselves on the back.
Do they actually know anything about these tribes? Do they know anything about their culture? Do they know any of their songs? Have they tried any of their food?
I suspect the answer is an overwhelming no from an overwhelming majority.

One would hope that if someone didn't know anything about their local indigenous cultures, a land acknowledgment might be just the thing to give them pause and spur them to learn.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I guess that could be the case, but I recall fist seeing them before the recent reports of the boarding school mass graves.

In Canada, they largely started as a response to the Truth & Reconciliation Report in 2015.

I see your point, but if I were a tribal member I'd have a hard time not seeing it as a bit condescending.

If they're done improperly, sure.

However, the guidance I've seen for crafting a land acknowledgment includes the idea that if you don't consult with the First Nations you're acknowledging when you're crafting the land acknowledgment, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Jose Fly]

I've never seen this in an email signature, but I frequently see land acknowledgments at the beginning of public meetings.

As for their importance:


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/territorial-acknowledgements-indigenous-1.4175136

One would hope that if someone didn't know anything about their local indigenous cultures, a land acknowledgment might be just the thing to give them pause and spur them to learn.

That surprises me. I can't imagine someone in N. America not knowing that their lands previously belonged to Native Americans.

In Canada, they largely started as a response to the Truth & Reconciliation Report in 2015.

Good to know. Thanks!

If they're done improperly, sure.

However, the guidance I've seen for crafting a land acknowledgment includes the idea that if you don't consult with the First Nations you're acknowledging when you're crafting the land acknowledgment, you're doing it wrong.

That's good to know too. I'd ask my coworkers, but I think even doing that wouldn't go over well.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Now that would be something!

There are other points on the spectrum as well.

Over the past 20 years working on transportation projects I've seen indigenous consultation go from something that usually only gets lip-service to something taken very seriously. These days, it's not uncommon for First Nations to get effective vetos over infrastructure projects, and to have their time and effort reviewing projects compensated.

For instance, I've heard of projects in areas with archaeological potential where the project owner ends up paying for accommodations of First Nations representatives to oversee all excavations.

On the other end of the spectrum, we recently got an email from a person who apparently objected to us working with a tribe on a project. In his email, he basically said "They are a conquered people who lost a war. The sooner we all accept that fact and stop giving them things, the better."

If we're going by that measure, then First Nations groups should get all of Michigan.

In the War of 1812, to secure the cooperation of Tecumseh and his warriors, Tecumseh was promised Michigan as an "Indian homeland."

At the end of the war, the British reneged on the promise and agreed to status quo ante bellum.

... but in fairness, the US really should cede Michigan to First Nations groups. After all, the US lost the war.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That surprises me. I can't imagine someone in N. America not knowing that their lands previously belonged to Native Americans.

The issue isn't so much with knowing that Native Americans were here first in general, but with knowing which specific nations made their home in that specific area.