- cross-posted to:
- politics
- cross-posted to:
- politics
Billie Eilish joined Bad Bunny in speaking out against ICE during her acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, slamming the organization after winning song of the year for “Wildflower.”
The singer was bleeped as she said “fuck ICE,” giving strong commentary during the speech. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe this. Everyone else in this category is so amazing. I love you so much,” she said, standing next to her brother Finneas. “I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land. And, yeah, it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE. That’s all I’m going to say. Sorry. Thank you so much.”
Okay, rephrase… where do people live now where no one was displaced?
(all land has original owners that were displaced)
I reject the premise that there must be some magical land where people have lived undisturbed since the beginning of time for you to even consider that it’s possible to peacefully coexist. There are plenty of places and times where people have settled an inhabited area and did not displace the natives, but no land where no one was displaced for all of human history, and that’s an unreasonable thing to demand I give an example of.
I don’t need a magical land where people lived undisturbed since the beginning of time to consider it’s possible to peacefully coexist.
Of course it’s POSSIBLE.
It’s just rare and temporary
I disagree that it’s rare. In fact, peaceful coexistence is the norm and violent displacement is the anomaly. It only seems like that’s not the case because peace is delicate and unmentionable (what’s there to say in history books about nothing happening?) while violence is sudden and has permanent consequences. A peace lasting centuries can be ended by a single violent event, and that single event will be written about in greater detail than the centuries of peace that preceded it. Our perception of human nature is also skewed by the fact that we’re currently living in a global order dominated by violent settler-colonial factions who have created a system of extraction based fundamentally on theft.
Where has there been peace lasting centuries? Seriously.
Our waves of violence are practically generational , we get brief breaks in between the horrors.
If there are exceptions I am not familiar. Certainly never a century of peace, to my knowledge, or even close
I am not familiar with the history of all of the Earth, I would certainly be interested in any centuries long peace anywhere.
Just picking a random region of the world and looking at Wikipedia’s list of conflicts in Asia, you can try counting the years in the gaps between conflicts and comparing them to the duration of the conflicts themselves. I would bet good money that the average duration of periods of peace in any given region is greater than the average duration of conflicts, and that cumulatively years spent peacefully coexisting far exceed the years spent in conflict.
Notice also that the bias towards violence being mentionable and peace being less so is evident in the fact that I had to do this by finding a list of conflicts rather than a list of peaceful periods.
You’re not incorrect, but the bigger issue is how was the native population treated after having their place stripped from them. It wouldn’t take much for governments to recognise and attempt reconciliation for the idea of stolen land to become less prominent. This is true everywhere, not just in NA.
This is happening right now in SA, and for the same reasons now that we used centuries ago (we need money!).
Who will stand up for the tribes, or for that matter the jungles they live in? Nobody
All we’ve learned since slavery days is a change in semantics with occasional apologies.
The one exception being that island of “hostile” (i.e. wise) natives in the Indian ocean. Our one tiny exception to the rule.
I wish we could learn more about them without ruining it all. Sorry for tangent
they don’t.
the ‘stolen land’ argument derives from some idealized utopia that doesn’t and never existed. its similar to the ‘noble savage’ myth that if ‘society’ didn’t exist we’d live in paradise because human beings in their ‘natural state’ are angelic and pure and the world would be abundant and perfectly happy.
and nobody who uses it is going to give way their land they own ‘back’. Billie Eilish has multiple properties and none of them are being donated to indigenous people. If you confronted her about that she’d probably call you an asshole and tell you it’s not her responsibility and that some other rich white person should do it, but not them! it was those bad evil people who they are not one of!
It is quintessential virtue signalling. You argue from an ideal that is far fetched that the very same ideal is not one you’d hold yourself accountable too because that would be ‘crazy’ to do so.
to really give back ‘stolen land’ the us government would have to basically displace it’s entire population to unhabited parts of the country where nobody could really live. the reason the natives were ‘displaced’ is because they lived in the places that were desirable to live in and the settlers wanted the land. most of the world’s land mass is not easily inhabitable or agriculturally productive, so humans fight over the parts that are.
and that’s also why nobody fought for land claims in antarctic or the artic, because there was no point. but with global warming possible making it more habitable, we are starting to see polar powers prep for military conflict over it.
it’s also why if you buy 1000 acres in northern california for a few million, because nobody wants that land, and the same price gets you like 400 sq ft apartment in manhatten.
I invite you to listen to the people who have, for hundreds of years, been kidnapped, raped, beaten, tortured, killed, poisoned, humiliated, dehumanized, robbed, genocide, persecuted, and as of now are incarcerated at levels 10x that of any other group.
https://ndncollective.org/landback/
https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/what-is-land-back/
In some cases, land is directly returned to Indigenous people when private landowners, municipalities, or governments give the land back to Indigenous tribes. This may take the form of a simple transaction within the colonial real estate framework. In other cases, the transfer of ownership of the land may not be feasible. Co-management of public lands has emerged as a means for Indigenous voices to be consulted concerning the stewardship and use of ancestral lands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Back
if billie eilish wants to buy up a bunch of land and give it back to people, that’s her business. why doesn’t she do that personally, rather than lecturing people at the grammies? leading my example is a lot more powerful than lecturing from a bully pulpit.
she certain has the money and power to make a difference in this regard. but i don’t think she is talking about this particular issue, so much as grandstanding about being anti ICE for scoring some political points.
To let dipshits like you come out of their woodwork to endorse atrocities of their ancestors.
Thanks for your service.
Though I bet when you have to face even a slightest inconvenience with immigrants, you become the victims of the century.
right, my 1850s ancestor who was a substance farmer in Italy totally stole the land from the native americans…
It comes from specific treaties with Indigenous American nations that the U.S. government broke, their land was stolen. Not to mention countless incidents of rightful landowners, post-colonization, being killed or driven off their land because European Americans wanted it; their land was also stolen.
It is frankly so bold to claim that there isn’t a history of systemic land theft from Indigenous Americans, often literally at the behest of the government, that I would encourage anyone making such an absurd claim to read a history book.
Here are some good starting points:
https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/10-4-indian-removal
https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/17-4-the-assault-on-american-indian-life-and-culture
https://archive.org/details/liesmyteachertol0000loew
I never claimed that. I claimed there is no utopian state of original land ownership. Indigenous tribes also killed murdered and persecuted each other over their land. But they had no written history of this at least that one be legally viable today. Indigenous tribes allied themselves with settlers to expand their own power and footprint at the expense of other tribes and settler groups. Especially during the French and Indian war. There were also Indians who raped and murder settlers, King’s Philips war was full of Indian atrocities on the settlers, but is rarely talked about in modern times because it doesn’t fit the narrative of ‘white man bad, native American good’. FWIW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip’s_War. Frankly the only reason I am aware of it personally, was because I grew up in the area where the war happened and did a history day project on it in high school. Most history text books don’t cover it and it’s not a popular topic because of how fraught and messy the whole affair was.
It’s true the USA government had a written history of land agreements, and the violation of those agreements often violated their own ideals and laws. But typically the law was re-written to justify this. It’s true that with such written records you have some frame of reference, but which ‘state’ was the original one of land ownership you wish to revert to? the ones from 1780, or the some point in the 1800s, or what? There is some arbitrary point at which you must pick, and there will be winners and losers based on that.
The popular narrative today is that indigenous people’s were purely victims of evil colonial settlers. But the truth is far more complex and excludes the inconvenient truth that such people’s were not always peaceful collectivist nature lovers that the mass-media and modern Americans crudely seem to think they are.
Many tribes, to this day, viciously fight in the courts for land and tribal right status, and often larger more powerful tribes seek to deny them these rights. Legally, only certain tribes are recognized by the federal government… usually the largest and most powerful… and use that power to discriminate and deny other tribes recognition, rights, and status.
Again, if you want to fight and donate for these causes. Please go right ahead. You can choose with tribe you support based on which one you think suffered the most. But there is no utopian final endpoint of ‘justice’ at which things will be settled. Land theft and land rights are a perpetual issue. I worked in land policy for 5 years, and while I didn’t work on tribal land policy specifically, the complexities and legality of land ownership and use go far deeper than some convenient catchphrase. And they are largely disputed and governed by the court system, so there isn’t much anyone can directly do unless they are a part of the legal system or able to fund lawyers.
The average person can’t afford a lawyer for themselves, let alone for someone else. But I’m sure Billie could fund lots of tribal buybacks and court cases.
“I want to live in most expensive city in the USA, and I want it to smell like urine, I want to smell urine everywhere I go every second of every day”
I don’t get it. I’m not saying it should be illegal or anything, but… yeah.
I live in one of the most expensive zip codes in the world. It doesn’t smell like urine other than on the subway elevator, which i never use.
I live here because it’s fucking amazing living here, but no place is perfect. The people generally suck balls, but I love being able to walk to a restaurant with my dog and not having to drive a car unless i want to do so. I’m sure living in 1000 acres in northern California has it’s benefits, but I’m not equipped or interested in such a lifestyle. Maybe if I was a prepper I would be.