Trump tells minority Congresswomen to "go back where they came from"

[loomer]

How would this work? I am directly descended from a guy that came over to the colonies in 1629. The family has married into natives several times since then.

How would what work, precisely?

[Gandalf]

That’s why we say you’re being naive. Population dynamics, the effects on the rest of the world, the fact that if the nation falls the resources won’t be fairly distributed mean that what you want is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. You can make some restitution (letting natives profit from the hydroelectric dams, actually honor more of the treaties) but full restoration. You’re an idiot of you think that’s ever going to occur.

When you say "honour more of the treaties," which ones? The first ones the white overlord class made and broke, or the later ones?

[Straha]

Native Americans are a minority. The only way they’d STAY predominantly native run is if they’re ethnostates. It’s why Israel has to deny right of return. If there are too many Arabs than the Arabs will have a lot of government positions and it just won’t be a Jewish state

With what you propose, if they aren’t ethnostates than inevitably they’ll be dominated by the non native majority. You literally sound like Israeli apologists when it’s pointed out how their state essentially uses apartheid and the best they can say is “nu uh”

That’s why we say you’re being naive. Population dynamics, the effects on the rest of the world, the fact that if the nation falls the resources won’t be fairly distributed mean that what you want is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. You can make some restitution (letting natives profit from the hydroelectric dams, actually honor more of the treaties) but full restoration. You’re an idiot of you think that’s ever going to occur.

It must be tremendously convenient for you to ignore the entire concept of decolonization and indigenization for your argument. Be silent.

It's not worth responding to him. He's an almost dictionary display of white privilege:

- Walking into a thread he doesn't understand and expecting to be understood as equal to people who have spent significant amount of time studying what's being discussed
- Ignoring posts in response to him that go into great detail, and responding to others with fortune cookie statements
- Really, just expecting other people to do intellectual labour for him
- Thinking "Well, this is complicated and I don't get it" is an argument. (Although, given what he understands in this thread I wonder what he actuallydoes get)
- Thinking that his discomfort with an idea, or its complication, is more compelling than what PoC experience
- And, of course, his obliviousness to the overt racist traditions of the historical events he cited

Given that it seems almost stubbornly willful, I'd hope to think he's just a troll playing a fratboyesque character. But I wouldn't make that bet.

[Straha]

The fact that he has failed spectacularly in most of his attempts is also a feature, much more so than his attempts in the first place. Further, that misses the point; his goals and specific policies are not structural to the United States. You're talking about the office of the Presidency while conflating it with its current occupant. I'm talking about its current occupant.

Trump is absolutely structural to the US. His vision of race, economics, America's role in the world, etc. all fit perfectly into the pre-Cold War narrative that the United States told about itself. All of this, and the 'person v. office' discussion was laid out at some length earlier in the thread. If you want to revive that discussion pick it up from there, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here.

Meanwhile, that same Constitution provides the best mechanism for enforcing treaties between the native nations and the United States in its sixth article, and its dissolution would dissolve one of the parties to the treaties, leaving the native nations with nothing to enforce, no way to enforce that fat load of nothing, and a distinct disadvantage in any replacement arrangement.

Except Treaties have been unilaterally moved out of the question of international law and into the world of domestic matters by congress in the Indian Appropriations Act. The Supreme Court has ruled that it can abrograte Treaty obligations unilaterally and that "'the exclusive right of the United States to extinguish' Indian title has never been doubted. And whether it be done by treaty, by the sword, by purchase, by the exercise of complete dominion adverse to the right of occupancy, or otherwise, its justness is not open to inquiry in the courts." In other words, Congress can do whatever the fuck it wants to Native Tribes and they can do jack squat about it, and precedent (and the court's reading of the constitution) means that the Court cannot interfere.

'Best Mechanism' my ass.

Beats the hell out of a fat load of nothing. New York would most definitely be collecting taxes from the Seneca if no one was stopping them from doing so, to pull an example out of this thread. And what Congress can do, Congress can undo. The United States is a republic, and as such it can be altered within the framework of the state; indeed, doing so was the intention from the beginning, and it has been done to date twenty-seven times.

Your backpedal here is shocking.

You: "The constitution gives real and concrete mechanisms to enforce treaty obligations from the United States towards Native Tribes, it would be foolish to give up this structural power."
Me: "The courts have said that congress has total plenary power over Native Tribes and can do whatever they want, including abrograting treaty rights, without the courts being able to interfere."
You: "Well, still, there's something here and maybe Congress can do something in the future!"

No. Congress' power over Native Tribes come from Congress being designed as the government of a White Settler Ethno-state. Those powers should be abolished.

So, to be clear, your argument for the reason to defend the United States is that its populace are bloodthirsty murderers who want to kill Natives? And you argue that the courts and constitution, which give complete control over Native lands to an elected congress in a way that can't be reviewed by the courts, are the best protections that Native Tribes have in the United States?

Can you detect my skepticism?

No, to be clear, my argument for defending the United States in this particular instance is that a seceding state is not going to have the interests of the natives in mind. Arizona is not going to break itself off from the United States just to give the questionable benefits of doing so to the Navajo and Hopi. I seriously doubt anyone in this day and age is going to try to do that with the specific goal of attacking the native nations, but that doesn't mean they'll advance native interests either.

The idea that it's the U.S. vs. Arizona is a strawman, to say the least. Again, though, your argument is still one that says the 'Federal Government as a whole is more caring towards native tribes than a more direct representation of the will of U.S. Citizens.' Which isn't a good one to make in your position.

I said it upthread and I'll say it again; the best chance to render justice to the native nations, insofar as that's still possible, lies in changing the culture of the United States and impressing its inhabitants with the need to do so. And having done that, dissolving the United States is patently unnecessary; all you'd need is a couple of election cycles. Conversely, if you dissolve the United States having not done that, its successors are unlikely to be much better on that score.

And as has been said multiple times in this thread: you can't engage in reforms of a culture whose legitimacy is built off of the taking of the land. Nor can the governments which can only exist because of this injustice ever be viewed as legitimate.

It's also interesting that you think elections can fix this problem. How's that going for, say, anti-Black racism?



I will say, that I actually don't think the abolishment of the United States is truly necessary. I do think there could be ways to achieve the radical restructuring I want and advocate for inside the systems of government that already exist. What I find is that those ideas don't go over so hot when proposed to people, and that the abolishment of the U.S. is usually read as the more moderate position.

I've floated the idea of giving every federally recognized Tribe a Senator in the past, but people usually freak out about that and Effie is touching on this ground already, so I'll talk about another proposal: Voting reparations.

One of the thorny issues when it comes to voter suppression is how do you make amends under the common law to people whose vote have been suppressed. Other nations, under descent of the Civil Code, have ways of invalidating and redoing elections for things like this, but under the common law for a variety of reasons this becomes more difficult. Damages under common law are usually translated into money or property rights, and things outside of that scope are notoriously difficult for courts to figure out. So, how do you assess damages for someone who wasn't just denied to vote but was denied the right to have a say in the political nature of the state? The lack of their voice in one election is going to make sure that their representatives don't represent them, and that will change the nature of government for years to come.

A law school professor talked about a thought experiment where everyone whose vote was suppressed should get an extra vote in the next election. In this way there's an easy remedy, and there's a built-in deterrent for would-be vote suppressors. The sort of genius of it is that, in theory, it ensures that representatives will cater to previously suppressed voters and that catering will make up for the damage done previously. I like this idea in principle.

On a related note. Black folk have lived in the United States since the beginning. Over that time they have been enslaved, marginalized, targeted for violence, and never truly received political representation that is their due. So, the proposal I make from time to time: Give every descendant of a slave in the United States twenty votes in every election for the next twenty years. I think the math, more or less, works out. There's been roughly two hundred years (give or take) of voter suppression, which means giving every descendant of a slave twenty votes for twenty years gives them basically a 'lost' vote and a extra vote as a remedy. Twenty years makes sure the changes that occur will be structural, but that the reparations are, in fact, temporary.

Now, obviously, this means that the 10% slice of the population that's descended from enslaved black folk will have controlling influences on most states elections and will absolutely dominate national politics.

When I propose to White Folks, they freak out. They say that this will make it so that politics only represents Black folk and that would be bad, and they usually say it with a straight face which makes me think they don't grasp the irony. They offer all sorts of bluster about how this will hurt other minority groups (again, they say this unironically, which is shocking to me), and try to come up with visions of disaster and despair. Then they try and negotiate the representation down. It usually comes down to something like three extra votes for six years, and usually with all sorts of added restrictions on voting. All of which fundamentally misses the point of the thought exercise.

I've also had the luck to propose it to some black colleagues of mine who do inner city radical political organizing on the East Coast. They hate the idea too, but their argument is much more simple. "The second this looks like it will take place, the cops will kill us and politicians will protect them."

Which I think is sort of a summary that I find truly compelling. The system is set up so that the system itself cannot change (indeed, never really has). As such, we have to end the system.

[Rogue 9]

I will say, that I actually don't think the abolishment of the United States is truly necessary. I do think there could be ways to achieve the radical restructuring I want and advocate for inside the systems of government that already exist. What I find is that those ideas don't go over so hot when proposed to people, and that the abolishment of the U.S. is usually read as the more moderate position.

It's late and I don't have time for a complete response at the moment, but to touch on this, from my position that's bonkers. I'm more than willing to discuss reparations and assent to any reasonable plan. I'm drawing the line in two places. First, at legitimating the longstanding charge leveled by autocrats the world over, and yes, most recently by Vladimir Putin: That people are not fit to govern themselves, and that republics must fail, which the implosion of the United States would do. Second, at responding to blood with blood, or to human rights violations with human rights violations.

[Broomstick]

So your argument is... that Natives are too small a minority to have meaningful political power and if they attempt to garner meaningful political power they will simply be crushed violently by the not-at-all brutishly violent Americans.

No... any group that is 1% of the population is simply NOT going to have "meaningful political power" simply due to numbers. The other 99% will vote in their own self interests which may or may not coincide with those of the 1%.

The ONLY exception to that is when the 1% control enormous amounts of wealth, like billionaires do. Then they have sufficient resources to influence other people. The Native population does not have that kind of wealth.

It has NOTHING to do with violence, or malice. It's simply numbers. 1% is simply much much less than 99%. In a democracy the 1% (absent billionaire levels of wealth) is simply not going to have much influence.

That is the whole point of having civil rights laws, so that the majority can not trample the rights of the minority

[Broomstick]

I know that there are major cultural differences among tribes even in the same modern geographic region, though, and am cognizant of the classically British mistake of drawing up borders without regard to the groups living there, so I'll leave that to others. But it's not overall a bad plan, conceptually speaking. But again, it doesn't require the destruction of the United States.

I'll just point out that individual tribes/nations have split because of intra-tribal conflicts and divisions - the Cherokee used to be one group, but there are now three Cherokee nations, two in Oklahoma and one still in Appalachia/the Southeast. "The Hopi" are not and never have been one unified group. Rinse and repeat all over. Meanwhile, other groups unite - the Six Nations were formed of... wait for it... six separate Native nations.

And, hey, are we forgetting the Hawaiians? They're not Native North American, but they are a distinct group. Do we restore their monarchy?

[Broomstick]

The reason the emergent states may be referred to as Indigenous is that part of the process of decolonization is the process of Indigenization - essentially, while ethnically these states would be minority Indigenous, they will undergo a natural process of cultural shift and evolution that moves the Indigenous history, culture, and people away from the margins and into the center. I said earlier I would like to one day be able to call myself a Bundjalung whitefella, for instance - something that would entail knowing the history of my region's people before settlement, speaking Bundjalung as well as English, and being aware of (if not an active participant) in Bundjalung legal, spiritual, and culinary matters. Thus the emphasis of origin moves away from the settler-state - thus, the Australian-as-Briton, the American-as-Briton, the Canadian-as-Briton-or-French gives way to the Australian-as-Aboriginal.

So.... everyone else has to give up their heritage, history, and culture and adopt that of the Natives? Isn't that still wiping out one culture for another?

I mean sure, if YOU want to adopt a particular that's fine, but this sounds an awful lot like forcing, or at least strongly pressuring, people to give up their own history in favor of that of a 1% minority. Isn't that "correcting" one injustice by imposing another?

It's not like Native culture was entirely benign - there were some very unpleasant cultural practices ranging from systematized torture of prisoners of war to slavery to subjugation of women to others we consider repugnant. Where do you draw the line? Arranged marriages? Or are you OK with going all the way and allowing worship of Aztec gods with human sacrifice to return? Annual raiding of other groups? Who gets to make these decisions?

It is this process - the recentering of the political and social discourse of the nation and the willing adoption of its legitimate languages and culture by its inhabitants - that guarantees the Indigenous character rather than any specific governmental system.

So... we give up English (and Spanish) and adopt Native American languages? This helps us... how? English - not just the American variety but English as a whole - is now the de facto lingua franca in the world. How does dropping it as an official language help North America? How is conducting politics, business, and every other aspect of life in hundreds of languages benefit the population of North America? Nevermind that most of those languages lack technological, scientific, medical, legal, and other specialized terms that are important into today's global society?

[loomer]

The reason the emergent states may be referred to as Indigenous is that part of the process of decolonization is the process of Indigenization - essentially, while ethnically these states would be minority Indigenous, they will undergo a natural process of cultural shift and evolution that moves the Indigenous history, culture, and people away from the margins and into the center. I said earlier I would like to one day be able to call myself a Bundjalung whitefella, for instance - something that would entail knowing the history of my region's people before settlement, speaking Bundjalung as well as English, and being aware of (if not an active participant) in Bundjalung legal, spiritual, and culinary matters. Thus the emphasis of origin moves away from the settler-state - thus, the Australian-as-Briton, the American-as-Briton, the Canadian-as-Briton-or-French gives way to the Australian-as-Aboriginal.

So.... everyone else has to give up their heritage, history, and culture and adopt that of the Natives? Isn't that still wiping out one culture for another?

Who said anything about giving up culture, let alone wiping it out? You make an awful lot of very telling assumptions, all of which revolve around the idea that what is proposed is merely turning the existing structures of oppression on their head. The recentering in no way requires, or even suggests, the loss of the existing culture except where as a natural consequence of cultural exchange and evolution - for instance, people here might stop eating beef if there was a wider variety of good places highlighting how delicious kangaroo is. The only elements that do need to go are those which are inherently linked to the structures of oppression - so, racism, misogyny, etc - which I would hope you would agree need to be gently removed from the culture anyway.

I mean sure, if YOU want to adopt a particular that's fine, but this sounds an awful lot like forcing, or at least strongly pressuring, people to give up their own history in favor of that of a 1% minority. Isn't that "correcting" one injustice by imposing another?

Said history is the history of their country and home, is it not? Is it not then, by default, also their history? But again - no one speaks of forcing or even pressuring except for you. This is all about a voluntary process, which you seem to have trouble with. I trust you'll go back and reply to my previous reply to you, by the way.

It's not like Native culture was entirely benign - there were some very unpleasant cultural practices ranging from systematized torture of prisoners of war to slavery to subjugation of women to others we consider repugnant. Where do you draw the line? Arranged marriages? Or are you OK with going all the way and allowing worship of Aztec gods with human sacrifice to return? Annual raiding of other groups? Who gets to make these decisions?

I don't recall stating that it was entirely benign, but I find it fascinating you try this argument. It is part of the systematic attempt by yourself and anti-decolonization posters in this thread to portray those of us in favour of decolonization as naive, here by invoking the idea that we believe the Indigenous cultures of settler-colonial lands to be somehow perfect and pure.

As for where the line is drawn? Well, the same place we draw the line for any other culture: Practices that are actively harmful or passively harmful to a high degree to those not giving their consent to that harm, or where that level of harm is unacceptable due to its severity. I don't think you'll find many Indigenous peoples who are champing at the bit to return to human sacrifice, either - so your argument here is fairly fundamentally flawed. It presupposes that by 'Indigenous culture' what can only be meant is some kind of pre-modern culture, a reversion to what was, rather than an embrace of what is alongside a process of conscious resurgence.

It is this process - the recentering of the political and social discourse of the nation and the willing adoption of its legitimate languages and culture by its inhabitants - that guarantees the Indigenous character rather than any specific governmental system.

So... we give up English (and Spanish) and adopt Native American languages? This helps us... how? English - not just the American variety but English as a whole - is now the de facto lingua franca in the world. How does dropping it as an official language help North America? How is conducting politics, business, and every other aspect of life in hundreds of languages benefit the population of North America? Nevermind that most of those languages lack technological, scientific, medical, legal, and other specialized terms that are important into today's global society?

But again, who said anything about giving up English? People can - and indeed, routinely do - learn multiple languages. Nations routinely have multiple official languages. Again, your presuppositions are on display, and they are quite transparently built on the White fear of dispossession.

[loomer]

I will say, that I actually don't think the abolishment of the United States is truly necessary. I do think there could be ways to achieve the radical restructuring I want and advocate for inside the systems of government that already exist. What I find is that those ideas don't go over so hot when proposed to people, and that the abolishment of the U.S. is usually read as the more moderate position.

It's late and I don't have time for a complete response at the moment, but to touch on this, from my position that's bonkers. I'm more than willing to discuss reparations and assent to any reasonable plan. I'm drawing the line in two places. First, at legitimating the longstanding charge leveled by autocrats the world over, and yes, most recently by Vladimir Putin: That people are not fit to govern themselves, and that republics must fail, which the implosion of the United States would do. Second, at responding to blood with blood, or to human rights violations with human rights violations.

It's so incredibly telling that you continually interpret a deliberate, careful, negotiated dismantling of the existing system as an implosion.

[Broomstick]

Now, since we're at it, which of the following do you feel constitute cultural appropriation when carried out on a reasonably even footing, with the consent of local elders as part of a mutual exchange of culture:

It's not about what you or I would consider reasonable or appropriate, it's about what the Native groups would deem reasonable or appropriate.

* Learning the local language

Probably OK. I think all of the Native languages still extant have been given writing systems at this point, which will help.

* Learning the history of the place you live

That does not require breaking up the current USA. It does require a change in attitudes towards history.

* Developing an awareness of the local laws, including participation where appropriate and invited

I find this puzzling. We already have local laws. It's not an alien concept.

* Developing an awareness of the local religions, including participation where appropriate and invited

The vast majority of Native Americans in the lower 48 have been converted to Christianity. Of those Natives that retain the old religions, many have religions where duties and participation are restricted based on which clan you belong to, often clans that you must be born into and that do not accept conversion. I am unclear how you intend this to work.

* Developing an awareness of the local culinary traditions, including participation where appropriate and invited

I am NOT going back to pokeweed being a staple food! It's not bad tasting, but preparation is a pain in the ass. Ditto for such prior staples as acorns. Even IF we could convince people to go back to hunting their meat most of the buffalo are gone. Although it wouldn't be a bad thing to take care of the excess deer and Canada geese. You can't have 300 million people hunting dinner and living s semi-hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There's not enough territory. It really wouldn't work in the big cities.

Other "culinary traditions" have already been adopted into the mainstream (succotash, cornbread, etc.)

* Identifying with the local nation-state of which you are a citizen

There was a problem in the Confederate States of America with people identifying more with the state they lived in than the Federal/Confederate entity under which they existed which seriously impaired cooperation and hindered the defense of the CSA. I'm not sure that's in the interest of North America as a whole.

Some Native groups in North America would be happy to have others from outside their culture join them. Others really do not want this - they want to keep to themselves and do not want to share their culture with outsiders.

[Broomstick]

How would this work? I am directly descended from a guy that came over to the colonies in 1629. The family has married into natives several times since then.

The originators of this conversation do pre-suppose that no one here is Native or has a claim to Native anything by marriage, don't they?

How WILL it work for folks of mixed ancestry?

[loomer]

Now, since we're at it, which of the following do you feel constitute cultural appropriation when carried out on a reasonably even footing, with the consent of local elders as part of a mutual exchange of culture:

It's not about what you or I would consider reasonable or appropriate, it's about what the Native groups would deem reasonable or appropriate.

This question was not directed at you, but specifically at the accusation that what I suggest is cultural appropriation.

* Learning the history of the place you live

That does not require breaking up the current USA. It does require a change in attitudes towards history.

This did not suggest dismantling the USA. Pay attention if you're going to join a conversation midstream.

* Developing an awareness of the local laws, including participation where appropriate and invited

I find this puzzling. We already have local laws. It's not an alien concept.

And do said local laws incorporate the customary laws of the local peoples?

* Developing an awareness of the local religions, including participation where appropriate and invited

The vast majority of Native Americans in the lower 48 have been converted to Christianity. Of those Natives that retain the old religions, many have religions where duties and participation are restricted based on which clan you belong to, often clans that you must be born into and that do not accept conversion. I am unclear how you intend this to work.

I refer to the Australian context, in which there is often a highly syncretic Christianity alongside mainline Christianity and traditional religions. Said religions are either closed or open in varying ways, but being aware of them does not require participation or membership - simply an awareness that 'we do not go into the bora bora rings, they are a sacred place to our neighbour'. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

* Developing an awareness of the local culinary traditions, including participation where appropriate and invited

I am NOT going back to pokeweed being a staple food! It's not bad tasting, but preparation is a pain in the ass. Ditto for such prior staples as acorns. Even IF we could convince people to go back to hunting their meat most of the buffalo are gone. Although it wouldn't be a bad thing to take care of the excess deer and Canada geese. You can't have 300 million people hunting dinner and living s semi-hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There's not enough territory. It really wouldn't work in the big cities.

You make some absurd assumptions here. Developing an awareness of the local culinary traditions of the Indigenous people in no way requires you to '[go] back to pokeweed being a staple food', nor to 'go back to hunting their meat'. It simply requires an attitude that does not marginalize Indigenous foodways - which you yourself do in this very post by ignoring that they have evolved over the last centuries - and treats them with the same respect as your own. Also, do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Other "culinary traditions" have already been adopted into the mainstream (succotash, cornbread, etc.)

This is not the case in Australia, with very limited exceptions. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

* Identifying with the local nation-state of which you are a citizen

There was a problem in the Confederate States of America with people identifying more with the state they lived in than the Federal/Confederate entity under which they existed which seriously impaired cooperation and hindered the defense of the CSA. I'm not sure that's in the interest of North America as a whole.

The model proposed is one in which there is no Australian commonwealth, or at least not one of its current form, and instead a number of states constituted along the traditional borders. Unless your idea of 'the interest of North America as a whole' means you do not identify first as an American citizen, rather than a generic North American, and incorporates Canada and Mexico, the situation is not analogous.

Some Native groups in North America would be happy to have others from outside their culture join them. Others really do not want this - they want to keep to themselves and do not want to share their culture with outsiders.

And nothing in what I propose runs contrary to this. An awareness of your neighbour's ways is not participation in or sharing in - but as the default state is ignorance, it is nonetheless an improvement, and one which I have not found a single Indigenous community opposed to with very rare exceptions around issues like Secret Business, but the compromise position 'We know there is Secret Business, and we know it isn't for us to know' is acceptable to them.

[loomer]

How would this work? I am directly descended from a guy that came over to the colonies in 1629. The family has married into natives several times since then.

The originators of this conversation do pre-suppose that no one here is Native or has a claim to Native anything by marriage, don't they?

How WILL it work for folks of mixed ancestry?

No such presupposition is made, but it is very telling that you make the argument. It is one of the classic settler moves-to-innocence.

How will it work? Simple! Are you a recognized member of an existing Indigenous nation, tribe, or other grouping? Then good news: You still would be. Are you not? Then you aren't! We are not concerned with blood quantum except where in use by Indigenous groups as part of their basis for membership.

EDIT:
To illustrate just how silly it is to assert we presuppose this claim, I'm actually of mixed ancestry myself! I don't bring it up as whatever ties I had have been thoroughly broken and I pass as and live in Settler spaces with the full gamut of Settler privilege, and to assert an identity based on a tiny fraction of ambiguously Indigenous blood would be to excuse myself from my complicity in the structural systems of oppression I wish to dismantle.

[Broomstick]

No. Congress' power over Native Tribes come from Congress being designed as the government of a White Settler Ethno-state. Those powers should be abolished.

So... you're going to abolish the current government of the USA. What will take its place?

The idea that it's the U.S. vs. Arizona is a strawman, to say the least. Again, though, your argument is still one that says the 'Federal Government as a whole is more caring towards native tribes than a more direct representation of the will of U.S. Citizens.' Which isn't a good one to make in your position.

RIGHT NOW, this moment in time, the Federal government actually is more protective of the rights of Natives than "a more direct representation of the will of US Citizens." Which, if I was a Native living on a reservation would be pretty fucking scary because the US Federal government is not a benign, kind, or merciful entity, quite the contrary. But there's a reason a group like the Seneca would appeal for help to the Federal government when in conflict with their local state.

You are conflating "least evil alternative" with " good alternative." If all choices suck you choose the one that will suck least for a particular situation. That is part of the on-going problem (and private little hell) the Native Americans have - their "best" ally right now is a government that until very recently was doing its best to exterminate them.

And as has been said multiple times in this thread: you can't engage in reforms of a culture whose legitimacy is built off of the taking of the land. Nor can the governments which can only exist because of this injustice ever be viewed as legitimate.

By that argument NO government in the world is legitimate or just. Certainly none in Europe - that land was stolen from the Neanderthal, who were there first. Certainly not in Asia - that was taken from the Denisovans, Homo erectus, and other close cousins. Certainly not in Africa, that's a patchwork of displacement and conquering of people and species. Archeology shows that North America has plenty of peoples displaced by others long before the Europeans showed up.

For that matter, who is going to adjudicate the Hopi-Navajo land disputes? Or should they go back to open warfare? That's far from the only conflicting land claims between Native groups.

I've floated the idea of giving every federally recognized Tribe a Senator in the past, but people usually freak out about that and Effie is touching on this ground already

That's because you're advocating giving 2% of the population 500+ votes and 98% of the population 50 votes. That's not democracy. That's an ethnostate.

On a related note. Black folk have lived in the United States since the beginning. Over that time they have been enslaved, marginalized, targeted for violence, and never truly received political representation that is their due. So, the proposal I make from time to time: Give every descendant of a slave in the United States twenty votes in every election for the next twenty years. I think the math, more or less, works out. There's been roughly two hundred years (give or take) of voter suppression, which means giving every descendant of a slave twenty votes for twenty years gives them basically a 'lost' vote and a extra vote as a remedy. Twenty years makes sure the changes that occur will be structural, but that the reparations are, in fact, temporary.

Now, obviously, this means that the 10% slice of the population that's descended from enslaved black folk will have controlling influences on most states elections and will absolutely dominate national politics.

Again, that's not democracy, that's an ethnostate.

I'm assuming you're OK with white people who are, in fact, descended from slaves also having 20 votes each? They are, after all, descendants of slaves, too. If not... why not?

They say that this will make it so that politics only represents Black folk and that would be bad, and they usually say it with a straight face which makes me think they don't grasp the irony.

I live in Gary, Indiana - a city 85% of African descent where black people most certainly dominate. I'm not freaking out over that. In fact, the past 20 years have been pretty good overall for me, and the bits that weren't had nothing to do with living in Gary. I'm not afraid of black people involved in politics, or working for black people, or living next to them.

Proposing people get 20 votes based on their race/ancestry/etc. while everyone else gets only one is what makes me think you're a loon. That's not democracy. At least not in the sense usually understood. That's changing one type of oppression for another.

[Broomstick]

Who said anything about giving up culture, let alone wiping it out? You make an awful lot of very telling assumptions, all of which revolve around the idea that what is proposed is merely turning the existing structures of oppression on their head.

You're advocating giving 1% of the people in North America 90%+ or more of the power. Yeah, I'm a little concerned where that leads, and not just for the white people.

Do you know how the Cherokee viewed the Africans brought over from Africa? As slaves. The black members of the Cherokee nation are the descendants of people once owned by the Cherokee, and still face discrimination from within the Cherokee nation according to the black members of the Cherokee nation, and I see no reason to doubt their word. Other Native nations were much more egalitarian, fine, but really the native groups are all over the map politically, culturally, and religiously. You're planing to put over 500 different groups and cultures in charge of the USA and somehow thinking this won't dissolve into chaos and conflict.

Even between Native groups - I've already mentioned the Hopi/Navajo conflict that has been on-going for a long time and pre-dates European contact. The Apache invaded their current territory in the 1600's and displaced the groups living there and generating conflicting land claims down to this day. The Seminole, as previously indicated, didn't even exist until refugees from more northerns areas fled to Florida, and they displaced Natives that now live mostly in Louisiana.

I don't think you grasp the complications here, even between just the Native groups that would be involved.

The recentering in no way requires, or even suggests, the loss of the existing culture except where as a natural consequence of cultural exchange and evolution - for instance, people here might stop eating beef if there was a wider variety of good places highlighting how delicious kangaroo is.

There's actually already a nice market for bison in the US... the biggest issue is there aren't nearly enough buffalo to displace cattle, pigs, and chickens in the diet. Buffalo are NOT domestic animals and even bison/cattle crosses are dangerous being bigger, stronger, more aggressive, and less tame in every way compared to European or Asian cattle.

Yay, let's go back to a native diet - Australia has what, 25 million people in it? We have individual states with more people than that in them. There are just too fucking many people to return to prior lifestyles without millions starving to death. That's not going to work.

The only elements that do need to go are those which are inherently linked to the structures of oppression - so, racism, misogyny, etc - which I would hope you would agree need to be gently removed from the culture anyway.

Ah... here we go... WHO decides what "needs" to be removed? And who does the removing? The Natives get sovereignty until YOU disapprove of what they're doing? How is that sovereign?

Are you OK with the Iroquois custom of the women owning all the land and material goods except for what a man can wear and carry? OK with the custom that if a woman wants rid of a man she can put his shoes outside the house and he is legally forced to leave no matter what he has put into that house?

Are you OK with burial being laying a corpse out on a platform for exposure to the elements? That's OK when sky burials and few or far between but how would that work inside city limits?

Are you OK with whale hunts?

Are you OK with a woman having sex outside marriage having her nose and/or ears cut off?

How about alcoholism? How about large areas being voted dry to combat alcohol among a few residents?

There is a LOT of good stuff in Native American culture, like carrying collectively for the tribe, respecting and caring for the environment, and so forth but there's a lot of nasty stuff in there, too. I don't see how you can propose "restore sovereignty and culture" then turn around and say "gently remove bad stuff from the culture". If you give control back to the Native you don't get to do that. What the fuck are you going to do when the Navajo invade the Hopi area with force of arms? What do you do when the Natives of the plains decide to go back to raiding and counting coup? Who is going to adjudicate between the raiders and the groups who DON'T want to return to those ways when you've eliminated the Federal government?

I trust you'll go back and reply to my previous reply to you, by the way.

Which one? There are a shit-ton of posts in this thread and I don't want to have to guess which one you think I've missed.

It is part of the systematic attempt by yourself and anti-decolonization posters in this thread to portray those of us in favour of decolonization as naive, here by invoking the idea that we believe the Indigenous cultures of settler-colonial lands to be somehow perfect and pure.

No, you're naive because you have ZERO understanding that North America was not a peaceful place, ever. There were wars being fought over control of territory before the Europeans showed up (indeed, Aztec culture required a never-ending war to exist, and there's good evidence they went as far north as Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, southern Texas, and southern California). There's the long standing conflicts between Na-Dene speakers invading from the north and Uto-Aztecan speakers who were living in what we now call the Southwestern United States. Do you seriously think that NONE of these long-standing conflicts wouldn't heat up again?

It presupposes that by 'Indigenous culture' what can only be meant is some kind of pre-modern culture, a reversion to what was, rather than an embrace of what is alongside a process of conscious resurgence.

OK, you're arguing for the New Age versions of Native culture, got it.

But again, who said anything about giving up English? People can - and indeed, routinely do - learn multiple languages. Nations routinely have multiple official languages.

Actually, the US has NO official language. English became the de facto one because that's the one the majority of people adopted for doing business with others (we still have some enclaves of non-English).

Again, your presuppositions are on display, and they are quite transparently built on the White fear of dispossession.

That's pretty damn laughable given 1) how little I posses in reality and 2) we definitely have Mongolian in our background and 3) I'm half Jewish so 4) plenty of people don't consider me white and have never hesitated to make that clear to me during my lifetime. Oh, and I married a guy whose maternal family was Eastern Band Cherokee and whose mother actually spoke Cherokee sufficiently well that she and her brother would carry on hours-long conversations in it. So please, do keep making assumptions about who I am, my background, what I fear and keep making an ass out of yourself while doing so.

[Straha]

I will say, that I actually don't think the abolishment of the United States is truly necessary. I do think there could be ways to achieve the radical restructuring I want and advocate for inside the systems of government that already exist. What I find is that those ideas don't go over so hot when proposed to people, and that the abolishment of the U.S. is usually read as the more moderate position.

It's late and I don't have time for a complete response at the moment, but to touch on this, from my position that's bonkers. I'm more than willing to discuss reparations and assent to any reasonable plan. I'm drawing the line in two places. First, at legitimating the longstanding charge leveled by autocrats the world over, and yes, most recently by Vladimir Putin: That people are not fit to govern themselves, and that republics must fail, which the implosion of the United States would do. Second, at responding to blood with blood, or to human rights violations with human rights violations.

I find your first point interesting because it seems to foreclose governments changing themselves. The French are on their Fifth Republic, is that a reason to believe Republics always fail? If not, why can't the United States change its government too? If we are to hyper-fixate on the idea of recognizing Republics and not their failures, are we to tell the UK that to ditch Bess and return to the Cromwellian Commonwealth? Or is the US to throw out the constitution and restore the Articles of Confederation? If not, why can't the people of the United States decide that this current government is bad and replace it with another?

To the second, what cost are you willing to pay in reparations?

[Broomstick]

This did not suggest dismantling the USA. Pay attention if you're going to join a conversation midstream.

Fuck you - you don't get to decide who can speak here and who can't.

* Developing an awareness of the local laws, including participation where appropriate and invited

I find this puzzling. We already have local laws. It's not an alien concept.

And do said local laws incorporate the customary laws of the local peoples?

What? 19th Century Potawatomie laws on automobile traffic right-of-way?

Here's a notion for you: any Native American living in Lake County, Indiana has can register to vote and have just as much say in local laws as any other resident of Lake County. And I know there are Native Americans living in Lake County because when I helped do the Census in 2010 I got to meet them when I was helping to count folks.

I refer to the Australian context, in which there is often a highly syncretic Christianity alongside mainline Christianity and traditional religions. Said religions are either closed or open in varying ways, but being aware of them does not require participation or membership - simply an awareness that 'we do not go into the bora bora rings, they are a sacred place to our neighbour'. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Then stop assuming you know fuck-all about Native American culture, language, religion, groups, laws, or history then.

Also, do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

FUCK you - you're talking about dismantling my country I will damn well give you my opinion of your vacuous ideas and continue to inform you about how fucking naive you are about North America. You can NOT argue for the destruction of a nation then beg not to be criticized in any aspect of your argument. YOU brought up Bundjalung, not me. Now that it's on the table it's as subject to scrutiny as anything else in this thread.

Although I'm not so much arguing about Bundjalung as your notions about how it might apply to an entirely different continent.

Other "culinary traditions" have already been adopted into the mainstream (succotash, cornbread, etc.)

This is not the case in Australia, with very limited exceptions. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Then don't bring up Bundjalung or any other aspect of your country. Don't put it on the table if you don't want it discussed.

Fucking hell - you are talking about dismantling my country and getting all pissy about someone just MENTIONING something about where you live. You really do have your head up your ass. You can't see what a squalling hypocrite you actually are.

[The model proposed is one in which there is no Australian commonwealth, or at least not one of its current form, and instead a number of states constituted along the traditional borders. Unless your idea of 'the interest of North America as a whole' means you do not identify first as an American citizen, rather than a generic North American, and incorporates Canada and Mexico, the situation is not analogous.

You fucking moron - there is NO solution that restores Native lands to Native groups that doesn't cross national borders. It can't fucking be done. There are already Native landholdings that straddle two countries. We'll add "ignorant of geography" to the list of your deficiencies. Or do only Native groups in the USA get to have their lands and sovereignty back? Why don't the First Nations of Canada deserve the same? What about the Natives in Mexico?

Or is this really about your dislike of US citizens and your wish to destroy their country and leave all the other countries (and injustices) of North America intact?

[Straha]

No. Congress' power over Native Tribes come from Congress being designed as the government of a White Settler Ethno-state. Those powers should be abolished.

So... you're going to abolish the current government of the USA. What will take its place?

... Are you fucking serious? Can you not see that the rest of this thread is dealing with this issue at some length? Can you at least bother to go through the motions of pretending to read this thread?

And to answer your question in its simplest form: Not a White Settler Ethno-state, that's for sure.

The idea that it's the U.S. vs. Arizona is a strawman, to say the least. Again, though, your argument is still one that says the 'Federal Government as a whole is more caring towards native tribes than a more direct representation of the will of U.S. Citizens.' Which isn't a good one to make in your position.

RIGHT NOW, this moment in time, the Federal government actually is more protective of the rights of Natives than "a more direct representation of the will of US Citizens." Which, if I was a Native living on a reservation would be pretty fucking scary because the US Federal government is not a benign, kind, or merciful entity, quite the contrary. But there's a reason a group like the Seneca would appeal for help to the Federal government when in conflict with their local state.

1. You keep citing the Seneca case in Salamanca. Your read of it is wrong. Loomer actually cited the actual case.

2. Again, the idea that "The US is an Ethnostate teeming with Racists and the Federal Government is their only protector" isn't just offensive but also directly the language that abusers use to justify their abuse.

3. This loops back to the first post. If the states want to kill Natives, seems we shouldn't trust them.

By that argument NO government in the world is legitimate or just. Certainly none in Europe - that land was stolen from the Neanderthal, who were there first. Certainly not in Asia - that was taken from the Denisovans, Homo erectus, and other close cousins. Certainly not in Africa, that's a patchwork of displacement and conquering of people and species. Archeology shows that North America has plenty of peoples displaced by others long before the Europeans showed up.

This is all answered at length in the rest of the thread. If you can't be bothered to read the thread why should we read your responses?

That's because you're advocating giving 2% of the population 500+ votes and 98% of the population 50 votes. That's not democracy. That's an ethnostate.

We already live in an Ethnostate. The question is how to fix it.

And, btw Rogue 9, this is what I mean. When you talk about seriously trying to engage in reforms using the tools of the system people freak the fuck out. Dismantling it is absolutely more moderate than this.

Again, that's not democracy, that's an ethnostate.

See above.

I'm assuming you're OK with white people who are, in fact, descended from slaves also having 20 votes each? They are, after all, descendants of slaves, too. If not... why not?

You make an awful lot of assumptions for someone who can't be bothered to read the thread.

Proposing people get 20 votes based on their race/ancestry/etc. while everyone else gets only one is what makes me think you're a loon. That's not democracy. At least not in the sense usually understood. That's changing one type of oppression for another.

You do get the enormity and degree of injustice committed against Native and Black folks inside the US, right?

You also get the paucity that has been done to actually fix that injustice?

You, hopefully, also understand that quite a bit needs to be changed to undo that injustice and to actually make the nation representative of Black Folk and Natives?

What also intrigues me about this is if this is how you react to this thought experiment, how do you think Native and Black folks should react to the concept of continuing to live inside a white Ethno-state? Seems like they shouldn't like it, especially if the only thing that keeps the White folk from killing them is the Federal Government led by Donald Trump.

[Broomstick]

No such presupposition is made, but it is very telling that you make the argument. It is one of the classic settler moves-to-innocence.

What the FUCK are you talking about?

Has it occurred to you that this jargon and paradigm you're vomiting across this forum is related to Australia (and secondarily to Bundjalung territory) and has much less relevance to North America than you suppose? Your transposing YOUR country and YOUR context onto a completely different continent. Then turning around and bitching when someone else says "Bundjalung". You mewling, snivelling, piece of shit hypocrite.

How will it work? Simple! Are you a recognized member of an existing Indigenous nation, tribe, or other grouping? Then good news: You still would be. Are you not? Then you aren't! We are not concerned with blood quantum except where in use by Indigenous groups as part of their basis for membership.

Wow.

You are TOTALLY unaware that only 20% of Native Americans live on "tribal lands", aren't you? 60% of them live in big cities. Sometimes - like for the Native Americans living in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago - it's because the city grew up around where they had always lived.

To illustrate just how silly it is to assert we presuppose this claim, I'm actually of mixed ancestry myself

Why don't you talk about it? Are you ashamed of it?

I don't bring it up as whatever ties I had have been thoroughly broken and I pass as and live in Settler spaces with the full gamut of Settler privilege, and to assert an identity based on a tiny fraction of ambiguously Indigenous blood would be to excuse myself from my complicity in the structural systems of oppression I wish to dismantle.

Let me get this straight - you are happily assimilated but you wish to shatter another country, set up ethnostates, and dictate to others what sort of culture and political system they can have?

Wow.

Oh, by the way - "Bundjalung"

[Broomstick]

If not, why can't the people of the United States decide that this current government is bad and replace it with another?

There's a difference between those of us currently living in the US (and by that I mean a process including ALL of us) deciding to change our government and someone else from outside - loomer, for instance - deciding FOR us and dictating TO us.

The US has changed over time. You can certainly argue it hasn't changed enough, but it is not the same nation it was 200+ years ago. There's still a lot of fucked up shit but it's not nearly as fucked as it used to be. Are you going to throw out/disparage/deny the progress made because in 2019 the US isn't perfect yet? If that's your position what, exactly, are you advocating for? A gentle course of education? Pardon me, I doubt that will work. A bloody overthrow of the current regime? Oh, yeah, that will end in tears.

List out some actual, concrete steps you would, hypothetically, take to make the changes you want to see and how you would go about it. I see a lot of theory (and jargon) but not much on the practical level.

[loomer]

Who said anything about giving up culture, let alone wiping it out? You make an awful lot of very telling assumptions, all of which revolve around the idea that what is proposed is merely turning the existing structures of oppression on their head.

You're advocating giving 1% of the people in North America 90%+ or more of the power. Yeah, I'm a little concerned where that leads, and not just for the white people.

Am I? I'm sure you'll be able to provide a quote where I do so.

Do you know how the Cherokee viewed the Africans brought over from Africa? As slaves. The black members of the Cherokee nation are the descendants of people once owned by the Cherokee, and still face discrimination from within the Cherokee nation according to the black members of the Cherokee nation, and I see no reason to doubt their word. Other Native nations were much more egalitarian, fine, but really the native groups are all over the map politically, culturally, and religiously. You're planing to put over 500 different groups and cultures in charge of the USA and somehow thinking this won't dissolve into chaos and conflict.

Yes, and? No one is presupposing some kind of inherent Indigenous unity, let alone purity. You, however, are presuming that during the process of decolonization the existing structures of oppression will persist, when dismantling them is the exact purpose of the project, even within Indigenous communities. You also presume that the second the boot of the Settler is removed from their throat, every group will fall into chaos.

Even between Native groups - I've already mentioned the Hopi/Navajo conflict that has been on-going for a long time and pre-dates European contact. The Apache invaded their current territory in the 1600's and displaced the groups living there and generating conflicting land claims down to this day. The Seminole, as previously indicated, didn't even exist until refugees from more northerns areas fled to Florida, and they displaced Natives that now live mostly in Louisiana.

I don't think you grasp the complications here, even between just the Native groups that would be involved.

Again, you make the assertion that decolonization advocates are naive - and that, for whatever reason, none of these issues will be addressed during the process of decolonization and the period of treaty negotiation. Both assertions are false; and it seems particularly odd that you assume we are somehow ignorant of the complications when decolonization advocates usually work more closely with Indigenous communities and jurists than, well, almost anyone else.

The recentering in no way requires, or even suggests, the loss of the existing culture except where as a natural consequence of cultural exchange and evolution - for instance, people here might stop eating beef if there was a wider variety of good places highlighting how delicious kangaroo is.

There's actually already a nice market for bison in the US... the biggest issue is there aren't nearly enough buffalo to displace cattle, pigs, and chickens in the diet. Buffalo are NOT domestic animals and even bison/cattle crosses are dangerous being bigger, stronger, more aggressive, and less tame in every way compared to European or Asian cattle.

And?

Yay, let's go back to a native diet - Australia has what, 25 million people in it? We have individual states with more people than that in them. There are just too fucking many people to return to prior lifestyles without millions starving to death. That's not going to work.

No one said anything about going back to a purely native diet or lifestyle. Is it convenient for you, inventing as many strawmen as you do?

The only elements that do need to go are those which are inherently linked to the structures of oppression - so, racism, misogyny, etc - which I would hope you would agree need to be gently removed from the culture anyway.

Ah... here we go... WHO decides what "needs" to be removed? And who does the removing? The Natives get sovereignty until YOU disapprove of what they're doing? How is that sovereign?

Presumably the denizens of the culture itself, just as with everywhere else, and as decolonization activists within those communities are already undertaking? You also make the curious claim here that somehow my disapproval would render them non-sovereign. I disapprove of many things - I disapprove, for instance, of the laws condemning homosexuals to death in the Sudan, but this does not render the Sudanese state somehow non-sovereign. Now, as a voter, I'd be exercising influence over my own nation, but that does not in itself render a state non-sovereign.

Are you OK with the Iroquois custom of the women owning all the land and material goods except for what a man can wear and carry? OK with the custom that if a woman wants rid of a man she can put his shoes outside the house and he is legally forced to leave no matter what he has put into that house?

Sure, why not? The latter may not be practical under the existing systems of property law, but if it's a democratically adopted system of property law in compliance with their constitution, then it would be both lawful and democratic. We might, of course, argue its equity or lack thereof, and argue it needs to be updated for the modern day, but is it inherently less valid than Australian property law? I don't think so.

Are you OK with burial being laying a corpse out on a platform for exposure to the elements? That's OK when sky burials and few or far between but how would that work inside city limits?

Sure - in fact, if it were an option I would personally quite like for my corpse to be laid out in this precise manner. As for how it works in city limits - I don't know. Presumably by setting aside land outside the city for the purpose?

Are you OK with whale hunts?

Sure! So long as they comply with treaty obligations and don't cause undue population pressure on a recovering species. I will, however, note that this example is part of a long history of Settlers limiting the Indigenous peoples ability to carry out their livelihoods due to resource depletion caused, primarily, by Settler populations in the first place.

Are you OK with a woman having sex outside marriage having her nose and/or ears cut off?

I believe my stated criteria earlier answers this question.

How about alcoholism? How about large areas being voted dry to combat alcohol among a few residents?

The right to make laws restricting alcohol sale is well established and there are already many dry counties and regions. If the people within the affected area feel it will be an effective method, and can avoid the issue of smuggling/worse substances supplanting/etc, then more power to them. How about you? Do you feel that if the majority population of a region decide that going dry will be an effective method for resolving substance abuse and have a method for preventing the aforementioned negatives, they should be prohibited from doing so?

There is a LOT of good stuff in Native American culture, like carrying collectively for the tribe, respecting and caring for the environment, and so forth but there's a lot of nasty stuff in there, too. I don't see how you can propose "restore sovereignty and culture" then turn around and say "gently remove bad stuff from the culture". If you give control back to the Native you don't get to do that.

You make an erroneous assumption here. You assume that the culture to be restored is the culture as it was, rather than the culture as it is, and further, that the Settler has the right to dictate. What I am saying is that the Indigenous peoples themselves will make that decision, for good or ill, having been part of the existing legal and cultural order. What once was can never be again.

What the fuck are you going to do when the Navajo invade the Hopi area with force of arms?

Resolve it according to the ordinary law of nations, perhaps?

What do you do when the Natives of the plains decide to go back to raiding and counting coup?

Ah, the classic settler fear of the savage waiting to return. Charming. Do you have any evidence there are seething Indigenous peoples just waiting to start raiding the moment the Settler boot is removed from their throat?

Who is going to adjudicate between the raiders and the groups who DON'T want to return to those ways when you've eliminated the Federal government?

Various international bodies, their neighbours, and whatever treaty organizations emerge during the decolonization process, perhaps? You know, the same as anywhere else?

I trust you'll go back and reply to my previous reply to you, by the way.

Which one? There are a shit-ton of posts in this thread and I don't want to have to guess which one you think I've missed.

Perhaps the enormous effortpost right before you decided you were too busy for this thread?

It is part of the systematic attempt by yourself and anti-decolonization posters in this thread to portray those of us in favour of decolonization as naive, here by invoking the idea that we believe the Indigenous cultures of settler-colonial lands to be somehow perfect and pure.

No, you're naive because you have ZERO understanding that North America was not a peaceful place, ever. There were wars being fought over control of territory before the Europeans showed up (indeed, Aztec culture required a never-ending war to exist, and there's good evidence they went as far north as Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, southern Texas, and southern California). There's the long standing conflicts between Na-Dene speakers invading from the north and Uto-Aztecan speakers who were living in what we now call the Southwestern United States. Do you seriously think that NONE of these long-standing conflicts wouldn't heat up again?

Please identify where I have made the claim that pre-colonial America was a peaceful place or that the Indigenous peoples of America did not know war, violence, etc.

It presupposes that by 'Indigenous culture' what can only be meant is some kind of pre-modern culture, a reversion to what was, rather than an embrace of what is alongside a process of conscious resurgence.

OK, you're arguing for the New Age versions of Native culture, got it.

I argue for the existing Indigenous cultures alongside the institutions Indigenous peoples wish to restore - nothing new age about that, unless you believe that the existing Indigenous cultures are inherently 'New Age'. Are you confused, and thinking that this statement is what I presuppose rather than what your argument presupposes?

But again, who said anything about giving up English? People can - and indeed, routinely do - learn multiple languages. Nations routinely have multiple official languages.

Actually, the US has NO official language. English became the de facto one because that's the one the majority of people adopted for doing business with others (we still have some enclaves of non-English).

Yes, and?

Again, your presuppositions are on display, and they are quite transparently built on the White fear of dispossession.

That's pretty damn laughable given 1) how little I posses in reality and 2) we definitely have Mongolian in our background and 3) I'm half Jewish so 4) plenty of people don't consider me white and have never hesitated to make that clear to me during my lifetime. Oh, and I married a guy whose maternal family was Eastern Band Cherokee and whose mother actually spoke Cherokee sufficiently well that she and her brother would carry on hours-long conversations in it. So please, do keep making assumptions about who I am, my background, what I fear and keep making an ass out of yourself while doing so.

And yet, your arguments are nearly textbook examples of the White fear of dispossession. I make no assumption about your background in pointing this out. It also strikes me as interesting that you identify yourself with Mongolian and Jewish stock. While this may render you non-White by strict accountings, it does not relieve you from the status of a Settler, nor place you outside the White fear of dispossession that you so clearly labour under in your posts.

[loomer]

This did not suggest dismantling the USA. Pay attention if you're going to join a conversation midstream.

Fuck you - you don't get to decide who can speak here and who can't.

No, but it is polite to pay attention when entering a conversation midstream.

I find this puzzling. We already have local laws. It's not an alien concept.

And do said local laws incorporate the customary laws of the local peoples?

What? 19th Century Potawatomie laws on automobile traffic right-of-way?

Here's a notion for you: any Native American living in Lake County, Indiana has can register to vote and have just as much say in local laws as any other resident of Lake County. And I know there are Native Americans living in Lake County because when I helped do the Census in 2010 I got to meet them when I was helping to count folks.

I see you are unaware that the Indigenous populations of Australia had traditional customary laws covering an extremely diverse range of topics, the vast majority of which are not reflected in the existing Australian legal structures. Part of decolonization consists of restoring, where possible and desired, those legal orders. And again:
Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

I refer to the Australian context, in which there is often a highly syncretic Christianity alongside mainline Christianity and traditional religions. Said religions are either closed or open in varying ways, but being aware of them does not require participation or membership - simply an awareness that 'we do not go into the bora bora rings, they are a sacred place to our neighbour'. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Then stop assuming you know fuck-all about Native American culture, language, religion, groups, laws, or history then.

I make no such assumption outside of what I do know, nor do I make any claim to the contrary.

Also, do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

FUCK you - you're talking about dismantling my country I will damn well give you my opinion of your vacuous ideas and continue to inform you about how fucking naive you are about North America. You can NOT argue for the destruction of a nation then beg not to be criticized in any aspect of your argument. YOU brought up Bundjalung, not me. Now that it's on the table it's as subject to scrutiny as anything else in this thread.

This post was not about arguing for dismantling your country, or indeed, anything to do with North America. It was specifically about Starglider's assertion that what is proposed in relation to the Bundjalung is cultural appropriation.

Although I'm not so much arguing about Bundjalung as your notions about how it might apply to an entirely different continent.

Which is, shockingly, seperate from this post! I know, it's hard to understand that multiple conversations may be ongoing within a single broader narrative, but there you have it.

Other "culinary traditions" have already been adopted into the mainstream (succotash, cornbread, etc.)

This is not the case in Australia, with very limited exceptions. Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Then don't bring up Bundjalung or any other aspect of your country. Don't put it on the table if you don't want it discussed.

Do not insert your American context into my argument around living in Bundjalung country, please.

Fucking hell - you are talking about dismantling my country and getting all pissy about someone just MENTIONING something about where you live. You really do have your head up your ass. You can't see what a squalling hypocrite you actually are.

I'm not pissy about people mentioning where I live, or I wouldn't bring it up. However, a discussion of the adoption of culinary trends is inherently local and your American context is completely unsuited to any understanding of the Australian one in this matter. You seem enormously upset that I do not think the American experience is relevent to the Australian failure to adopt Australian cuisine.

[The model proposed is one in which there is no Australian commonwealth, or at least not one of its current form, and instead a number of states constituted along the traditional borders. Unless your idea of 'the interest of North America as a whole' means you do not identify first as an American citizen, rather than a generic North American, and incorporates Canada and Mexico, the situation is not analogous.

You fucking moron - there is NO solution that restores Native lands to Native groups that doesn't cross national borders. It can't fucking be done. There are already Native landholdings that straddle two countries. We'll add "ignorant of geography" to the list of your deficiencies. Or do only Native groups in the USA get to have their lands and sovereignty back? Why don't the First Nations of Canada deserve the same? What about the Natives in Mexico?

Or is this really about your dislike of US citizens and your wish to destroy their country and leave all the other countries (and injustices) of North America intact?

In Australia - the context of this post, fuckwit - it is entirely possible, as we have no national borders that adjoin any other country. Now, you also make the baseless claims that I in some way assert that there are, a, no Indigenous territories in North America that straddle borders, b, do not believe that decolonization must be undertaken in Canada and Mexico, and C, that I harbour some special hatred for America. I will thank you to demonstrate where I have posted anything of the sort.

[loomer]

No such presupposition is made, but it is very telling that you make the argument. It is one of the classic settler moves-to-innocence.

What the FUCK are you talking about?

Has it occurred to you that this jargon and paradigm you're vomiting across this forum is related to Australia (and secondarily to Bundjalung territory) and has much less relevance to North America than you suppose? Your transposing YOUR country and YOUR context onto a completely different continent. Then turning around and bitching when someone else says "Bundjalung". You mewling, snivelling, piece of shit hypocrite.

What I'm talking about is fairly standard terminology in the field of settler studies and decolonization - your ignorance of it does not render it invalid. The term 'settler moves-to-innocence' in fact originated with a Canadian woman - so no, using it is not transposing MY country and MY context. Nor did I 'turn around and bitch' when someone else says Bundjalung. I'm the one who brought up the Bundjalung in the first place, in fact.

You seem very heated. You may wish to take a break again.

How will it work? Simple! Are you a recognized member of an existing Indigenous nation, tribe, or other grouping? Then good news: You still would be. Are you not? Then you aren't! We are not concerned with blood quantum except where in use by Indigenous groups as part of their basis for membership.

Wow.

You are TOTALLY unaware that only 20% of Native Americans live on "tribal lands", aren't you? 60% of them live in big cities. Sometimes - like for the Native Americans living in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago - it's because the city grew up around where they had always lived.

Who said anything about living on "tribal lands"? Recognized membership is an entirely different matter.

To illustrate just how silly it is to assert we presuppose this claim, I'm actually of mixed ancestry myself

Why don't you talk about it? Are you ashamed of it?

Far from it. I don't talk about it because I have no meaningful connections to whatever group my Indigenous blood comes from, and on the whole, it isn't especially relevant. I identify far more strongly as an anglo-Australian, culturally and ethnically - that, in a real sense, is who I am. To claim otherwise would be false, and paint me as someone I am not and make no claim to be, and usually I don't consider it relevant. If I were ashamed of it, I wouldn't bring it up at all.

I don't bring it up as whatever ties I had have been thoroughly broken and I pass as and live in Settler spaces with the full gamut of Settler privilege, and to assert an identity based on a tiny fraction of ambiguously Indigenous blood would be to excuse myself from my complicity in the structural systems of oppression I wish to dismantle.

Let me get this straight - you are happily assimilated but you wish to shatter another country, set up ethnostates, and dictate to others what sort of culture and political system they can have?

Wow.

If I were 'happily assimilated', would I be advocating for decolonization? Also, again: What is sought is not ethnostates nor even to 'shatter' another country, but to dismantle the colonial project (including here, as it happens) through indigenization and democracy. I also do not, as you assert, 'dictate to others what sort of culture and political system they can have' - unless you think an argument for indigenization and democracy, voluntarily undertaken on the basis of its merits, is dictatorial.

Oh, by the way - "Bundjalung"

Now this is just silly. You seem to have decided the word Bundjalung in some way offends me, and that I don't like others using it. You're making a fool of yourself.

[Darth Yan]

Native Americans are a minority. The only way they’d STAY predominantly native run is if they’re ethnostates. It’s why Israel has to deny right of return. If there are too many Arabs than the Arabs will have a lot of government positions and it just won’t be a Jewish state

With what you propose, if they aren’t ethnostates than inevitably they’ll be dominated by the non native majority. You literally sound like Israeli apologists when it’s pointed out how their state essentially uses apartheid and the best they can say is “nu uh”

That’s why we say you’re being naive. Population dynamics, the effects on the rest of the world, the fact that if the nation falls the resources won’t be fairly distributed mean that what you want is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. You can make some restitution (letting natives profit from the hydroelectric dams, actually honor more of the treaties) but full restoration. You’re an idiot of you think that’s ever going to occur.

It must be tremendously convenient for you to ignore the entire concept of decolonization and indigenization for your argument. Be silent.

It's not worth responding to him. He's an almost dictionary display of white privilege:

- Walking into a thread he doesn't understand and expecting to be understood as equal to people who have spent significant amount of time studying what's being discussed
- Ignoring posts in response to him that go into great detail, and responding to others with fortune cookie statements
- Really, just expecting other people to do intellectual labour for him
- Thinking "Well, this is complicated and I don't get it" is an argument. (Although, given what he understands in this thread I wonder what he actuallydoes get)
- Thinking that his discomfort with an idea, or its complication, is more compelling than what PoC experience
- And, of course, his obliviousness to the overt racist traditions of the historical events he cited

Given that it seems almost stubbornly willful, I'd hope to think he's just a troll playing a fratboyesque character. But I wouldn't make that bet.

Wrong jackass.

I did read your posts. Thing is the reasoning ignored various nuances and complexities that make all your suggestions childish and naive. You assume all the intertribal tensions will vanish when the us votes itself out of existence. Considering what happened with the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav and Balkan Wars that’s laughably naive

I brought up Haiti because you seemed to think that the mass murder of 3000-5000 men women and children was not important because the local blacks were fighting against people who had been brutalizing them. That’s disgusting. Being on the receiving end of abusive treatment doesn’t give you the right to exterminate the entire population you unbelievably stupid shit.

What other historical events are you talking about if not Haiti?