Land acknowledgements are performative BS
You can steal something or not steal it; but don't steal it and then walk around announcing that you stole it like that somehow makes it all better.
You know the horror movie plot where everything goes wrong because someone built a house on an “ancient Indian burial ground”? Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the story of America.
Of course, whitey feels a wee bit guilty about all that. And apparently a bunch of casinos and the Washington Football Team going Commanders didn’t quite smooth things over. So now we’re inundated with the latest half-assed attempt at reconciliation: land acknowledgements.
For example, this one which opened a Microsoft conference:
We need to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is located is traditionally occupied by the Sammamish, Duwamish, Snoqualmie, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Tulalip, and other coastal Salish people since time immemorial, a people who are still continuing to honor and bring to light their amazing heritage.
Way to shoot your Muckleshoot shot, Microsoft.
These land acknowledgements feel gross. Simply put, that’s not how thievery works. You can steal something or not steal it; but don't steal it and then walk around announcing that you stole it like that somehow makes it all better. If you run off with something and you feel bad about it, here’s an idea: Pay for it or give it back. Victims of theft don’t want words, they want actions.
Imagine someone stole your boyfriend and then every time you see her out, she begins the interaction by saying, "It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought Carl into my bed, and to seek to understand my place within that history. I would like to begin by acknowledging that Carl was originally dating my co-worker Ilana, who stewarded him through all kinds of crappy haircuts (ugh, the faux-hawk), gaming consoles (so much Madden), and embarrassing wardrobe choices (camo cargo shorts!?). We thank her for her strength and resilience in transforming him into someone dateable and aspire to uphold our responsibilities according to her example. Ilana, we honor you and all the work you’ve done making him someone who just proposed to me."
Um, we all know what Ilana would think of that. Come to think of it, all that’s missing from these land acknowledgements is a Maron-esque “We good?” at the end. The answer: Nah.
Metaphors are pretty fun here so let’s keep going. Imagine a car thief pulling up and explaining, “I respectfully acknowledge that I am behind the wheel of this Subaru which was originally the car of the Templeton family of East Brunswick. This car was forcibly removed from their driveway in the 2010s (coat hanger/jumpstart) and it now resides in my garage. I offer my gratitude to the First Owners of this car for their tire inflations and the new muffler. I plan on honoring their oil changes on my upcoming road trip.”
Bottom line for scoundrels: Just give the stuff you stole back or keep it moving. This moral grandstanding is just adding an icing of obnoxiousness to a ripoff cake. Everyone knows you’re doing it for you, not for them. As Nick Estes, a professor and citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, explains, “[Land acknowledgments are] a pantomime of caring or outrage mostly by professional class elites and educational institutions.”
You really want to help? Spend money. Volunteer. Do something. Target the native community’s outsized rates of infant mortality, homelessness, and poverty in a way that actually makes a difference. Colleen Echohawk, who runs a Native-led human services nonprofit, explains, “When someone tells people that they are on tribal land I hope they recognize they have the opportunity to move beyond the acknowledgment and move toward putting resources back into the community.”
Without accompanying action, these sham land confessions come off as nothing but a way to cement one’s class status while claiming higher ethical ground. It’s like everything else nowadays: Easy piety. Spend a few seconds paying lip service and then, voila, you’re the good guy. Like online petitions, what they really deliver is minimal viable morality.
Mentioning the Snohomish on Zoom is a starting point, not an end game. If only a company like Microsoft had some loose change lying around that it could donate to the cause [ahem]…
Standup
A recent clip and a couple from my last special “Feels Like Matt Ruby.”
Recently at Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian (my newsletter about the craft of standup): Wisdom from Chris Rock, Steve Martin, and Jerry Seinfeld. Check it out.
Quickies
🎯 I feel like most things on the Internet should begin this way:
🎯 Too much content is the source of our discontent.
🎯 I love when people just repeat the punchline in the comment section on IG/Tok/YouTube. It’s like “Yup, that was the joke! Congrats on finding Comedy Waldo!”
🎯 Caterpillars to butterflies: “What’s your skin care regimen?”
🎯 Guess we need a good guy sniper on every roof too.
🎯 An efficient life is not the same thing as a good life.
🗯 Musk lost interest in pretending to buy Twitter. We’ve all wasted so much time on this loon’s nonsense. This guy gets it.
Is it fun for him? If he manages to walk away having spent only millions in financing fees, millions in legal fees and say $1 billion in termination fees, was it worth it? What did he get out of this? The guy really seems to like being on Twitter, and he did make himself the main character in Twitter's drama for months on end. That’s nice for him I guess. Also he made the lives of Twitter’s executives and employees pretty miserable; as a fellow Twitter addict I can kind of see the appeal of that? I always assume that “everyone who works at Twitter hates the product and its users,” and I suppose this is a case of the richest and weirdest user getting some revenge on the employees. He also gave himself an excuse to sell a bunch of Tesla stock near the highs. He maybe got an edit button too? Maybe that’s worth a billion dollars to him?
🗯 It’s Time to Stop Living the American Scam. More gold from Tim Kreider, a person I’m lucky to know in real life and also one of my fave writers. Read this and then get his books.
A new generation has grown to adulthood that’s never known capitalism as a functioning economic system. My generation, X, was the first postwar cohort to be downwardly mobile, but millennials were the first to know it going in. Our country’s oligarchs forgot to maintain the crucial Horatio Alger fiction that anyone can get ahead with hard work — or maybe they just dropped it, figuring we no longer had any choice. Through the internet, we could peer enviously at our neighbors in civilized countries, who get monthlong vacations, don’t have to devote decades to paying for their college degrees, and aren’t terrified of going broke if they get sick. To young people, America seems less like a country than an inescapable web of scams, and “hard work” less like a virtue than a propaganda slogan, inane as “Just say no.”
🗯 George Saunders on “backdoor ego.”
You may be indulging in a form of what a friend calls “backdoor ego.” The idea is, the person who says, “I’m so cute,” and the one who says “I’m so ugly,” are both coming from the same place: they are thinking intensely of how they look…I think about those scenes in prison escape movies, where some prisoners are trying to dig their way out. If we imagine ourselves part of such a group and find ourselves wondering, “What if it doesn’t work?” or “What job will I get after the escape?” or “Do I really want out?” or “Am I doing this in the right spirit?”– well… such questions are not useful and are, in fact, obstructive: all there really is to do, is dig.
I dig that.
Up ahead: More on scams, fireworks, disorders, Dr. Dre, Megan Thee Stallion, J Lo, Jennifer Aniston, and more. If you’re not a subscriber yet, here’s your chance to put your money where your 👀 are…
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