#we say native americans or indigenous people

[perfectlyvalid49]

Sorry for grossing you out but uh, I have a complex claim to a lot of religions and cultures because of how colonialism (arguably Israel is a settler colony state so uh… hmmm) has impacted me.

As you’ve ascertained (correctly) I’m a non-Jewish American, only by technicality, because I haven’t found a rabbi that will even support the fact that I’m gay and the “three asks” thing feels like a troll move which feels… homophobic???

I need you to seriously consider how my life has been negatively influenced (hence the circumcision poll) by a bastardized JEWISH practice, and what the fuck that means for my identity as it feels like fate to some degree and a bit offensive that you would yuck my ability to find yum in Yhwh or w/e because I’m… too much of a faggoy? Idk man… just asking questions. I’d love to clarify your response in a dm since its… a lot. Not meaning to offend just sick of being put in a box because my circumcision and mother aren’t “right” enough to be in the in club because Hekate or Satan or whatever swooped in and said “NOPE” 🙃

Cheers

Trying to understand Israel through the lens of settler colonialism is a failing proposition. Consider the following:

Jews are indigenous to Israel. We have a historical record that says they’re from there in both the Greek and Roman written record. Like there is as much if not more evidence of Jews in Israel in Roman writing as there is of Julius Caesar being a real person. We also have archaeological evidence. Israel is covered with digs that find evidence of Jewish life dating back 2,000-3,000 years. We also have genetic evidence. DNA studies have shown that even super white looking Ashkenazi Jews have significant portions of DNA that are most closely related to other groups from the southern Levant.

So to call Jews settlers either denies all that evidence, insists that indigenous people can be settlers on their own land, or posits that indigenous people can somehow lose their status as indigenous if you wait long enough. The first is anti-intellectual and antisemitic, the second is ridiculous and the third is a dangerous line of thinking for all indigenous people. How long before Native Americans no longer have a claim to their land? How long before Maori no longer have a claim? It’s not really a place we want to go.

As for colonial, the definition of a colony is “a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.” So which country controls Israel? I think we’ve seen over the last year that it’s not the US given the way Bibi has repeatedly blown off Biden, so who is it? Which country is sending settlers to control the area? Again, it’s not the US. While some American Jews make Aliyah every year, the vast majority of Jews in Israel are either from Europe or the Middle East. To be a colony, you have to be a colony of some other power. What is the other power here?

So we can see that Jews are neither settlers nor colonizers. But you know who did colonize the area? Arabs. Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula, not Israel. And in the 7th century, Arabs came from the Arabian peninsula into Israel (and other places), conquered the locals and did their best to eradicate their cultures, forced conversions to the conquering religion, and settled in the new lands while being under the political control of the far away Caliphate. Sounds like settler colonialism to me. So if we must understand someone in the area as colonial (and I still don’t think it’s the best way to look at things, but if you do) then it’s the people that Palestinians are descended from.

Having said all that, just because colonialism has impacted you, it doesn’t mean you have a complex claim to Judaism. Here are ways you can have a complex claim to Judaism: 1) your father is Jewish and your mother is not, 2) you have Jewish ancestors who were forced to convert and you are now trying to reconnect with the religion that was taken from them. I don’t know your history, so it’s possible that one of those is true. But if you have no Jewish ancestry, then your claim is not complex, it’s non-existent, and if you do have Jewish ancestry but your ancestors willingly left the tribe, then you don’t really have much of a claim either. That doesn’t mean you can’t convert, but given that you seem to think you have claims on other aspects of Judaism as a non-Jew, my gut reaction is to be very doubtful toward your claim on Judaism in general.

If you can’t find a rabbi to support your conversion because you’re gay, you’re looking in the wrong places. The senior rabbi at my synagogue is gay, and we have several queer families as part of the congregation. There are literal signs on the door to the main office that say Trans and Queer Jews welcome here. This doesn’t mean that all congregations are welcoming, but lots are.

The three asks thing is a metaphor that some rabbis take literally. Converting to Judaism is a big decision. The three asks are to make sure that you’ve really thought about it and are really sure – that you’re taking it seriously and thought through all the consequences. If that feels like trolling to you, then maybe Judaism isn’t a good fit. Honestly, from my interactions with you this week, I would bet that the rabbis you’ve met with haven’t said no because you’re gay, they’ve said no because you don’t seem super interested in taking on Jewishness, you just want to take from it instead.

I don’t know what happened with your circumcision. If it went wrong and it was done by a mohel then you can feel angry toward the Jewish people I guess, but I would want to know why your parents had a bris for you if they weren’t planning on raising you Jewish. If you were just circumcised as a medical procedure, as many American babies are, then you may have trauma related to it, but you don’t need to be taking it out on the Jewish people, which is exactly what that poll was doing.

Don’t write down those four letters. Don’t try to pronounce them either. We have asked, repeatedly that people not do that, and once again, the fact that you are is super disrespectful to Jewish people. Write G-d, or God if you must, or even Hashem (I don't think goyim should, but it's better than what you did), but not those four letters. It’s not yucking your yum. You are allowed to enjoy what you want. But what you are doing here is the equivalent of coming into my house and saying that because my dinner looks delicious you can just reach onto my plate with your bare hand, scoop up some of what I’m eating, take a bite and throw the rest back. It’s disrespectful and offensive. I am not objecting to your joy, I’m objecting to your lack of respect to my culture.

Being Jewish is about more than just being circumcised and having the “right” mother. There is a culture here that you need to understand. If you are raised in it, then you get to join the club that way. If you’re not, then you can put in the work to learn it and learn to be respectful of it and join the club that way. So far, you haven’t been able to find a rabbi that thinks you’re willing to do that work, and from what I’ve seen, I’m willing to agree.

[a-dragons-journal]

hey, i know you’re na’vi link so i wanted to ask something. i’m questioning na’vi kin right now but can’t talk about it on my main blog because one of my friends follows me. they know about my alterhumanity and i post about it on that blog. however, i am white. very white. i’ve seen some people say that na’vi kin is cultural appropriation? i’m worried my alterhuman friends will try to accuse me of cultural appropriation if i confirm this kintype. any advice?

Okay, well, first off, I'm also white, so let's get that out of the way. However I have had this conversation with and have heard the opinions of Native American people with both opinions, so I can pass on my conclusions from that conversation, and if other people have opinions they want to add I welcome them to, especially Indigenous folks of course.

Thing number one: if it's not a choice, it can't be morally wrong. End of. You can't apply morality to things that aren't choices. You can engage with it in moral vs immoral ways, but simply having an identity that you didn't choose cannot be immoral.

Now obviously that doesn't apply to me, and it may or may not apply to you, so here's the rest of it:

Someone who's Na'vikin/link isn't claiming to be Indigenous here and now. We're not claiming to have direct experience with those struggles or the same amount of voice as Indigenous people do with regards to them. Na'vi are similar to and based on Indigenous people, but they aren't actually Indigenous people.

The Na'vi aren't based on any one Indigenous culture - although the Metkayina are much more heavily based on the Maori than anything else, the other clans we've seen aren't as specific, and are intentionally a mish-mash of dozens of Indigenous cultures. So... who is allowed to be Na'vikin/link, exactly? If the answer is "only people from the culture they're based on," then the real answer is no one. And about that:

This is really just a variant on the old "is kinning outside your race problematic" argument, and we came to a community-agreed-upon conclusion on that years ago: no. For a lot of reasons, including the above, and also the fact that if you're saying it's okay to identify as a wolf but not as a character of a different ethnicity than you... does that not imply that it's easier for a white person to connect that deeply with an animal than with a person of color? Is that not pretty damn problematic itself?

As a bonus round, if your answer then becomes "well, I guess you can be Na'vikin/link, but you shouldn't talk about it/engage with it in public": we know that suppressing kintypes is bad for you. We have learned this the hard way - how many stories are out there about how incredibly unhealthy that is for most people? You're now advocating for a known harm in order to avoid a hypothetical one. I don't think that's fair to anyone.

For what it's worth, I do think there are probably ways to engage with being a Na'vi that are appropriative, racist, and weird toward Indigenous people - just like there are plenty of ways to be a fan of the Na'vi that are appropriative, racist, and weird toward Indigenous people. But I don't think being a Na'vi is inherently that way. I don't think it's that hard to be Na'vi and be respectful of real-world Indigenous cultures that the Na'vi have parallels to. As long as you're not claiming to be Indigenous here and now, or have some ~special connection~ to Indigenous cultures because of your Na'vi 'type, or appropriating Indigenous things because they have Na'vi vibes, then I think you're fine.

But, as I said, I'm more than willing to hear other opinions if people have them! Please, add on in the notes. (I also feel like I'm forgetting a major point in my argument as to why it's fine for some reason, but can't get my hands around it, so hopefully I'm wrong and if not you might see an update to this post in the future when I remember. I've got a bit of a headache right now, so I'm a little bleary.)

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

I made a post the other day that mentioned IEPs. So I wanted to make a post as someone who was worked for the american school system, and explain IEPs versus 504s. I double checked by looking online just to make sure I wasn't spreading misinformation. (Or just the way my severely underfunded county did things, bc they cut corners) And I found this site above that gives a great break down. It offers a pdf with a chart that compares the two. There is a video that explains it as well. There's also video, a podcast, and the transcription available here . That link also has a few links to other resources.

I'm going add a quick summary of the most important details below regarding IEPs vs 504s. I'm also to going to add a link for parents/guardians who either don't speak/have limited English. (Unfortunately the pdf is in English, but you could probably put it through a one of online translators and the gist of what it saying.)

Most important differences between an IEP and a 504:

IEP: Is always written. Includes related services and specially designed instruction.

Generally much more in depth.

Requires any changes made to the IEP are given to parents/guardians in writing before the IEP team meets and makes any changes. You are automatically part of your child's IEP team. You have to right to attend these meetings. They will send a letter, by snail mail, telling you of a time and date they would like to meet. (If your kid has a good teacher, they will call and try to find a date that works for you. If not, you can contact the school and request a different day. Most schools are willing to be accommodating.)

Written consent from parents/guardians is required before evaluation and before the IEP is put into affect. HOWEVER, the student has to fall under one the 13 disability categories.

Typically includes modifications of the what the student is expected to know and learn. (For example, if the student has an intellectual disability, their learning goals will be established by the IEP team.)

This doesn't mean the student will not be presented with general education grade level concepts, just that they will be modified to meet the student's capability.

IEPs have annual goals that are measurable. These goals are made by the IEP team, including parents/guardians. (Aka, there is a lot of progress monitoring.)

Usually teachers will send out a progress report every two weeks. However, most teachers send out less formal methods of progress monitoring weekly or daily. Sometimes it's just a chart in a file folder where the teacher will jot a note of anything that the student was doing well with, or anything the were struggling on. Sometimes it's their complete work for the week sent home, excluding anything the teacher is keeping for records.

An IEP team has to include at least one gen ed teacher, one special education teacher (special education is usually called EC these days) a school psychologist/specialist, a district representative, and the parent/guardian of the student.

An IEP team is required to meet at least once a year, and the student is reevaluated at least once every three years. (Typically they are reevaluated and deemed still in need of an IEP. Though there are cases when students (mostly in high school) have received enough support that they no longer feel the need an IEP)

An IEP is a legal agreement. You have the right to sue the hell out of the school system if they fail to meet it.

504s:

Doesn't include specially designed instruction. Is meant to help student remain in general education.

Doesn't have to be a written document. (Though typically most schools do write documents. Bc otherwise they would not be able to keep track of what students need, bc there are so many).

Usually provides accomadations/assistive technology, but not related services of modifications. (Though sometimes these are also provided, especially if a student fails to qualify for an IEP, but still needs services and/or modifications)

Requires a student have a disability that impacts their education

Much easier to obtain than an IEP bc less requirements

No specific set of rules of who is on the student's plan team. Generally includes the parents/guardians, the student's general education teacher, (in the event the student has multiple teachers, the teacher will probably be their 'homeroom' teacher, and/or the teacher(s) of whatever subject/area your student is struggling in) and someone from administration, such as the principal or assistant/vice principal. Hopefully also someone from EC who has been trained to teach students with exceptional needs.

Parent/guardian consent is needed to evaluate the child, but this consent does not have to be written. (Many schools will still send some sort of consent form, bc the school system believes in documenting everything.)

The school has to tell you of any big changes to the plan, but they do not require your consent before starting them. Generally you'll be sent a letter of those changes in the mail. (If your students team is good at their job, they'll contact you before. Like, the teacher will call and say we are planning on starting x thing on y date, or email you if that's your preferred method of contact.)

504s don't track annual progress or create annual goals. (Though usually teachers will keep their own form of progress monitoring, bc a student with a 504 could be reevaluated and found they meet the criteria of an IEP. For that reason, many schools treat 504s as if they IEPs. Some schools suck though.)

For parents/guardians with limited or no English language known.

Most importantly, if you have a language barrier, your school must provide a competent translator/interpreter. They should NOT expect your child to work as translator for you.

And there is a lot of times where the translator isn't available that teachers will ask a bilingual staff member to translate for them. How you feel about that is up to you. A lot of parents don't mind in my area, bc we are severely understaffed when it comes to translators, and they want a quick response. If it's something you absolutely don't want, be sure to tell the school. You don't have to do so verbally; send a letter in your language stating your wishes. The school will find someone to interpret it. Keep a back-up copy for yourself.

Just as a general rule to all parents/guardians, keep documentation of everything the school sends you. You never know when you may need it.

[thessaralka]

it's important to remember that art doesn't always correlate to situations in real life and if you are always trying to make those connections you will lose a lot of the nuance and unique details of the story/ characters, on top of making yourself very, very miserable (as someone who used to do this, it destroyed my mental health for several years and it's not a path i will ever encourage you to go down bc it's neither radical, nor revolutionary, nor productive, it's just you self flagellating trying desperately to look like a Good Person to people you don't even know)

[thehealingsystem]

it makes me so pissed off that indigenous people's day is now a nationally recognized holiday, and my school doesn't even celebrate columbus day anymore, but our school sports still celebrates it as a columbus day tournament. like let me get this straight, my school doesn't even call it that anymore, they seemingly disavowed the holiday, but they still refuse to change it to the "indigenous people's day tournament?"

and well I can imagine the argument being "well it'd be weird to celebrate this racial minority in a mostly white community for a tournament! some people may be upset by it!" but like. you're still willing to celebrate a genocidal monster than us? the people who've faced centuries of extermination just to form this country? you'd rather celebrate one deeply evil man than our community, because it'll upset a bunch of sports obsessed yankees who have to deal with, idk, maybe seeing us mentioned on a banner or a shirt?

but hey, guess I shouldn't expect much out of a school system that not even that long ago had their mascot be called a native american racial slur. they only really change things unless they're being yelled at for it

[gorekiss]

lots of nb leftists thinking they know about the black experience 2day……

[snekdood]

Ill probably never know if i have native american in me and even if i did find out i probably wouldnt be welcome but even if its not true thats not going to stop me from respecting the land and the native people who have come before me and to try to make them proud in the best way i can. I want them to know that someone cares, idk.

[somethingaboutnoodles]

only americans are real people. a not american picked foods that, yes are historically black and historically poor people food, that has been modified into comfort food, but, I need to point out, ARE STILL WEIRD if you haven't grown up with them, same as LITERALLY ALL OTHER COUNTRIES AND FOOD TRADITIONS ON EARTH. americans are having a fucking shitfit about it, as if americans don't immediately reach for poor people food and ethnic minority foods when making fun of other people's food traditions. it's fine when you fuckers replicate classism at people living in a society where class is real and tangible in ways you guys don't even understand that's just a joke bro calm down, but god forbid anyone do it back at you. get over youselves, if you gonna dish you gotta take it.

I'm well aware of classism in England, since it's one of the primary reasons my dad moved to the US and had me, a dual citizen who is uniquely positioned to see through your complete and utter bullshit.

Classism and racism exist in both countries. Stop acting like Americans, who live under greater wealth inequality than Brits do and in the country with the most billionaires, don't know what classism is. Stop acting like Brits don't know what anti-Black racism is when Black people are the third-most impoverished ethnic group in the UK and are so marginalised the UN filed a report on it in January.

Making fun of beans on toast is not the same as making fun of grits. Both sustain people through poverty, but only one sustained enslaved people through being bought and sold like livestock.

I did not expect the OP to know that when they made the post because I do not expect people to know everything about American culture or history. But you (and the OP) should have backed off once people tried to educate you about the importance of many of the foods on the list. My 80-year-old English grandmother would tell you the same.

Sending me a pissy ask like this tells me everything I need to know about you. Your behavior has nothing to do with your country of origin.

You're just a racist twat.

[headspace-hotel]

There was this post a while ago where somebody was saying that Cheetahs aren't well suited to Africa and would do well in Midwestern North America, and it reminded me of Paul S. Martin, the guy I'm always pissed off about.

He had some good ideas, but he is most importantly responsible for the overkill hypothesis (idea that humans caused the end-Pleistocene extinctions and that climate was minimally a factor) which led to the idea of Pleistocene rewilding.

...Basically this guy thought we should introduce lions, cheetahs, camels, and other animals to North America to "rewild" the landscape to what it was like pre-human habitation, and was a major advocate for re-creating mammoths.

Why am I pissed off about him? Well he denied that there were humans in North America prior to the Clovis culture, which it's pretty well established now that there were pre-Clovis inhabitants, and in general promoted the idea that the earliest inhabitants of North America exterminated the ecosystem through destructive and greedy practices...

...which has become "common knowledge" and used as evidence for anyone who wants to argue that Native Americans are "Not So Innocent, Actually" and the mass slaughter and ecosystem devastation caused by colonialism was just what humans naturally do when encountering a new environment, instead of a genocidal campaign to destroy pre-existing ways of life and brutally exploit the resources of the land.

It basically gives the impression that the exploitative and destructive relationship to land is "human nature" and normal, which erases every culture that defies this characterization, and also erases the way indigenous people are important to ecosystems, and promotes the idea of "empty" human-less ecosystems as the natural "wild" state.

And also Martin viewed the Americas' fauna as essentially impoverished, broken and incomplete, compared with Africa which has much more species of large mammals, which is glossing over the uniqueness of North American ecosystems and the uniqueness of each species, such as how important keystone species like bison and wolves are.

It's also ignoring the taxa and biomes that ARE extraordinarily diverse in North America, for example the Appalachian Mountains are one of the most biodiverse temperate forests on Earth, the Southeastern United States has the Earth's most biodiverse freshwater ecosystems, and both of these areas are also a major global hotspot for amphibian biodiversity and lichen biodiversity. Large mammals aren't automatically the most important. With South America, well...the Amazon Rainforest, the Brazilian Cerrado and the Pantanal wetlands are basically THE biodiversity hotspot of EVERYTHING excepting large mammals.

It's not HIM I have a problem with per se. It's the way his ideas have become so widely distributed in pop culture and given people a muddled and warped idea of ecology.

If people think North America was essentially a broken ecosystem missing tons of key animals 500 years ago, they won't recognize how harmful colonization was to the ecosystem or the importance of fixing the harm. Who cares if bison are a keystone species, North America won't be "fixed" until we bring back camels and cheetahs...right?

And by the way, there never were "cheetahs" in North America, Miracinonyx was a different genus and was more similar to cougars than cheetahs, and didn't have the hunting strategy of cheetahs, so putting African cheetahs in North America wouldn't "rewild" anything.

Also people think its a good idea to bring back mammoths, which is...no. First of all, it wouldn't be "bringing back mammoths," it would be genetically engineering extant elephants to express some mammoth genes that code for key traits, and second of all, the ecosystem that contained them doesn't exist anymore, and ultimately it would be really cruel to do this with an intelligent, social animal. The technology that would be used for this is much better used to "bring back" genetic diversity that has been lost from extant critically endangered species.

I think mustangs should get to stay in North America, they're already here and they are very culturally important to indigenous groups. And I think it's pretty rad that Scimitar-horned Oryx were brought back in their native habitat only because there was a population of them in Texas. But we desperately, DESPERATELY need to re-wild bison, wolves, elk, and cougars across most of their former range before we can think about introducing camels.

[popcornoncemore]

I live in an enchanting land of mountains and oceans and the river that connects them. A place of tall green trees that never lose their color and dense underbrush that fights to share what little sunlight that decides to peak through the grey sky. I live where the salmon return home, where the ships come to harbor. A place with two distinct seasons: the rain and the summer, separated only by a few weeks of chaos where the rain and sun mix and form rainbows. The kind of weather you rejoice in, a storm so gentle my friends and I run out to dance in, celebrating every day we get to wake up here. You can smell the rain hitting on the pavement, you can smell the moisture on the screen door. On those early rainy mornings, you can feel the breeze blown in many miles from the ocean, and it tastes of freedom and hope.

I live in the same place I always have, and I am oh so lucky.

[baconvonmoose]

More stuff about Wendigoag if anyone cares or sees this

Just me rambling alright, a few questions I commonly see and some other things I find important to know

"X is a native american and they said NOT to say it," or "If no single indigenous person is the authority then how can you speak over people who say it isn't okay"

I'll be honest, I don't think anyone has a right to tell someone to not ever use the name of a mythological creature for superstitious reasons. I think it 1: erases discussion, 2: erases the spreading of important lore, 3: is controlling someone due to your own beliefs, 4: it once again makes non-natives think we're all so shaken by myths and legends that we are genuinely *afraid* when people say it, 5: is no different than a Christian going around lecturing anyone who says or types 'Jesus Christ' in any manner that isn't purely reverent. You shouldn't be doing this, indigenous or not. But especially non-natives doing this, like speak for your own beliefs, not someone else's.

There are definitely reasons to NOT throw the word Wendigo around left and right, but they are not superstitious. Pretty much if you are wrongfully referring to a creature that ISN'T a Wendigo (i.e. the deer-headed monster or whatever, which is completely unrelated to Wendigoag).

That all being said, I promise you native people to whom the story is relevant use the word Wendigo all the time. It is on our official websites, in our books and texts, and when we tell the story of the Wendigo to each other, we just say the word. I had literally never heard of anyone saying it was 'taboo' because it 'summons the creature' until the past few years on the internet. Not at any pow-wow or gathering, not from my family on the rez, not from any books I read, nothing.

There's certainly something to be said for cultural appropriation, it is our legend not yours, but the reason you stop yourself from saying it shouldn't be because you view us as poor helpless little guys who are scared of a storybook monster.

So yes, you shouldn't be using Native mythology to slap it like a coat of paint over your forest monster or whatever. If you want to retell our story then either make sure you're telling it correctly or don't tell it at all. If you want to go lecture someone using or saying the word Wendigo, do so because it has antlers, lol.

[ridenwithbiden]

"Native Americans across Indian Country shared mixed emotions this week after President Biden apologized for the U.S. government’s role in running Native American boarding schools across the country.

During the 150-year practice, at more than 400 schools where the U.S. partnered with various religious institutions, Indigenous children were separated from their families and stripped of their language and customs in an effort to assimilate into white culture. There were also documented cases of abuse and death.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and has been instrumental in bringing these issues to a wider audience through her Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, applauded Biden’s move.

“I'm so grateful to [Biden] for acknowledging this terrible era of our nation's past,” Haaland, whose grandparents were taken to boarding schools, posted on X.

ederal Indian boarding schools have impacted every Indigenous person I know. These were places where children - including my grandparents - were traumatized. I'm so grateful to @POTUS for acknowledging this terrible era of our nation's past.

“I would never have guessed in a million years that something like this would happen,” she told the Associated Press.

At the Gila Crossing Community School near Phoenix, Biden celebrated Haaland’s historic role and apologized today for America’s “sin.”

“It’s an honor, a genuine honor … to right a wrong, to chart a new path,” he said. “I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize. It’s long overdue.”

However, Indigenous leaders and citizens across the country stressed that this is only the first step.

“This is one of the most historic days in the history of Indian Country, and an apology of this size must be followed by real action,” Nick Tilsen, who belongs to the Oglala Lakota Nation and is president and CEO of the Indigenous rights organization NDN Collective, told Yahoo News.

Tilsen believes that there are specific, actionable steps that need to accompany any apology. For him, that means passing the U.S. Truth and Healing Commission bill in Congress, rescinding medals of honor for those who participated in the Battle of Wounded Knee, releasing “longest living Indigenous political prisoner in American history Leonard Peltier, who is also a boarding school survivor” and “unprecedented investment in Indigenous languages and education.”

Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Chuck Hoskin celebrated the move, calling out Haaland’s role in particular, and echoed the sentiment of following any apology with action.

“The [Department of the Interior’s] recommendations, especially in the preservation of Native languages and the repatriation of ancestors and cultural items, can be a path toward true healing,” Hoskin said in a statement.

While many Indigenous leaders are calling for action, Tilsen stressed that this is also a time to hold boarding school survivors and their families close.

“At this moment in history, we have to remember many of the survivors of the boarding schools are still alive,” he said. “It's in every household and it's in every community. And it's directly tied to the struggles that our people have today.”

Dylan Rose Goodwill, who is Diné (Navajo), Hunkpapa Lakota and Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, was visiting Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, Calif., on Thursday when she heard the news about Biden’s forthcoming apology. It’s a place that is part of her family history, as her grandmother (or másáni) was sent there when it served as a federally run Native boarding school.

She told Yahoo News that hearing the news there was “complicated.”

As the senior assistant director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Southern California, Goodwill was visiting the school as a college recruiter.

“I've always had these kinds of mixed feelings because it's been weird to be the admission counselor for the schools that my own grandparents attended,” she said.

“It was already a tough morning to go and then to receive the news on site was really a mixture of feelings because I felt anger mostly, where it was like disbelief that this was happening, excitement that at least it was happening, but also feeling like this isn't enough,” Goodwill added.

Sitting where her grandmother sat in the 1930s and '40s, Goodwill asked herself, “What is that gonna really hold for her now? She passed in '04.”

Biden’s statement comes 16 years after former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada’s role in the Indigenous residential school system — a topic filmmakers Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie document in their film Sugarcane, about St. Joseph’s Mission School near the Sugarcane reserve in British Columbia.

NoiseCat is a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’wat Nation of Mount Currie and whose grandmother attended the Catholic Church-run residential school and gave birth to his father there. He told Yahoo News that this moment was important for a “continentwide conversation about what happened to Native families and Native children at Native American boarding schools and Indian residential schools.”

Joining Biden and Haaland for the event on the Gila River Indian Reservation along with Kassie, NoiseCat continued, “The fact that the president has chosen to formally apologize to survivors and their families is a real testament to the significance of this story, which needs to be understood as a foundational story to North America.”

However, Kassie echoed that actionable steps must follow sentiment.

“As momentous and important as this day is, it's important that it's followed up with action,” she told Yahoo. “It's important that the records of what happened at these institutions that are held by the U.S. government and the Catholic Church are opened to Indigenous communities who are looking for answers. And it's important that those communities also have the opportunity to hold to account those institutions and individuals who abused them.”

For Tilsen, it’s also a time to “center the survivors.”

“As we sort of politically dissect this moment,” he said, “I also want to recognize the pain that is being resurfaced, and that our people deserve the right to have pain and they deserve the right to have rage in this moment while we lean towards moving forward in action.”

NoiseCat, who has a deeply personal connection to the residential school history, said, “I'm probably going to call my dad today after the apology and just check in with him.”

[lobselvith8]

Regarding Gaider's "Modern Elves are Partly to blame for their own oppression"

In a conversation with Christina Gonzalez and a few other people on twitter, David Gaider, the former headwriter of Dragon Age, mocked fans of the Dalish. I took issue with his statement and pointed out why people are critical of how he and the other writers handled the Dalish in Dragon Age (while Allan Schumacher of Epic Games had nothing of substance to say in response). The Dalish are nomadic as a consequence of Andrastian societies violently attacking them if they stay too long in one area. The Andrastian Chantry outlawed their religion, making them criminals as a consequence of their faith. Andrastians will threaten the Dalish with violence in an attempt to force conversion to the Andrastian faith. Templars will hunt down the Dalish, and will even torture children. Andrastian elves also suffer from Andrastian oppression as Andrastian humans can massacre all of them, down to the children in an orphanage.

Gaider postulates that one could discuss how the ancient elves were "partly to blame" for their enslavement (let's keep in mind that being slaves is what he's talking about, even though he's careful not to put that into his tweet) or how "modern elves are partly to blame for their own oppression" which is essentially what we are told throughout the whole of Inquisition and the DLCs that accompanied the game (even JoH tries to romanticize the genocidal tyrant Drakon and place all of the blame on the Dales for the elves not trusting the tyrant who was invading their neighbors, forcing conversion, and massacring the people who would not convert - like the peaceful pacifists known as the Daughters of Song).

Inquisition even rectonned previously established lore on the Dalish in order to have characters like Iron Bull denigrate the Dalish. It's a game that will side-step Celene burning thousands of elves alive in Halamshiral while it will demonize the Dalish for wanting to maintain their autonomy from what's essentially a group of colonizers who want to rule over them and force them to convert, and the white Canadian writers (who are from Canada, a place known for its long history of horrific treatment towards Indigenous people) are firmly on the side of those who think that the Dalish (who, as Gaider himself once said at the Dragon Central forums before the release of Origins, were modeled after "Northern Native Americans") are wrong not to subjugate themselves to white Andrastian rulers.

Andrastian elves similarly face hardships because of Andrastian rule. In Ferelden even the efforts of the Night Elves fighting to free the nation from Orlesian rule didn't the elves any greater freedoms once Maric came to power. The Boon of the City Elf faces a number of dire consequences unless the Warden assumes control themselves as the new Bann. Inquisition ignores the plight of the elves of the Dales entirely to focus on a white human noble as the focus of the storyline in the Dales, and you can potentially help chevalier Michel de Chevin (a white man with blonde hair who is part of the chevaliers, a group who murder innocent elves as part of their initiation rite, although this isn't properly addressed in-game) while Briala's role is marginalized in-game despite being the leader of an elven rebellion across Orlais (and she strangely became white despite her in-book description making it clear she's a woman of color, which accompanying artwork confirmed).

Whether you're talking about the slavery of ancient elves or the 'modern' oppression of Andrastian elves and Dalish elves, I don't see how you can blame either the victims of slavery or the victims of racial (and in the case of the Dalish religious) persecution for the oppression they face. And Gaider doesn't seem to understand that at all, which explains the inherent problems with how the plight of the elves is framed within Dragon Age.

[feminist-furby-freak]

We had an indigenous elder come and speak to one of my classes the other day and everyone was criticizing her for saying women and using sex-based language. Wait but I through native Americans didn’t have our regressive “colonial” views on gender!!?! Don’t they all believe in “two spirit” !?!?!

You people don’t actually care what black or indigenous or whatever group you are fetishizing have to say if they don’t support your agenda.

[boreal-sea]

So from what I've seen there are four main excuses American leftist non-Jews use to deny indigeneity for diaspora Jews.

Most of them agree Jews were indigenous 2,000 years ago, but some think the Jews who were forced out of Israel during the past 2,000 years have "lost" their indigeneity in some way. In other words, they don't think diaspora Jews have a right to claim indigeneity to the Jewish homeland.

Some of them think that converts and/or external marriages have "diluted" diaspora Jewish bloodlines too much, and diaspora Jews are now a "different race" or "different ethnicity" from the "original Jews". They may even consider some diaspora Jews to be "white", which means they think those Jews definitely can't claim indigeneity.

Some of them think the fact that diaspora Jews absorbed parts of other cultures means they are no longer the "same kind of Jews" that originally came from the region, and this means they have changed too much to be considered the same culture, and thus they cannot return to their homeland.

Some just think "too much time has passed". It doesn't matter that diaspora Jews didn't choose to leave, nor does it matter that people prevented them from returning until very recently. Time is time, and too much time has passed. Indigeneity gone.

Finally, I have seen some argue that birthplace or citizenship is what matters. They say, "you can't be indigenous to a place you weren't born in". I've seen some claim that being born as a citizen of a country or becoming a citizen of a country erases any prior ethnic, cultural, national, indigenous, or religious ties they and their family may have had. For example, they think Jews born in America are American, and have zero right to say they have any ties to anywhere else.

Basically, for whatever reason, they don't think diaspora Jews are "native Jews" anymore, and thus they don't belong in their homeland.

...

I wonder though.

Do they know the difference between an ethnicity and a race? Do they know what an ethnoreligion is? Do they know how Jews view converts?

Do they think certain Jewish ethnic groups get to have a claim to indigeneity while others don't? Why do they think that as a non-Jew they get to have any say in that?

If they think the indigeneity of diaspora Jews has "expired" due to how long Jews have been living in the diaspora, do they think the indigeneity of ALL displaced indigenous peoples can "expire", or does this rule only apply to Jews?

If they believe indigeneity expires, when does it expire? After 200 years? What about 500 years? 1000?

If a colonized country with a displaced indigenous population waits long enough, will it be OK to tell those displaced people, "Sorry, you've been gone from the parts of the continent you were originally from for too long. Even though it wasn't your choice to leave, and even though we have prevented you from returning, you have no right to claim that as your homeland anymore". Is that acceptable?

When does a population living in a forced diaspora have no right to return home?

[starlightomatic]

I'm asking this in good faith, but also in an admitted lack of full understanding. If you don't have the energy to engage with this topic anymore please disregard it.

Someone on your post noted the comparison of Israel-Palestine to that of the Native Americans, but the way I read it it seemed like they were putting Palestinians in the role of the native Americans and Israel as the colonizing force, but historically wouldn't it be the Jewish people who are the Native Americans in that comparison? I ask because from what I know it would be the Jewish people in what is now Israel at the same time in history as the Natives in the Americas. Am I misinformed about that? I'm not trying to say Palestine would be the colonizing force in that comparison btw, just that if we're talking about natives to the land, it seems to me like it'd be the Jewish people.

tbh neither maps on exactly

the expulsion of jews from what is now israel/palestine started in 70 AD and then was a gradual process over the next few hundred years as people moved out due to oppression by various rulers, poverty, etc

palestinians, as far as i understand it, likely descend from a mix of some of the jews who were left behind and arabs who conquered the land. they've been there for hundreds of years, and some families have owned the same land for all of that time

the thing about indigeneity as it's been explained to me is that it's not about origin so much as relationship to colonization. and the founding of israel was colonization -- herzl actually used that word himself in his writings.

you know the jnf? the original purpose was to exploit a feature of ottoman land law. if you planted a tree on someone's land and they didn't remove it for a certain number of years, you could claim ownership of that land. this and other methods were used to steal parcels of land from palestinians.

"your ethnicity stole the land from our ethnicity, to whom the land belongs" is a fucked up framework that seems really akin to blood and soil (as does "our ethnicity has rightful ownership of this land from ancient times, so your ethnicity needs to clear out"), but genuinely wresting ownership from individuals owners really can be said to be stealing land.

also, the nakba was a series of massacres and fighting that led to a huge influx of palestinian refugees from many areas in israel/palestine, and israel seized control of the land and homes they vacated to hand over to jews. israel used the jnf, again, to cover the ruins of many palestinian villages with trees to obscure the fact that they were ever there. in general israel built over many palestinian villages and the mindset in israel is not to know and not to think about it.

personally i think the indigeneity debate is not useful. it feels sometimes that jews think that if we can prove we lived in israel in ancient times (we did, a lot of people insist we didn't because it is inconvenient), we can justify things like the above. my position is that it does not justify it, because it is not an excuse for causing human suffering.

however, many people use a framework that is not about human suffering, but about how invading foreign jews stole the land from the "rightful" ethnic group. i don't agree with that either. especially when it becomes an excuse to support ethnic cleansing in the other direction. that is to say: they locate the crime not in the invasion but in the foreignness. such people are motivated to deny the historical fact of jewish origins in israel, because their argument is based on jewish foreignness.

but anyway, the comparison to indigenous peoples in the americas refers to the way that palestinians experienced the establishment of the state of israel -- starting with small groups of settlers, involving violence early on and then massacres, and later ethnic cleansing and displacement. cities and towns destroyed. shoved into small areas with few resources. lack of power and autonomy.

in addition, the way the early zionist leaders conceptualized themselves as enlightened europeans colonizing land with disdain for the existing residents.