happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.
Non-Natives reblogging this are great and wonderful
Please remember that “land back” does not mean “indigenous people are mystical elves with innate epigenetic wisdom of land stewardship and they don’t belong in big cities,” nor does it mean “non-indigenous people can’t be farmers.”
What it DOES mean is that “non-indigenous farmers should be paying the equivalent of property taxes to the native governments their land was stolen from.”
It means, “there’s a great deal of indigenous scholarship on sustainable agricultural practices that farmers should be taking into account, because indigenous agriculture was more advanced than European agriculture at the time Europe invaded the Americas and western agriculture *still* hasn’t caught up in terms of figuring out how to produce equivalently high crop yields without compromising the ecosystem.”
It means, “non-indigenous farmers should be in an intellectual discourse with indigenous agricultural scientists and indigenous peoples that still do traditional farming, figuring how to repair the damage western farming practices have done to the ecosystem.”
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ETA:Let me add, since a lot of people are reblogging this, that the comment I left above was by no means meant to be a comprehensive list of all the things “land back” could mean. I just wanted to put down some more practical suggestions I remembered seeing suggested by indigenous peoples on other “land back” posts.
Sometimes “land back” does very literally mean:
The US government should give the Lakota Sioux back their sacred mountain that they renamed “mount rushmore” and defaced with the faces of imperialist slavers.
The US government should give Hawaii back its sovereignty and remove all US military from the islands.
South American countries should give the rainforests back to the indigenous peoples that live in them.
etc.
There are a lot of practical ways to support “land back” and the best way to find out how you can support “land back” is to ask.
And no, that does not mean “ask random tumblr users in a tumblr post to explain shit to you.”
It means:
Find the indigenous settlement nearest you and see if they have an official website and send them an e-mail asking them for practical suggestions on how you can be an ally.
