July 23, 2019 Hugh Weber is a consultant, a creative convener, a marketer, a design expert, an advocate for rural communities, and a dear friend to raceAhead.
So, I was prepared for his most recent TEDx talk, organized in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be inspiring. But his elegant introduction got my attention first.
He talked about the collective inheritance of place, made more complex by how people came to be in that uniquely "American" room. "Some of us… not many of us, came from ancestors who were brought here against their will," he said, others were drawn in by the hope of a better future. "And others have lived here since the beginning of time."
"Since I believe that the foundations of community are acknowledgement, trust, and a mutual respect across barriers of heritage, belief, and difference… I would like to acknowledge that this event is being held on the traditional ancestral lands of the Ochente Shakoan people."
This simple acknowledgment is becoming more common now, finding its way into high profile moments, like Anne Hathaway's similar acknowledgment when she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this spring.
"I started to think about the land that goes underneath the star, that land that goes beneath all of these stars, and how it was cared and kept for millennia, more than millennia, by the Tongva people," she said. "I think it's important to mention that they still live here today. So the soul and the spirit that runs through the earth beneath us originates with and continues to be kept by them.”
"So I would like to begin by thanking the Tongva people and by acknowledging that they are the rightful keepers of the land this star is on."
But they're also found in everyday moments, too.
The United States is late to the land acknowledgment practice, lagging behind New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. There, schools, meetings, even hockey games frequently begin with even a perfunctory acknowledgment, explains Teen Vogue. "An acknowledgment might be short: 'This event is taking place on traditional Chickasaw land.' Or it might be longer and more specific: 'We are gathered today on the occupied territory of the Musqueam people , who have stewarded this land for generations.'"
I am writing this column today on the ancestral lands of the Tequesta people. They hunted, fished, and lived their lives in this beautiful place. From what I can gather, they were slowly devastated by European diseases starting in the 1500s, embroiled in colonial-era conflicts, and pestered to convert to Christianity against their will. Most Tequesta survivors were sent to Cuba by the Spanish by the mid-1700s. Only ten words from their language have been preserved.
I can now attest that land acknowledgment really makes you feel some type of way.
Felicia Garcia (Chumash) and Jane Anderson, both associated with the Museum Studies department at New York University, have compiled a comprehensive guide to land acknowledgment statements for arts and education organizations which looks like an excellent resource for everyone else, too.
Northwestern University has an interesting resource that shares their work with healing and acknowledgment. They've posted a list derived from a steering group of Native and Indigenous people who shared what the practice means to them. Here are a few choice ones: Addressing invisibility; defrosting the past; feels good spiritually/emotionally; can be performative; must be paired with action; honoring.
It's all part of the delicate work of decolonizing, a journey very few organizations or individuals have begun in any kind of earnest. Maybe it's just the oppressive heat of the racist times we're living in, but "defrosting the past" sounds like something worth doing.
Let me know what you think.
By the way, Weber works as a professional "creative counsel," advancing the aims of creative organizations by connecting the dots between their capabilities and possibility. His excellent TEDx talk, well worth your time, soon moved from the dusty plains of Ochente land to a miraculous school in the D.C. neighborhood where a fifteen-year-old "king" named Gerald Watson had been shot and killed.
He quickly makes the case that all dots are there to be connected if you're just willing to open your heart and look. Enjoy.
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