[-empyre-] from Renate and Tim: on American Indian rights

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

Hi Renata, I am sure Ana can speak for herself; but I don't think she meant
"rhetorical traps" in sense that we should ignore them. Rather, to me, the
traps imprison our views subliminally, and one, as a thinker, should be
conscious of them.

Ciao,
Murat

On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 3:01 PM, Renate Terese Ferro <rferro at cornell.edu>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Ana, Murat and all,
> This discussion has been rich and varied and I thank all of you so much
> for sharing with us.  This post is prompted by Ana¹s commend below
> Ana Valdes wrote:
> <snip>
> Thank you Murat I think we are kind of stuck in these rethoric traps of
> "national states", "original people", "indigenous", etc. There are never
> ppl "born" in a place, there are ppl who settled down before others but
> that give them not right to claim any ownership.
> <snip>
>
> We are hoping that many subscribers from the Americas or perhaps Australia
> who might want to comment on this as well. We encourage them to do so.
>
> Where we live in upstate New York, nestled between the hills and lakes of
> Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, we recognize that the land that our white
> predecessors came to occupy was taken from the American Indian tribes that
> were the original inhabitants of the Americas. Many were killed by brutal
> battles that eventually stripped them of all of their land.
>
> The Cayuga Indians are part of the Haudenosaunee  or the Iroquois
> Confederacy.  The Confederacy is comprised of six Indian nations and the
> Cayuga is one of those.  Though American Indians have American citizenship,
> many identify instead as citizens of their own Indian nations.  There are
> complicated land claims issues between the Cayuga¹s and the United States
> government that have been unsettled in the courts for decades based on
> unsigned treaties by the United States Congress.  It is not uncommon as we
> travel from our home in Ithaca North along Cayuga Lake where obvious
> territorial disputes are marked by signage.
>
> Just a bit farther North of us, our neighbor, Canada, recognizes the
> "First Peoples of Canada."  We have many artistic friends in Australia
> whose work is dedicated to struggling for "aboriginal" and “indigenous
> peoples' rights."  We think it is very important that part of our alignment
> with these local and international movements is to adopt the language
> determined by them for preservation of their rights and lands.
>
> You can imagine that your comment Ana prompted us to think about these
> situations and that we do not regard these as rhetoric traps but instead
> legalities that have compromised the welfare of not only the Cayuga’s but
> many more of the Haudenosaunee confederacy in upstate New York.  Our
> neighbors at Syracuse University ritually have an Indian blessing at the
> beginning of every major event to thank the forefathers the American
> Indians.  Cornell University as a “land-grant” university complicatedly
> have chosen not to do this.
>
>  We feel a very special kinship to our American Indian neighbors who we
> feel have every right to claim ownership.
>
> All our best,
>
> Renate and Tim
>
>
> Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
> Moderators -empyre soft-skinned space
>
>
>
> On 2/19/16, 10:49 AM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on
> behalf of Ana Valdés" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on
> behalf of agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> _______________________________________________
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