Anchorage School Board to approve agreement with Eklutna Tribe to create district-wide performative ‘land acknowledgement’ for schools

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At the Oct 4 meeting of the Anchorage School Board, members will be voting on a resolution that will require the schools to start using a performative land acknowledgement that recognizes that there were some people living on the land in the Anchorage area before other people from other places arrived to live on the land.

“Anchorage School Board resolves that the Superintendent shall promote the necessary collaboration between the Eydlughet (Eklutna) Tribe and the Anchorage School District to write a ‘living’ Land Acknowledgement statement and bring that statement to the Board for approval and ensure a required protocol for when and why to issue Land Acknowledgements at appropriate District-sponsored ceremonies and gatherings,” reads the resolution.

In 2020, the “land acknowledgement” became a fixed agenda item for the Anchorage Assembly under the chairmanship of Assemblyman Felix Rivera. It’s an official mea culpa of colonization and occupation, and the Assembly now has someone on the governing body recite the ritualistic self-shaming before each meeting.

These types of land acknowledgements started in Canada and often say erroneously that Native Americans have been in the region “since time immemorial,” as stated by Joe Biden’s Indigenous People’s Day proclamation of Oct. 8, 2021, and that the lands that people are living on now were considered sacred lands to people who lived on them prior. People such as Paleolithic people, or Stone Age people.

Anthropologists believe humans crossed the land bridge from what is now Russia to what is now North America some time between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago. The first people to arrive were thought to be Paleolithic, but later the area was populated by Inuits, and then other ethnic groups. Caucasians and those of African descent are more recent arrivals.

The Anchorage School Board, not to be outdone in “woke” ideology by the Anchorage Assembly, followed suit. Now, the board is planning to craft a recitation that will be required throughout the districts during specified events. At this point, it appears the Board is backing away from requiring it to be recited daily in classrooms, perhaps planning to introduce that aspect later. Currently, the schools are supposed to have the Pledge of Allegiance recited daily, but research shows that many teachers are not expecting that in their classrooms.

The next step for the schools to adopt a land acknowledgement is for the superintendent and the Eklutna tribe, which numbers 70 people, to come up with the acceptable wording.

The school board’s own land acknowledgement, performed at each meeting, follows:

(A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement recognizing the Indigenous people of a place. It is a public gesture of appreciation for the past and present Indigenous stewardship of the lands that we now occupy.

Land Acknowledgement opens a space with gratefulness and respect for the contributions, innovations, and contemporary perspective of Indigenous peoples.)

“On behalf of the Anchorage School Board, I want to take a moment to recognize and offer gratitude for the sacred ancestral lands of the Dena’ina People.  

“We acknowledge and appreciate that our offices, facilities, and schools are on these sacred indigenous lands, and we honor the traditional care that has been given to this land throughout generations.  

“We are grateful for the opportunity to grow, learn, work, and create educational communities on this sacred land.  We extend continued respect for the many cultures, creativity, and resilience of its Indigenous Peoples”.  CHINAN”

102 COMMENTS

  1. So beyond ridiculous. Complete laughable foolishness. To what purpose is this wasteful use of time? Our earliest settlers are already recognized in Alaska history studies. Good grief. Guilt, division, chaos, confusion, entitlement, dependence – all tools of the left to achieve power and control.

    • Perhaps if you had walked a mile in their shoes he would feel differently. Perhaps if you wete a house slave for a sex starved plantation owner. Perhaps if your children were ripped from your arms and be placed in what can be described as a brainwashing penitentiary School, maybe if your village had been shelled by an American battleship that was parked offshore and for two days straight love cannonball after cannonball into your shacks. It’s disappointing that people can forget about history and what went on in this country and to place it on the back shelf as if it never happened and doesn’t exist. When everything has been stripped from you including your dignity, you struggle to hold on with what little bit you have left

      • I’m not aware of plantations in Alaska. Stop conflating unrelated issues.

        The problem with your theses is nobody has clean hands.
        -the British deliberately starved the Irish.
        -the Turks committed genocide n the Armenians.
        -the Japanese did human experimentation on the Chinese
        -Pol Pot committed genocide on his own people
        -the Chinese currently are committing genocide on Wegurs.
        -Italians were forced into ghettos in the new world.
        -Irish need not apply signs in NYC.
        -the impoverishment of the American south during reconstruction.
        -the Spanish genocide of Central American native cultures. The social stratification goes on today.
        – the Viking butchery of the English.

        It goes on and on and on. No one has a monopoly on oppression. You can either marinate in it in a state of perpetual grievance or learn from it. Your choice.

      • Seriously? Good grief. None of that has a thing to do with the article or my comment. You do not know me or my life. For a tidbit – I spent time in abusive foster care and am adopted. Living in victimhood and feeding it are seriously unhealthy. Land acknowledgement? What does that do? What does that accomplish? It is nothing but the feeding of self pity, anger, unhealthy unforgiveness. As for history? ?. I am obsessive about history, have taken Alaskan history, Alaskan native history, Alaskan native culture, along with numerous other history courses at three universities, not to mention my personal history library. And history is not my degree or profession but is one of my hobbies. I have also spent time in the bush teaching, have native Alaskans in my family, have a tiny bit of American native blood in my own genealogy. I am thankful my parents (adoptive) taught me to rise above my past and to work hard to be a well balanced healthy individual. There was no self pity allowed in my upbringing nor in that of my half Alaskan native cousins who also are well adjusted contributing citizens, not wallowing in the Me Too foolishness. Add to that I support two ministries that fight sex trafficking and care deeply about human suffering. Still, encouraging self pity rather than healing and rising above circumstances helps no one, the stupid land acknowledgment is about that, period. Your comment really set be off Greg.

      • Perhaps if you had the ability of critical thinking and an understanding of complete world history you would just refrain from comment.

      • Maybe we should just acknowledge that since the beginning of mankind that had been happening and we have evolved as a society and move on. Don’t forget history and educate our youth on how we have evolved as a people, but this is nonsense.

        • True, but what is your priority here?
          Walking will get you places, see new things and enrich your life and horizons, chewing gum simply makes you ruminate on a leathery piece of goo, that eventually you spit out and the only thing to show for it is jaw pain.
          Walking= better test scores and better educated kids
          chewing gum = wallowing in the past, stuck in the present and accomplishing only more pain.

  2. We kind of had the same sort of thing where I grew up in Kansas. It was called American history. I learned that trappers and gold seekers and eventually manifest destiny led to the Indian wars. As a native American from the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma, of course I already knew this. In Alaska, I wish they’d go one step further and require curriculum that goes back to the before Time of when Alaska was purchased from the Russians. Let’s show how badly the Russians treated the Alaskan natives. Let’s teach how an American warship shelled and Alaskan native village into submission. This is all American history also but I never was a fan to the sugar-coated variety of American history. Let’s tell it like it is. What have we got to hide right?

    • I’m down with it. History is history, good and bad.
      BUT: if we tell it, tell it all.

      The Tlingits suffered from ongoing starvation. And the fought brutally undermining their society.

      The Apaches were brutal torturers. And slavers. In fact, most native cultures engaged in slavery.

      The popular image of the gentle, peaceful natives living in harmony is so much BS. Wars between native tribes were common, and bloody.

      If you really want to dance this dance, do it right. Native history is not exactly unicorns and rainbows. Learn from history, don’t be a slave to it.

    • There are some good books written about these subjects. Yes all should be taught. In this I actually agree with you.

    • “…….I learned that trappers and gold seekers and eventually manifest destiny led to the Indian wars. As a native American from the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma, of course I already knew this……..”
      Did you learn that the Choctaw tribe were traditional enemies of the Creek and Chickasaw tribes well before Europeans arrived, and had fought repeated wars with them?

    • Greg, as an honorary member of the Choctaw tribe myself, I now understand your thinking. History was bad in the lower 48 for most of the indigenous peoples. Modern times, in Alaska, the Native Lands Settlement Act gave a lot of well deserved land to the indigenous people of Alaska. Not at all like what happened down South. The people created Native Corporations to look after this windfall, but again trusted the wrong people and very little of the wealth ever reached the people. It’s become politicized. I wish I could say that anything has changed in 150 years, but only the ways have. Development of native lands could change things and give the people jobs and well deserved prosperity and independence instead of counting on the government for their needs. I don’t blame the Native Nation for being pissed, they have every right to. Still being screwed, for over two hundred years. Even in Alaska, by so called native corporations. This is why the corporations don’t encourage resource development. The New York based lawyers have other ideas.

  3. And are the Dena’ina going to acknowledge the prior existence on Neanderthals on their land during their meetings, as well?
    .
    This is just more hypocritical, nonsensical, radical leftist virtue-(sic)-signaling and PC pandering. As does everything coming from the radical leftist extremists, it disgusts me, and should disgust any sane and rational American.

    • We recently have been able to prove that Neanderthals enter bread with native Americans. I’m not sure who was here first, but then Neanderthals bread with everybody. There’s even factual evidence that there’s European genealogy in South America before any of the presently acknowledged group were here. Maybe the Vikings got further than we thought. I don’t really have a problem with it. A thousand years from now when everyone’s assimilated and we’re just a big melting pot of gene sludge, I’m not sure what difference it’s going to make. But for now when natives are struggling assimilation and trying to hold on with what little culture they have left, I’m game. I’m not going to deny a people there existence or their history.

      • It is not about denial of culture or history! It is about what is the purpose and intent. This land acknowledgement action has far more to do with feeding devision, resentment, guilt self pity – all very injurious, and really nothing to do with keeping alive a rich history or heritage.

    • That depends on which version of ancient astronauts you’re currently watching. Some think we were planted here and later aliens came back and taught us some things we needed to know and are currently still doing that. I’m not sure during which of the six or seven mass extinction events that occurred in. So to be safe, let’s just be happy with the part where God created the heavens and the Earth and give him all the credit assigned.

      • Mr. FORKNER, if the space aliens return, could you tell them to talk to the Alaska Natives about reimbursement of land allocations to the government, including the $1billion in cash given to them in 1971 under ANSCA. All of those rich Native corporations were benefitted under false pretenses.

  4. Also apparently it was popular to cut off the breasts of native American women and tan the skin to make possibles pouches out of the breasts for lead shot and powder. But that’s not the kind of coffee table talk that civilized people like to acknowledge. Native Americans have little recourse these days except to try to regain some culturally important significant existence to them, or to change the name of a mountain or even to change the mascot of a sports team because it is culturally offensive to natives. Then there’s those teachers making $70,000 a year in the bush that have the gall to claim that natives are racist towards them. Yeah they have gall alright. I lived in the bush for almost 20 years and during that time, no one knew of my native ancestry. It’s not something I wore on my sleeve. I was treated fairly and honestly by the kids and the adults. I was even given the distinctive honor of being called grandpa by one of the little native girls. Before I left even the entire village was calling me Grandpa including the girl’s Grandpa. If you ever get a chance to be assigned a native name consider it and honor and I wore my badge proudly while I was there.

    • Greg… you hate the colonial people that have given you everything. Your whole life has revolved around the colonial way you have turned your back on your people and your ways. And now your pointing fingers at other people. Please go back to Oklahoma.

    • People should not be punished for the sins of their fathers.

      People should not be apologized to who were not harmed.

  5. Those paleo-lithic people cited in the memo are not here to witness this exercise in virtue signalling.

  6. Society today had this hogwash coming when society then had removed Indian children from their natural birth families, and by that time christianized indian parents and elders. Should had left those 1870s-1980’s kids
    with their parents. Today’s society would have less social, physical, cultural problems if the 1880’s kids stayed with their family. Let this hogwash play-out an ethic lesson don’t mess with family, don’t get between parent and child. OCS!? In meantime learn forgiveness.

    • After a few years in a village and you gain certain amount of trust, you might be able to engage in a conversation about some of that. Many times I’ve heard the word missionaries stated with gritted teeth and anguish. Anglos forcing their religions onto a pagan society. Now we find out that the Pope was engaged in murder and conspiracy down through time and manipulated the current teachings as they saw fit. Jewish priest manipulated the Bible leaving out important books because it wasn’t culturally accepted during the day. Who’s to say who was right and who was wrong,?; Remember the Bible was written by men, fallible men.

      • “Misquoting Jesus, The story behind who changed the Bible and why. Bart D. Ehrman”
        google that for a free download.

        • I was referring to the original composers of the Bible for leaving out the book of Enoch and the book of the Giants which probably predates Genesis. Remember they were giants on the earth in those days. They feasted on men. That’s why it was free ordained that Noah would be born from the genes of the watchers. Remember that Noah’s own father said this boy isn’t mine and the wife had to reassure him. But Noah didn’t look like anyone else. He had skin as white as snow and white hair like wool. He had a distinctive glow about him. Similar to the glow that the watchers had when Enoch looked upon them as he descended into the heavens. Anyway I know you know all this and the flood after it cleansed the Earth, everyone’s was changed from the genetics of Noah’s mother’s artificial insemination. People no longer live 700 to 900 years but rather 120 years or less. Priest left books out of the Bible including the book from Mary Magdalene because they were fearful that it wasn’t the presently accepted Canon and they would lose control of the populace. That’s what I meant about man being flawed. They may have been working doing what they thought was best for society, but some would call that manipulation. Similar to what pope Phillip did on Friday the 13th with the knights Templars.

      • What does that have to do with people today? We didn’t do any of those things. Why should we apologize for things we didn’t do?

  7. It is disingenuous to acknowledge your indebtedness to others without getting out your checkbook and settling it.

    • ANCSA did that for all of us Alaskan Natives, Excepting the Tsimshian Metlakatia reservation.
      Debit paid in full……………

  8. There are not enough words that would get me banned that can express my disgust that a school district would require prayers or dedications for this garbage.

      • Greg remember how natives had slaves? And they still had slaves after those darn evil white men abolished slavery. It was after those evil white men abolished slavery that those precious do good halo over their head indigenous peoples had to also quit slavery. Because those evil white people made those perfect little indigenous people quit slavery. Bad terrible white people made Those indigenous people quit carrying slaves…

        • Yes I remember. I don’t quite know what your point is though. You act as though native tribes all lived together in one communal mixing pot. I can tell you that we didn’t. It was about survival, we fought over hunting grounds water holes winter locations anything that was considered of value that helped us survive. Yes if that meant taking wives from a conquered village that too. It’s what everybody was doing back then if you remember all the way back to Mesopotamia. But natives killed and were at war with other natives. I doubt we are taking very many slaves as you call it during the Western progression of settlers. We had bigger fish to fry don’t you think?

      • Except he is absolutely right. This is disgusting to make children feel shame for something they never did.

          • You can acknowledge the past without a guilt trip of “thanks for so graciously letting us live on your sacred land”.
            The board’s purpose of a land acknowledgement however is exactly that: a verbal genuflection. Teach history not judgement!

  9. What kind of “WOKE” nonsense is this? Taken to the nth degree, no matter where one is located in the state of AK or the nation, this “land acknowledgement” would be happening at public forums/meetings. We should expect that all classrooms, be required to cite the pledge of allegiance to the flag at the start of the day. That would be too patriotic for most teachers to do in their classroom every day. But Land Acknowlegements? Sure! why not?

    • I’d rather acknowledge the indigenous inhabitants before us than the creepy pledge of allegiance, but neither has any significance.

      • Very telling comment.
        I am really glad you posted it. It provides a lot of insight into your thought process.

  10. Did the Eklutna Indians ever acknowledge where THEY got their land from? No? Then why should I acknowledge anyone when I lawfully purchase property of my own?

  11. Acceptance, Inclusion, and alll the other BS was rampant on the frontier. After cutting the heel tendons of those slaves of other captured tribes, so that they could never escape, nailing settler babies to cabin walls seemed to be good sport for the wild Indians. You silly saps and your completely fabricated history. If the Japanese ever got a foothold in America in WWII there would be no Natives on this continent as the Japs would have committed genocide like they tried to do in China with what they considered lesser people, because they are truly racist, unlike people here! See Rape of Nanking.

    • Japs did the same on Hokkaido Island, killing and replacing the indigenous population with their own, and then incorporated it into Japan.
      Only a minority of Indian tribes were savage. There were the Eastern civilized tribes for example, and most had friendly relations with each other, and traded amongst each other.
      The European colonists forced the Eastern tribes West, which in turn caused other tribes to be forced even further West. It was a domino effect, which provoked warfare between the tribes, and with the settlers.
      The French trappers started scalping Indians for the bounty, and some Indians got in on the act, also for the bounty on tribes not theirs.
      The western dime novels were the main source of the worst of the barbarism attributed to the Indians. It helped sell the books, but was entirely unresearched and undocumented fabrications.
      There are well documented atrocities by Indians, but rather limited to only a few renegades from various tribes. This pales in comparison to genocide committed with the small-pox blankets handed out to the unsuspecting villagers by trappers and gold miners.
      Wikipedia noted that: “Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox, in combination with conflict, forced removal, enslavement, imprisonment, and outright warfare with European newcomers reduced populations and disrupted traditional societies. The causes of the decline and the extent of it have been characterized as a genocide…………”

      • “Genocide, Oxford definition: “deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” The blanket genocide trope has been thoroughly debunked. See: ‘https://www.historynet.com/smallpox-in-the-blankets/. It is ludicrous to suggest a cabal of mass-murderers used the frontier barter economy as a platform for germ warfare. As if the perpetrators would even risk knowingly handling contaminated blankets (currency) themselves. Those propagating such fantastic nonsense completely discredit themselves.

        • “The problem of determining the use of smallpox as an intentional weapon is that the disease, once introduced in the Americas, spread all over the place. “Unintentional contagion was common, particularly in wartime,” writes Fenn, who also notes that “the propagation of smallpox had the advantage of deniability.” There was no way to prove that infected material was the cause.”
          Roughly 20% or so would die, with the survivors gaining lifetime immunity. Certainly the surviving 80% could then handle smallpox blankets without fear.
          Trappers and miners hardly ever wrote down their activities.
          Absence of hard evidence does not prove that an event never happened.
          Even the massively documented Jewish Holocaust is hotly denied by many.
          A short foray into google does not give one enough info to be able to discredit other’s opinions. Even accredited scholars, with decades of research, disagree amongst themselves.
          You are displaying a 01010101 mentality.

        • “the cook-book recipe mentality which bedevils conventional … and so on down to the two lowest states (0101010101.”

      • Squandered a chance to water this desert with your wisdom once again.
        .
        Here is a pro tip. Instead of just tossing that statement out there, how about providing some relevant information to rebut Joseph’s history and conclusions? It might actually make your comment useful, instead of just wasting Suzanne’s bandwidth.

  12. Suzy Q sure does a great job of whipping up the hatred for our indigenous friends. Here, have some cheese with your white whine.

    • The tribal leaders would be complete fools for even listening to the school board, which are the ones “whipping up hatred”.
      To add; we’re not your “Indigenous friends”. That is a most hateful and oppressive description of us. We call ourselves “First Peoples”, but even that is merely a reactive defense.
      We are first and foremost American citizens, who happen to have some degree of American Native heritage.
      I was raised reciting the pledge of allegiance every school day. I get goosebumps whenever the American flag goes past me during a parade. My behind may not be as lily white as others, but by Yahweh Elohim, I’m just as much an American as anyone else.

      • Josephdj, yours rises to the top in this collection of comments. It is an inspiration for all of us.

    • No, not for the indigenous people. The hatred is for the foolish woke radicals on the school board for promoting this garbage.

  13. When people complain that somehow I took their land, I would like to ask them to recite from whom THEIR people took the land. If it is true that the first people in North America arrived via the Bering Strait land bridge, I must assume that East Coast natives arrived first, and either moved on, or were driven out. That means my people were here first, a claim that I am sure is true for millions of Americans. This has to stop somewhere. Must the Europeans give back the land to the Angles, Saxons, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Burgundians, et al, who occupied before their own immediate ancestors arrived on the scene? Maybe the Mongols? Can’t we all just get along, and live in peace with each other?

    • You certainly didn’t take our land, but the question is begging; would you have done the same, if you were there, then?

    • “……Can’t we all just get along, and live in peace with each other?”
      5,000 years of recorded human history, archeological evidence of the previous 100,000 years of human history, and basic biology proves that the answer is no.

    • Good point! The Alaskan natives were only the most recent occupiers. Every migrant who arrived to the Americas before 1492 had to pass through Alaska at some point.

    • Actually you are wrong on many accounts. The first people in America were the Clovis people. Clovis is a long way from the East Coast. I’m not sure what you mean about when you say my people got here first on the East Coast. Pilgrims and explorers always encountered native Americans from the first time they landed their Warcraft on the beach. I’m not sure how you can make a claim like that. All of the people in different groups that you mentioned in Europe are European. Before them there was only hunter-gatherers and nobody permanently occupied any settlement. Nobody owned anything. The Mongols encountered many people during their raiding. They certainly weren’t the first anywhere. People who take something from someone else never first. But to answer your question, nobody is going to give anything back to the original occupants or their ancestors unless you count reservations and Alaskan tribes. Those natives got a portion of what used to be theres back. No one is saying that you illegally purchased your land you have title to it and that’s what matters in today’s society. But it’s like you bought a stolen car. Just because someone sold you a stolen car does it mean that it’s yours. Not ethically anyway.

  14. This is as much about forcing the children to reject or diminish their heritage and culture as it is about acknowledging past communities.
    .
    If it were just simply saying we acknowledge past communities, it would not be a regularly occurring practice. Hispanic Heritage month is an example. Why does this have to happen at every meeting?

  15. I love our Native Alaskans and am all for a detailed education of history. I grew up in California and we had to study California history in the 5th grade. That’s great. But facts everyone. And How about a study of Biblical History? I’m all for that too. I don’t see we need to come up with a daily pledge to remember history of a specific area in schools. Learn it and move on to Math, Reading, Science, English, History. What we need to do for the native people is to stop the trafficking and killing of women, drugs, alcohol, and level of education in Alaska. We have the highest and lowest of these in the US and need to wake up instead of woke up.

  16. I just wonder when the homeless will also join in the celebration of the squatted land they use is supported by the persons that chose to work and pay taxes.

  17. Kinda seems like a religious prayer, shouldn’t that be banned and not allowed on public premises? How is it possible in this day of enlightenment that we have public officials forcing us to listen to their religious dogma?

  18. Let’s just give them the land back. Certainly they could do better than what we have going on. Quit apologizing for what we had nothing to do with.

      • My point was that when I purchased my property there were no incumbents on it. If there are new claims then they are are handled by the title insurance. I will never state that anyone has claims to my property despite what may have happened long before my time. I have served our great country side by side with the indigenous people of our state and respect them. But this whole woke thing was started by a bunch of queers on the assembly whose only purpose was to create turbulence. See it for what it is, just stirring up trouble where it doesn’t exist.

        • Stop trying to erase history. Anything you have on paper is decades after the fact. Nobody wants to take your land. Stop twisting things. It isn’t about anybody wanting to take somebody’s land. You boys sure hate to pay up though I’ll give you that.

  19. “Portrait of American Filth”
    .
    Seems like a reasonable caption for the seven samurai pictured above, no?
    .
    It wasn’t enough for them openly, brazenly to pad school-district contracts to benefit their union buddies.
    .
    It wasn’t enough for them to ruin and pervert generations of young minds, bodies, and spirits in order to create functional, but woke, illiterates.
    .
    Now their mission is to set community members against each other, as if Americans require divine intervention from Anchorage School Board, or dispensation from -anyone-, Eklutna Inc. included, in order to live and work on American real estate which they own, which Americans fought and died to preserve.
    .
    That would be the same real estate on which -productive- residents pay extortionate property taxes to subsidize the very same Anchorage School District nationally recognized for its overpriced underperformance.
    .
    One hopes these seven sorry SOB’s live long enough to realize the damage they’ve done to generations of children, and the damage they’ve done to a community of Americans who, let’s face it, never needed them in the first place.
    .
    We hope Eaglexit sponsors are prepared to protect Eaglexitville from this virulence.
    .
    To Governor Dunleavy: May we respectfully request an executive order prohibiting state funds from being used to initiate or enforce “performative land acknowledgement” by Anchorage School District employees and officials.
    .
    Seems reasonable to expect Anchorage parents would quickly disenroll children from an organization which so clearly hates children, no?

  20. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia. The USA didn’t steal the land. We paid for it. It belongs to us now. A land acknowledgment makes no more sense than acknowledging the previous owner of your home.

      • Wrong. It was taken by precisely the same methods that the natives took it from previous groups of natives. It is how the world operated back then. Fortunately, we have figured out how to do it at least a little bit better.

        FWIW, I refuse to acknowledge one group of squatters / land thieves over another. Cheers –

        • That’s because you’re a racist for sure and for certain. What are you talking about you learned how to do it a little bit better? Are you forgetting about the lower 48 or are you so simple minded to think that Alaska is the only world that you reside in? Please comment again.

          • Racist in the very first sentence of your response, which means you are wading into a battle of wits unarmed, and have lost the argument before typing a single word. Thanks for proving to the assembled masses everything I thought about you at the beginning. Thanks for playing. Cheers –

    • “Direct annexation, the acquisition of territory by way of force, was historically recognized as a lawful method for acquiring sovereignty over newly acquired territory before the mid-1700s. By the end of the Napoleonic period, however, invasion and annexation ceased to be recognized by international law and were no longer accepted as a means of territorial acquisition.”
      “The title of discovery, would, under the most favorable and most extensive interpretation, exist only as an inchoate title,”
      At the time Russia had only trade and exploitation presence in Alaska. They failed to establish an official colonial presence, so they had no legal claim to Alaska, which to them was only a cash cow.
      ‘Turning to relatively recent cases, based on the principle of estoppel ”in the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries case of 1951, the UK agent argued that governments protest “in order to make it quite clear that they have not acquiesced and to prevent a prescriptive case being built up against them.”
      Settlement of Alaska’s Native land claims were based largely on the Natives having long voiced their relationship to the land, which superseded any claims of Russia’s having delivered title to Alaska to the US. The Russians sold America only quiet title; which, for political reasons, was ballyhooed as legal title to Alaska.
      ANCSA was an explicit acknowledgment of Alaska’s Natives claim to legal title.

  21. As a fourth generation Alaskan I find this offensive. Wheres’s my land acknowledgment? Am I not a good stewert for these colonizing dixiecrat liberals?

  22. I also prefer concealed carry rather than open carry but I think that’s a decision the firearm owner needs to make. South Carolina and other states have open carry laws now, but you must have a concealed carry permit to open carry which seems ludicrous. Florida’s open carry law is pretty straightforward, you can carry any legal firearm openly just as long as you’re on your way camping fishing or hunting and returning from that activity. There was once not long ago three guys fishing at a lake in the middle of Jacksonville and they had ARs strapped on their back. A bunch of people called the police because they thought it looked like the militia was fishing in the lake. The police couldn’t do anything about it because those people were following the laws. But for me I like to conceal carry because I don’t want to flash or put it out there that I’m carrying a gun. Some people have a phobia about someone that’s carrying a gun. I’d rather them just treat me normal whatever the normal is these days. In addition, if someone’s trying to hurt me and I am fearful for my safety, pulling out a high capacity magazine 9 mm and empty in that clip into them cuz I watch the expression on their face fade is one plus. Remember the John wick movies where he shoots a guy and grabs him and looks right into his face as he watches the guys eyes go dark. If someone is going to try to kill me or anyone else around me or scare me in such a way that I think my safety is in jeopardy, I want to have the luxury of saying that expression on his face when he realizes that a criminal life was a mistake.

  23. Not a bad idea to acknowledge from time to time that the Tanaina were here before whites in the setting of history, especially Alaska History. But it should probably be noted that the Tanaina most likely took over the region from an Eskimo group (Sugpiat), which I’m sure must have been less than peaceful.
    This sniveling preoccupation with denigrating whites as “colonialists” is stupid. Perhaps if the schools were producing excellent students it could be excused, but this board is obviously more fixated on social justice issues that education. Shame on them.

    • It is education though. Some on here don’t realize or admit that it happened. It’s sad really. Why are folks so anti native.consider they are third world? Vote different? Look different? Some folks on here really have a hate problem and most can’t admit it.

      • I believe it’s an “not one of us” problem, which is a basic survival instinct. Just believing that some identifiable group is an existential threat will trigger all kinds of survival reactions.
        Few in America had any real animosity towards Japan, until Pearl Harbor. Only afterwards was hatred towards the Japanese peoples brewed up.
        Hatred is an effect, not a cause.

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