The Layers Underneath (part 1, I guess)
This will be a blog in several parts, due in part to the fact that I feel strongly led to include a lot of caveats or parentheticals whenever I discuss The Farm.
I could take the easy way out and just link to my Land Acknowledgement. I live on occupied Oceti Sakowin land. The Oceti Sakowin (historically, known to some as the Sioux Nation) is a Native confederacy speaking three different dialects: the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota; I live in an area of historically overlapping Dakota and Nakota tribal territory. My residence here, and my family’s three generations of farming on this parcel and five generations within the state, are the direct result of white supremacy and privilege, colonization, and the forced eviction of the indigenous Dakota and Nakota peoples from this land.
If I stopped after saying that, it’s a statement of oppression: I am standing here because they are not. An acknowledgement is not enough.
What am I doing to make it right? to do better?
Not very much, actually. I hope I’m humble enough to say that with a straight face. Here’s what I am doing, acknowledging, and doing better:
Paying forward a portion of each quarter’s revenue to Lakota/Dakota/Nakota programs and projects. Because my background is in education, and my current focus is disability and health, I choose to direct my funds toward programs in those areas
Ex: Medicine for our Elders, Indigenous Language Immersion programs, water protector bail funds
Supporting Indigenous and First Nations’ small businesses and artists
Seeking further education on current issues in Indigenous and First Nations’ communities
I used to write a lot of poetry, especially about dirt, farming, drought, missing home, and living in the desert of Idaho. When I wax poetic on soil, on the secrets of the land, on the air and the water, I do so knowing there were people here before us. Land ownership is weird, arbitrary, and violent. I also love where I live. It’s the tension of holding multiple truths. My family can be doing their best to be good stewards and soil conservators, and also be awash in the privilege of being land owners in a state that exists because of the violence Homestead Act. It’s a contradiction. I can’t explain it away, or fix it; I try my best not to white wash it. Complicated truths exist and we don’t have to classify them as all good or all bad; we can reject that binary and accept that it’s a mix.
This blog post doesn’t have a nice tag out. It just exists. Part 2 next week
this is a field across the road from my house in North Dakota. I took this photo during the pandemic, early summer 2020, before I had any inkling I would be moving back.
