This week’s topic for the #NatureWritingChallenge is: “How can our Public Lands, either as a whole or an individual park, better recognize and honor the Native history?”
My first thought was, “Give it all back.”
My second thought was, I am not the right person to be answering.
Who Should Be Answering
It is not the place of non-Native people to be asked this question. This happens in too many scenarios where the people with the power sit around wondering how they can honor, include, respect, and reach marginalized and excluded groups without ever including them in the discussion.
The best way to recognize and honor Native American history and culture is do so by setting a place at the table for our indigenous populations and letting them lead the conversation about what it the best way to recognize and honor Native American history and culture. A true collaboration, not just window dressing.
Even better, let them have the table or get rid of it completely. Let it be a mat, the more traditional way of gathering together.
Honor Native Americans by letting them be the ones who decide what happens to our public lands. They managed to do a pretty good job for thousands of years before colonization.
What Does Collaboration Look Like?
Eric Desheenie, an American politician and Director of Tribal Government Relations for the Navajo County Board of Supervisors, is quoted during his 2015 speech for the Bears Ears National Monument:
“Collaborative management is the equal distribution of authority and management over public lands, between tribal governments and the federal government,”
It isn’t an “open forum”. It isn’t an online survey. It isn’t adding traditional Native American names to signs and kiosks. Respecting and honoring indigenous people means you intentionally create a table together where everyone has a leading role to play in public lands.
What Collaboration Doesn’t Look Like
I attended a neighborhood meeting this week that includes the area around the school I work for and the community I have been working in for quite a few years. The mayor was there talking about her plan for the city this year.
She claimed she went around and gathered input from all the city employees this last year about what they wanted for the city. Well, I happen to work part-time for the city and at no point did I get asked what I thought. Hmmm, I wonder who else might have gotten missed and how intentional her gathering was.
I did receive several online surveys because I subscribe to city announcements this last year about other topics like the police department and public transit. As I filled them out (they were available in two languages), I thought to myself about the kind of people that fill out online surveys.
They are people with access to certain resources, people with certain literacy levels, and people who know that a survey is one way to have your voice heard. These are all middle-class, American values and norms. Just because you put something in another person’s language does not mean they will fill it out.
As I sat at this well meaning neighborhood meeting meant to advocate for the needs of the area, it was obvious that the people who were there did not represent the majority of the people who actually live there. It represented the kind of people who go to neighborhood meetings because they feel like the have a voice. Each culture is different when it comes to gatherings and involvement. You have to be intentional and sometimes go to those cultures in order to involve them. Especially if you claim that is your goal.
It is not enough to hold a meeting, put up a sign and say, “we tried,” if you say you want to include marginalized groups. You don’t send out an invitation, set the table at your house and expect people you don’t have a relationship or connection with to show up. You have to intentionally go to those groups and create a table together where everyone has an equal voice.
Honor Native Americans With A Place At The Table
When Anna Elza Brady, a tribal advocate, was asked in an interview about what she thought would be the best way to involve indigenous populations in our public lands policy, she imagined:
“What if agencies and administrators charged with managing federal public lands invited tribes to the table and formally engaged the continent’s original sovereigns in helping to oversee and steward their ancestral territories? What if, with the permission and inclusion of practitioners, tribal traditional knowledges began to inform management of America’s public lands? What if tribal co-management of traditional lands and resources was the rule rather than the exception? What if healing historical wounds, inflicted on both people and place, was part of our public lands policy?”
I couldn’t dream it any better myself.
Want to learn more about how to connect with indigenous people in your own area? Read more on The Best Reason To #OptOutside on Public Lands On Black Friday.
This post was written in one hour for the #naturewritingchallenge. Check out Twitter to learn more or see my other posts from the challenge here. I talk about other ways to honor National Native American Heritage Day and Month here.
Editor’s note: since writing this post I have read others rethinking the idea of having a seat at the table and that even the act of inviting someone to a table says the table is not a place for equity. Maybe those whose voices need to be heard need to have their own table or we need to redefine the definition of “table” in the first place. I am always learning new ideas and wonder where this conversation will continue to evolve to.
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