Popular Media

The Folly of Land Acknowledgements

“Land acknowledgements” are all the rage. For those who haven’t been to a graduation or university lecture in Blue America, a “land acknowledgment” is the practice of starting an event with a statement that the land on which the event is taking place once belonged to particular groups of Native Americans. It is easy to dismiss these as ahistorical nonsense, laden with sentimentality. But there is another way to look at these statements that demonstrate American exceptionalism.

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