by Rod Williams, April 22, 2026- Wokeism really galls me. Sometimes, I think that is the point. It is intended to trigger normal people. It is an in-your-face, ostentatious display of virtue signaling and holier-than-thou phony piety. As an example of what I am talking about, for years, I would get fundraising emails from Dakota Galban, Chair of the Davidson County Democratic Party. He would always follow his name with a "he/him" tag. He stopped that about a year ago or more. Maybe some consultant told him it alienated some people and the Democratic Party should attempt to appear more normal, or maybe attaching a preferred pronoun to your name simply fell out of fashion. I don't know.
An example much more offensive than attaching a preferred pronoun tag to your name is the Land Acknowledgement ceremonies that some woke organizations engage in before conducting business. To see what I am talking about, watch the first minute and a half of the video of the last meeting of the Metro Arts Commission. They start every meeting with this recitation that says they are occupying stolen land. As far as I know, the Metro Arts Commission is the only metro commission that engages in this little ritual.
If you look at the history of the world and want to think of it that way, aren't all, or almost all, people everywhere, living on "stolen land?" The country known as England has been inhabited for 800,000 years. Prior to the arrival of the Germanic tribes from the continent, it was inhabited by hunter-gatherers. The Germanic tribes settled there, followed by the Romans; after they departed, the Anglo-Saxon migrations began. That is kind of the way things work.
So, if the Metro Arts Commission is going to acknowledge that they are occupying stolen land, who was it stolen from? Surely answering "the native inhabitants" does not answer the question. That is kind of vague. Which native inhabitants? I turn to my friendly Google AI looking for an answer:
Indigenous people have inhabited the Nashville area for at least 14,000 years, beginning with Paleo-Indians, followed by Archaic and Woodland peoples. The area was most notably dominated by the Mississippian culture (c. 1000–1450 AD), who built large mound cities. Later, the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Chickasaw hunted and settled in the region before European settlement.
The Middle Cumberland area was heavily populated, with roughly 130 towns and villages existing within a day's walk of Nashville. These people were agricultural mound builders (e.g., Mound Bottom) who built significant, now-buried cities beneath modern downtown Nashville. Mississippian sites were largely abandoned by the late 15th century due to unknown reasons.
Durning the 1700s–1800s the region became a heavily used hunting ground, often contested by the Shawnee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw. The Shawnee were believed to have been pushed out of the area shortly before white settlement in 1779. The Cherokee remained in the region, with notable figures like Chief Black Fox maintaining camps nearby, until they were forcibly removed on the Trail of Tears in 1838.
Throughout the centuries, this area was often a crossroads, and many tribes used the rich Cumberland River valley for hunting and trade rather than permanent habitation during the late 17th and 18th centuries.
So, this area was not really occupied when "we" "stole" it. It was a vast contested unoccupied hunting ground. So, who did we steal it from? The Shawnee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, or Choctaw? And who did they steal it from?
I question who the "we" is that stole it. I didn't steal it. I don't carry around with me the sins of my ancestors. I don't have any settler's guilt or White guilt or occupier's guilt. I am only responsible for the things I do. Even if I did carry around the burden of my ancestors' sins, they did not live in Nashville, so I still would not be guilty.
I like the story of Stuart Reges, a professor at the University of Washington who taught an introductory computer science course at that school. The school had a land acknowledgement statement and Regis wrote a statement mocking the concept. The University tried to discipline him, but he fought back and won on First Amendment grounds. (link). This is what he wrote that got him in trouble:
"I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property, the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington."
The Metro Arts Commission has been a dysfunctional mess for years. I wish there was at least one sensible person on the Commission who would speak up and ask to be recorded as not participating in the Land Acknowledgement ritual. That wouldn't solve what is wrong with the Arts Commission, but it would be something.
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