Stop Talking About Stolen Land

Form without substance

Musician Billie Eilish generated predictable backlash with her remarks at this year’s Grammy Awards. Accepting her award for song of the year, Eilish said, “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that: No one is illegal on stolen land.”

This is very different from declaring that ICE shouldn’t terrorize and murder people, regardless of status. No, Eilish covered the “Stolen Land” tune that’s charted in liberal circles for decades now. If she’d just sung “Free Bird,” she’d have been no less off topic. (She did say “Fuck ICE,” which CBS bleeped out.) It’s as if instead of celebrities in the late 1980s saying “Free James Brown!” they’d gone with “No prisons for anyone!” Yes, I know that’s a position some liberals hold. Some people’s favorite James Brown song is “Living In America.” Not all opinions are valid.

(Yes, I know that clip was actually Weird Al Yankovic’s “Living With A Hernia.” It speaks to me in my middle age.)

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Just a couple days later, Sen. Ted Cruz had seized on Eilish’s “stolen land” declaration. Apparently Cruz considers watching the Grammys relevant research for a Senate antitrust hearing about Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Incensed that the audience had applauded Eilish’s remarks, Cruz asked Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery executive Bruce Campbell, “Are we right now on stolen land?”

“I have no idea of the history of this land,” Sarandos said. “Nor do I,” replied Campbell. These are apparently well-educated men. Yet they face planted into Cruz’s obvious trap.

“That speaks volumes,” Cruz bleated. “That neither of you are willing to say ‘hell, no.’” (This entire hearing was an opportunity for Republicans to make Sarandos and Campbell squirm and disavow any perceived “political” messaging. I won’t include a clip, because I’ve already included enough hernia-related content.)

So, there are obvious problems with the stolen land argument. Land seizure and conquest, even at their most bloody, are not exclusive to what’s now the United States. It’s the entire history of civilization, from tribal feuds to warring nations. It’s true that the U.S. didn’t entirely acquire native land through “right of conquest.” Treaties were made between the U.S. and sovereign native nations that were technically legal but practically misleading or outright coercive. U.S. settlers weren’t above lying, dissembling, and altogether screwing over native tribes when negotiating treaties, and like classic deals with the devil, the U.S. often failed to uphold its end of the bargain. I recall my high school history teacher telling us, while shaking her head, that the U.S. “made deals with these people and then broke them. That’s a voided contract!” She was to the right of Ronald Reagan, so this was hardly a “woke” view at the time.

In Oregon, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 clearly stated that native people’s “lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.” This changed with the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, which permitted white men and native men with sufficient “white” heritage to work on a piece of land for four years and legally claim that land for themselves. Not only did the Donation Land Claim Act discriminate against non-white settlers, it actively displaced native people from their homes.

So, yes, this was all very bad. As Spike put it in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "You won. All right? You came in and you killed them, and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It’s what Caesar did, and he’s not goin' around saying, ‘I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.’ The history of the world is not people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.” That’s harsh and not entirely accurate, but it’s not like he had as soul at the time. (Watch below.)

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I don’t believe in “right of conquest” or conquest in general. I prefer peaceful coexistence. However, my own mental health has benefitted from embracing from I call the Frozen Principle of Life: “Let It Go.” As a nation, we should accept the past and move forward constructively not engage in performative self-flagellation that achieves nothing. I agree with Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan version) that “regret is usually a waste of time, as is gloating.” Matt Walsh types don’t just accept the carnage their ancestors inflicted while amassing power. They embrace it and insist that makes them exceptional somehow. They don’t want to just forget slavery and genocide. They demand that they remain the “victors” who gloat over the eternally vanquished. “America is not a nation ‘built by immigrants,’” Walsh posted on social media. “Settlers ventured out into the wilderness to build a civilization from scratch. The modern immigrant comes to a place that is already built. Settlers planted the trees. The modern immigrant comes to eat the fruits.” He ignores that humans already lived in that “wilderness” and the modern immigrant picks the fruit that he eats. People like Walsh remind me of the smug creeps in The Thomas Crown Affair lighting their cigars and cheering before realizing they played themselves. (Watch below.)

I don’t approve of gloating, and I think ceremonial expressions of regret are too often-self-indulgent. Land acknowledgements are as common here in Portland, Oregon, as saying grace before a meal in Greenville, South Carolina. Although I don’t think anyone’s actually listening when you say grace, I can support a genuine demonstration of gratitude. Land acknowledgements irritate me because they can feel like passive-aggressive gloating. Imagine liberals in the antebellum South making slavery acknowledgements: “This meal was provided by stolen labor, which we all now enjoy. We’re not going to do anything about it, but I thought we’d acknowledge it.”

These stolen land declarations are more often about making the person saying them feel better about themselves, but it’s form without substance. After all, if you believe the land is stolen, the acknowledgement itself doesn’t lessen the crime. (Some acknowledgements do ignore the charged “stolen land” rhetoric and commemorate the people who’ve lived there in the past. That’s more positive, although as with grace, I’d personally rather get on with my meal or theatrical production.)

Billie Eilish herself lives on “stolen land.” Her $3 million Los Angeles mansion reportedly sits on the “ancestral land” of the Tongva tribe, an indigenous people from the Los Angeles Basin. Her realtor should have advised her about any potential Amityville conditions. Right-wingers on social media have suggested Eilish surrender her property to the Tongva or turn it into a sanctuary for immigrants. The obvious shade-throwing aside, if the U.S. exists on “stolen land,” that means it originally belonged to someone, so it’s probably not Eilish’s place to offer an open door policy.