I recommend we give every Indigenous creature what I am provided through disability compensation which is a minimum $3,737 that also gets a cost-of-living adjustment each year tied to inflation. According to The Administration for Children and Families this number is 5.2 million or 2% of the total U.S. population.
This will be a big scary number:$3,737 * 5,200,000 = $19,432,400,000, also known as $19.4 billion dollars to barely scratch the surface of unrepairable theft of land. Per month.
This is also a scary number:Multiply $19.4 billion by 12 months out of the year and you get $233,188,800,000.
Which I think is now $233 billion U.S. Dollars for Indigenous reparations a year. It isn’t even the full value of Land Back, I think Russia’s lawsuit with Google would rival the quantity of land theft. For a shock-in-the-bucket the Department of Defense budget is a hunky $841.4 billion. This is a mere 27% of the D.O.D. budget to do more than the right thing. It was $301 billion dollars to fix broken and mend broken veterans from service in 2023. If we scraped the cream of the crop away from the Department of Defense, we would have $307 billion left to still pay for troops and their retirement plans. Oh, and we would still have $123 billion left to play with after all that’s accounted for so let’s throw in the G.I. Bill and health care in too for them all.
The incalculable loss of theft from Indigenous cultures is hard to emotionally digest. When I was watching “Exterminate All the Brutes” a documentary released in 2021 about how European invaders systematically destroyed culture, after culture, and voice after voice. It was disheartening to watch as treaties were broken and were used to divide and conquer Northern America.
I bear white skin on Indigenous land. According to 23andme.com my ancestry is 99% white while 0.02% Indigenous. I followed haphazardly up the family tree to see where my ancestors arrived on the continent and when. About the 1500s there was the French-side arriving in Canada and the English-side, potentially Scottish, arriving in Rhode Island. I am woven from the strands of two major settler nations. On the French side a long-long-long ago grandfather was perhaps gifted a car or had enough wealth to buy one and had an oil painting of himself, probably commissioned, in the family history books. I am built on generational wealth; it’s probably why I can eat like garbage and still have my doctor jealous at my cholesterol levels each physical exam. Now, the English-side had a Scottish Prisoner of War who came to Rhode Island as an indentured servant. I have not yet followed the maternal lines of lineage; it was easier to follow surnames from my birth point and beyond. I didn’t analyze each migration period from generation to generation, but it appears the Archambeau family has been in Upper Michigan for quite some time, close to the founding of the city of Houghton I would imagine. My grandfather worked for Hecla and Calumet mining companies and eventually retired after working for Michigan Technological University.
What does it matter when all I am is derived from stolen land? I would not be me at this stage in life without the invasion of Europeans.
Even one of my treasured art history movements Abstract Expressionism has appropriated Indigenous culture in its attempt to create its own separate brand of art school from Europe post-World War 1 and World War 2.
I once grieved speeding up a residential hill because it made irrational sense that I was misusing the land for a joy ride in my car. The thrill of adrenaline and all that but it felt disrespectful, the guilt of it all.
I have a disability I acquired from military service, and as much as veterans tell ourselves that money was set aside the moment we enlisted, I still can’t believe the wealth doesn’t come from the Global South or from Stolen Lands in the North Americas. Where we monitor their lands as the panopticon of freedom. The guilt of performing labor as a panopticon of freedom for 3 years is also heavy.
I mention these things because if I could imagine the wealth stolen and extracted systematically. It’s as if I am picking up sand and feeling each grain fall out of my grip. My wealth is borrowed. I may never be able to convince the masses for Land Back. I own no political power. I just have simple ideas that have a grandiose impact.
I know what $3,737 does for me a month. I can live with the closest meaning of freedom. I am well above the poverty line, I can save a little bit of money, I can eat most foods I want. I have a single bedroom apartment and if my credit score wasn’t reflective of the consequence of a year long health sabbatical from burnout I would be owning a house.
I can only imagine what $3,737 would do for those who’ve had land stolen. Now, I would prefer a full LandBack to tribes, however, I think this reflection gives some thought to essentially universal basic income as a right.