So, the city of Durango has succumbed to the pandering and virtue signaling that does nothing constructive to help any of the tribes mentioned in the demeaning and self-serving Indigenous land acknowledgment.
This statement to be placed all around the city and read at public meetings only serves to increase the tension between our Indigenous friends and neighbors, keeps our focus on race and is intended to keep all the other races in silent submission. Instead of bringing people together with a vision of future cooperation and goals, it forces people who may not agree with the words being spoken to focus on the distant past and the despair and hurt that have occurred.
Indigenous people across the nation continue to face horrible social and economic conditions, but this “statement” does nothing to change things except to drive a wedge and create bad feelings toward the very subjects in the statement. It can also have the unintended consequence of setting up a future unknown or unspoken claim in the legal sense down the road for some new land or tax claim. It seems the city wants to start the process of allowing Indigenous tribes to claim that certain laws don’t apply to them because of the “acknowledged” wrongs of the past. If the city wants to relinquish its authority down the road in favor of Indigenous groups, this statement is a great start. La Posta Road annexation ring a bell?
Arthur Wyman
Durango
