Comments

1
Or go blow $1500 at a casino on two watery drinks, a crappy steak and one spin at the roulette table.
2
You can’t ask for rent in land you sold. They’re not even a tribe anymore. They signed that asset too. You can read the treaty for yourself at wa.gov

They’re sellouts.
3
Reparations are never going to happen for anybody no matter how you frame it. It's a non-starter.
5
can of worms.

did tribes actually "own" the land in a real property sense? certainly there were no deeds prior to treaties with the US.
are the tribes that were displaced by others (the Quileute/Chimakum by the Makah/S'Kallam) prior to contact owed as well?
what about reparations for native enslavement of other natives? do Alaska/BC tribes owe Salish Sea tribes?
And the straight-up genocidal killing of all the Chimakum by the Suquamish & S'Klallam in 1847? what do they owe for that?

6
Good luck, even $1/sf/year would bankrupt the city.
7
They should have fought harder to keep their land. Sore losers. Sad..
8
If I pay, will my children have to pay too? What about their children? Will I get a card that allows me to tell people to shut the fuck up when they start in with their "all white people are guilty of all things white people have ever done." (Even if I'm only 3rd generation Austrian Jewish)

I'll do it. But only if my kids don't have to. And only if I can look you in the eyes and tell you to stfu when you start crying about your next handout/guilt scheme that requires me to care, participate, or pay attention in any way.

Deal?
9
Hey dumbass commenters above: the project is voluntary. If you don't want to pay, don't pay. If others want to pay, they can pay.
10
@madcap, how much did you pay?
11
@9 Hey dumbass, some of the objections call into question whether one ought to pay, not whether one is paying. Normative isn't empirical.

Maybe some objections are objections to the idea that "the original owners of the land—Native Americans—specifically the Duwamish, the first people of Seattle" is an accurate statement. In part because it's safe to say the Duwamish (let alone those who now identify as such) were sure as shit not "the original owners of the land."

Because, you know, tribes, peoples, development of pre-modern (and modern) societies all involve groups being forcibly removed from "their" land or assimilated into those taking over "their" land. Infinite regress, etc., and the idea that we'd like some argument from first principles about how far one goes back with regards to such claims of "real" ownership, rather than self-serving "we go back X far" which just happens to correspond to X being the group with which the speaker claims membership.

Of course, contra me: I am offering a self-serving argument that absolves "my" group (not really my group as it absolves most groups, but let's pretend for sake of argument) of their expropriation. But even if that's true, I'm at least not pretending to have a principled position.
12
I own my house in Seattle. Am I also supposed to pay rent now too?

If I pay the rent, will someone from the Duwamish come cut my grass and maintain the property then?

Will they be subject to Seattle's onerous tenant protection laws? Will they declare and pay tax on their rental properties?

Or is this just another meaningless exercise in moral primping for Seattle's guilt ridden left?
14
"1,000 members of the Tribe received a whopping $64 each"

That's close to $2000 in today's dollars. If they had invested just $1 in the Dow Jones in 1896 it would be worth $84,638.46 today. Multiply that by 64.
15
WOW I GUESS NATIVE AMERICANS ARE JUST INHERENTLY BAD AT INVESTING. RACISM SOLVED!
16
"I GUESS NATIVE AMERICANS ARE JUST INHERENTLY BAD AT INVESTING."

They've made tax-free killing in casinos in Washington State and more power to them, I say.

The "Stupid white man tax" as I call it.
17
It's a cool idea. I admit to having rolled my eyes when some super-earnest lefty person opened a meeting by mentioning we were on Duwamish land. But then one gets over oneself, one hopes. I didn't really know how to address the reality of the situation. Now I do. I haven't bought myself a "Get Out of Privilege Free" card, but I'm doing SOMETHING. Say hello to the newest monthly member!
18
Just as a general principle, have we now decided that when one ethnic group displaces another, then they have an obligation to the original group?

Because, just looking at England alone, there are an awful lot of Normans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Romans with some pretty massive arrears to pay off.
19
Jesus Fucking Christmas who are these boring basic Sophomoric "it's just common sense" patronizing excruciatingly annoying and patently unfuckable mainstream right-wing don't know they aren't remotely intelligent much less interesting douchebag pile of fuckfaces who've somehow murder the comments on every single story now? I mean for fucksake you assholes need to leave a little oxygen in the room. Like you know, how you don't talk the entire time but leave some space for others when you're invited to a party .... Oh wait ...
20
Good grief. There's a sucker born every minute.
21
I heartily approve. If you get off on virtual signaling it's much more honest to do it with dollars rather than just righteous words.

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