Land Acknowledgement
We would like to take a moment at the beginning of this discussion to acknowledge that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in attempting to discuss what justice and equity can look like in our institutions and society, while occupying stolen lands.
Therefore, in order to be accountable for this hypocrisy, it feels important to acknowledge that any movement towards justice is not an “either/or” proposition of the singular, most important issue that must be addressed, but a “yes/and” proposition of collectively working together to address all sources of injustice at once, even as we respect the individual needs and limits of ourselves and each other in working to build the most compassionate, just and equitable world that we can, together.
It is towards that potential world that we seek to build, that we ask all of us to collectively acknowledge that Lansing Community College occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples. In particularly, the city of Lansing resides on land ceded in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw.
We recognize, support, and advocate for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for all those who have been forcibly removed from their Homelands. By offering this Land Acknowledgment, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold ourselves and the institutions we are a part of more accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.