I donât know if youâre unfamiliar with Billie Eilish, but she has been speaking out, donating, and protesting since she was a teenager. Yes, she is a wealthy white celebrity, but she has nothing to gain from this. She could stay in her mansion and ignore what is happening like many of her peers, yet she continues to speak up, donate, and call powerful people out to their face despite being harassed, stalked, and threatened, while billionaires who deny that America was colonized encourage the harassment. She was born and raised in LA and cannot help that. The alternative would be selling her home and moving somewhere else that is also stolen land. She is very wealthy, but she does not have the money to buy housing for an entire tribe. Her âstolen landâ comment was about pointing out the hypocrisy of supporting ICE when none of us actually own the land and we are all on stolen land. It was not a gotcha or an attempt to seek praise and if anything, she is being mocked on the literal news by all sides. I understand how frustrating this is and I hate feeling powerless too, but your anger is misdirected. She is one of the few celebrities willing to speak out despite men showing up at her home to verbally abuse her. She knows her racial, economic, and social privilege and is using it to support marginalized groups.
You don't think that, sure; but it's definitely what you're saying even if you don't think you are.
The "selling her home" comment is just so indicative of your lack of understanding about our politics and wants because that's nowhere close to the alternative. I also think you should look into why land is so important to us before making bold assumptions about what we want and what we plan to do.
The land back movement has been abused and twisted by the government and people in power to suit their agenda to the point that most people genuinely believe we want a mass displacement of people, of you, of Billie, when we say it. And that is just not our goal and has never been. We've been screaming about what land back means for us for literal decades. You just either don't care, or refuse to listen.
Instead of falling for propaganda about this mystical mass displacement you might face if we have our land back, let's use our critical thinking skills and consider why, exactly, politicians, billionaires, millionaires, the government, big conglomerates, corporations (and capitalism itself) who own massive swaths of land (and barely pay taxes on, set exorbitant rent and mortgage rates for us(!!!)) might not want to cede control of this stolen land to people, to tribes, who know what it feels like to live in poverty and own nothing.
Land back is about sovereign rights. Legislative control. Giving power back to impoverished indigenous communities who have been stripped of their ancestral land and given scraps they are supposed to say thank you for. The land her mansion is on is stolen land that is currently owned by the government, but Billie still lives there. Why should it be any different if it's owned by the Tongva instead?
We don't care who is living on itâthe land itself has always been our priority and always will be. I think it's extremely important to consider that despite being from different geographical locations and having completely different languages and cultures, land and nature are at the very core of so many of our cultural identities. And for some of us, it's impossible to separate us from our land/what the land means to us. So yes. I do believe that anyone using "land back" who isn't indigenous is using it as a gotchaâeven if they mean well. But there's a difference between hollow activism/hypocrisy and actual allyship.
