To the Editor:
Re “Enough With the Land Acknowledgments,” by Kathleen DuVal (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 6):
Eliminating land acknowledgments will serve solely to additional cut back Native visibility in U.S. society. There isn’t onerous information on the proliferation of land acknowledgments, however I imagine that the writer considerably overestimates how widespread they’re outdoors academia and a small variety of nonprofits.
And whereas there isn’t unanimity amongst Native folks round land acknowledgments (simply as there isn’t unanimity on any situation), I discover it noteworthy that lots of the most pointed critiques the writer cites come from non-Native folks.
The writer is correct that establishments should do extra to determine credible relationships with Native nations. But this isn’t an both/or situation of acknowledging the historic and ongoing existence of Native nations or partaking with them.
We’re in an important second when many states (and shortly the federal authorities) try to suppress learning about Native people in educational and different settings. Now could be the time to embrace Indigenous visibility.
Till Native folks have the visibility in American life that different teams have, I say we’d like extra land acknowledgments, not fewer.
Robert Maxim
Washington
The author is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and a fellow on the Brookings Establishment, the place he researches tribal economies and id in Indian Nation.
To the Editor:
I definitely agree with Kathleen DuVal’s competition that “sensible efforts” to enhance the lot of Native People are superior to the sanctimonious advantage signaling embodied in land acknowledgments, which acknowledge that almost all land within the U.S. has been forcibly taken from Native People.
However along with the legitimate causes enumerated by Dr. DuVal to cease land acknowledgments, these actions are hypocritical. By acknowledging {that a} specific plot of land was violently taken from a sure tribe, one means that one is able to treatment that injustice by returning it to its unique homeowners.
That sounds good — however in the actual world what number of present, lawful landowners would willingly relinquish their property to the descendants of those that misplaced the land by means of violence and coercion? Nearly none.
We must always keep away from ethical pronouncements that counsel we’re against historic injustices that we have now the facility to treatment, at the least partly, whereas we proceed to benefit from the fruits of that injustice.
Yonkel Goldstein
San Carlos, Calif.
A Capitol Architect’s Outrage Over Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons
To the Editor:
Re “An Opening Act of Contempt” (editorial, Jan. 22):
It was past comprehension to see pictures of the forty seventh president standing in entrance of the 19-foot-tall mannequin of the Statue of Freedom in Emancipation Corridor, simply after his swearing-in ceremony, telling his supporters: “You’re going to see a whole lot of motion on the J6 hostages. See a whole lot of motion.”
On the White Home later that day, the motion included mass pardons and sentence commutations for individuals who took half within the Jan. 6 revolt on the Capitol.
As the 10th Architect of the Capitol, from 1997 to 2007, and a member of the three-person Capitol Police Board, I had sworn to “help and defend the Structure of america in opposition to all enemies overseas and home.” I used to be intestine punched on Jan. 6, 2021, as many a whole lot of home terrorists rampaged by means of the halls and corridors of the Capitol, desecrating the image of our nation and the guts of the Congress I used to be sworn to guard.
My obligations as head of the two,300-person Architect of the Capitol company included the preservation, upkeep and safety of all buildings and grounds on Capitol Hill. To see Emancipation Corridor, the guts of that enlargement, utilized by President Trump as a discussion board to announce the subversion of the rule of legislation and of our Structure speaks of harmful occasions forward for our democracy.
It is a name for every member of the Senate and the Home of Representatives to recollect the oaths additionally they swore and to publicly voice their outrage.
Alan M. Hantman
Fort Lee, N.J.
Kennedy and the A.M.A.
To the Editor:
Re “Kennedy Tried to Quash Shots as Covid Raged” (entrance web page, Jan. 18):
New reporting about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive efforts to ban the Covid vaccine through the peak of the lethal pandemic must be sufficient to definitively reject his nomination as secretary of well being and human companies.
However that’s solely the newest revelation about Mr. Kennedy, an aggressive anti-science conspiracist who, amongst different positions dangerous to the general public’s well being, has unfold harmful misinformation undermining H.I.V./AIDS prevention and therapy in Africa. And his spreading of disinformation about vaccines is one of the main factors cited behind a deadly outbreak of measles in Samoa.
It’s no shock that hundreds of docs have spoken out and signed petitions opposing Mr. Kennedy’s affirmation to guide H.H.S., an enormous federal company with 80,000 staff, a $1.8 trillion price range and big affect over international well being insurance policies and methods.
And it’s onerous to think about a secretary of the company who has publicly known as for an eight-year ban on infectious illness analysis when the world is dealing with the sturdy risk of a worldwide pandemic that could possibly be extra lethal than the Covid-19 catastrophe.
So with all that we learn about Mr. Kennedy’s actually outlandish concepts, it’s significantly stunning that we have now heard nary a phrase from the American Medical Affiliation and different main medical organizations that must be strongly and publicly opposing Mr. Kennedy’s nomination. Now could be their time to guard the nation’s well being — not simply the particular pursuits of their members.
However now, sadly for the nation, the A.M.A. is inexplicably M.I.A.
Irwin Redlener
New York
The author, a pediatrician, is adjunct senior analysis scholar at Columbia College.
To the Editor:
Re “D.C. Braces for a Fight Over R.T.O.” (Enterprise, Jan. 20):
If the federal authorities and different employers need to keep productiveness whereas requiring staff to work within the workplace 5 days per week, they’ll want to speculate extra of their bodily crops.
I work for the New York Metropolis Division of Well being, which routinely permits distant work two days per week for workers. I however select to come back into the workplace every single day. Why? As a result of I’ve an workplace. If issues are getting noisy round me, or if I’ll be speaking in conferences, I simply shut my door.
A lot of my employees members shouldn’t have places of work. They work in shared open areas with their colleagues, with little quiet or privateness. Because of this, they usually save their “focus” work, delicate calls and comparable duties for his or her distant days.
Sure, the time and expense of commuting are essential elements within the resistance to full-time in-office work, however so are the sensible wants of staff devoted to their jobs. Employers should make sure that they supply appropriate, high-quality work environments for his or her groups.
Mary-Powel Thomas
Brooklyn
