Land Acknowledgment and MLK

Posted bypaberryrnPosted inUncategorized
Martin Luther King image provided by http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USMC-09611.jpg

I asked to do the land acknowledgment for a board meeting on Saturday, two days before Martin Luther King (MLK) Day. As I dwelled on what I would say, I realized a simple land acknowledgement was not enough. It is not enough to say I reside in the occupied lands of the Shawnee, Miami, and the Hopewell Culture. It is not enough when we, as the white oppressors of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community say just a land acknowledgment.

 

Paulo Freire once wrote “To affirm that men and women are persons and persons should be free, and yet do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality is a farce.” So, we, as a nation and on this earth, must strive to stand with all persons to build on MLK’s dream speech that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons (men) are created equal.”

 

We can no longer be silent to the misery this white paternalistic culture has inflicted and continues to inflict by oppression within these United States – oppression of voting rights, oppression of history in education, oppression of persons’ health rights and a culture of consumerism that continues to oppress and allows corporations to steal from the lands and not give back. When I see this, as a privileged white woman, and I don’t use my voice or written word to point this out, I become and accept my silence that oppression has inflicted related to my own gendered oppression in this white paternalistic culture.

 

We need to change this world. In order to do that, we need to be that change and stop being silent. Protest loudly, write letters to your congressmen, change their politics of business as usual and proxy wars and profit in the Ukraine and Gaza. Work for Peace, work for equitable rights and voting rights, fight hunger and recognize our paternalistic culture has cause the diseases of disparities (suicide, drug overdose, alcohol deaths). It is not one person’s fight; it is all our fight.

 

 

Published by paberryrn

Peggy Ann Berry, PhD, MSN, RN, COHN-S, CLE, PLNC, FAAOHN earned her doctorate from University of Cincinnati in 2015. She is a past Graduate Nurse Intern to DOL OSHA, a NIOSH Education and Resource Grant recipient and an American Nurses Foundation Scholar. She is a Founding Fellow with the U. S. Academy of Workplace Bullying, Mobbing, and Abuse and a past Graduate Nurse Intern to OSHA, past Malcolm Baldrige Examiner, and a past senior examiner with The Partnership for Excellence. Dr. Berry is a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and the Ohio Nurses Association, as well as past chair and member of the Environmental and Public Health Caucus. Peggy has been advocating for clean air, access to potable water, chemical transparency with fracking solution, and methane regulation by congressional and state visits, press conferences and social media with and for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Ohio Environmental Council, Sierra Club, and Mom’s Clean Air Force. In addition to being the LWV Ohio volunteer lobbyist, she has been an environmental advocate since 2012, participating in EPA and OSHA requests for testimony on chemical transparency and Methane New Source Rules, collaborating across many NGOs to promote clean water, air and tillable soil. She has presented and published on the human health effects of workplace bullying, climate change, and migraines.