Not our dog park

Can you believe it? The Minneapolis Park Board is closing the Minnehaha off-leash dog park! Are you mad? Calm down.

I could nitpick and point out that you never, or only once, brought your dog to this area. More likely you have never heard of this area but are just mad at “government overreach of MPLS”. Honestly, who am I kidding? Nobody is reading this. But even if you were a frequent user of this dog park, lets take a step back and look at this.

The local news coverage of this issue is not great. That comes down to phrasing. Part of the reason, but far from the sole reason, is that it is thought that this is sacred land. Not sacred that indigenous people existed in this area for millennia and it was probably vital to their existence. Sacred in terms of our post-colonial definition, we mean the presence of bones of indigenous ancestors. That is so far from the point.

First off, the fact that there isn’t a 100% consensus on the exact legacy of this land amongst the many dispersed descendants of indigenous peoples for this relatively small tract of land shouldn’t be a reason to not concede the land. This land never belonged to you, so go across the river or to the fleet of other off-leash dog parks nearby. Will it be an adjustment for you and your four-legged pal? They will be just fine, so follow suit.

Our whole concept of land ownership is completely fucked. I mean, if we followed the logic of this decision to the extreme, we should all be moving back to Europe or wherever. That is not a reality and the indigenous people of this country have been living that truth, so should we. You don’t have a right to anything. Community with nature is a privilege and a gift, one that our civilization has plundered, violated, and destroyed.

If there is even the smallest gesture of honoring native land, we should do it. We cannot undo colonialism completely but we can give back. If you are my non-indigenous neighbor, and you feel wronged or violated that you had access to some land and it was taken from you, maybe fucking marinade on that for a second. Does it sound familiar?