remapping my brain with territory names on zoom

since early 2019, i have been learning to acknowledge the first peoples of the land i’m on as well as the indigenous name for the land (ex: i live on shawmut, occupied massachusett and wampanoag territory, popularly known as boston). this happens ideally when i first arrive on new land but it can/should also be done at the beginning of any meeting or gathering i’m hosting. you can find out more about why here.

since covid struck, i have been on a WILD number of zoom calls. and one thing i have been doing (probably inspired by someone in my CSS network) is adding the name of the first peoples to my profile name: lawrence (he) wampanoag territory.

sometimes i’m the only one on a call who has done that. other times it’s almost everyone. if i’m leading the call, i’ll ask folks to do it if they know the info or to look it up later if they don’t.

over the past four months of call after call after call, i have realized that my brain is beginning to learn which peoples are/were where! the ones i can call off the top of my head are: oakland is ohlone land, seattle is coash salish and suquawamish land, southern manhattan is occupied lenape territory, etc.

it’s pretty wild to watch my brain get rewired like this. decolonizing my mind is a real thing (aka unlearning colonial mapping approaches is a real process that has concrete steps).

words / writing / post-processing
262w / 10min / 5min