Not long ago, I attended a Sunday service at a Methodist church in Denver.
Before the service began, the pastor introduced herself, shared her preferred pronouns, and informed the congregation that we were worshipping on stolen Native American land.
I remember wondering why, if the land had truly been stolen, the church still owned it. I wrote about it on these pages.
Now Denver’s City Council wants to add another public ritual to official meetings.
Not a prayer.
Not the Pledge of Allegiance.
Not even a moment of silence.
A labor acknowledgment recognizing slavery and its legacy.
Image created by ChatGPT
The proposal is curious for one obvious reason.
Colorado entered the Union in 1876 — more than a decade after the Civil War ended — as a free state. No one currently living in Colorado was ever enslaved, and no one currently living in Colorado owned slaves here.
Yet before city business can begin, elected officials may soon be expected to acknowledge historical events that occurred generations before anyone in the room was born.
The ritual keeps growing.
First came pronouns. Then land acknowledgments. Now slave acknowledgments.
One wonders what comes next.
The central question isn’t whether slavery was evil. It was.
Nor is the question whether Native Americans suffered or inflicted terrible injustices.
Many unquestionably did. Those are historical facts.
The real question is something else.
What purpose do these public confessions actually serve?
When I first heard the church’s land acknowledgment, I asked myself a simple question:
If the land was stolen, why are we still sitting on it?
If I knowingly possess stolen property, I have a moral obligation to return it to its rightful owner. Merely acknowledging that it was stolen does not absolve me of responsibility.
Imagine explaining to the police that you know a car in your garage was stolen, yet you plan to keep driving it while periodically expressing regret. That defense would not get very far.
Yet this is precisely the logic underpinning the modern ritual of land acknowledgments.
Over the past several years, universities, churches, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and even sporting events have begun opening their meetings with statements acknowledging that they occupy land once inhabited by indigenous peoples.
These declarations have become almost mandatory among progressive institutions. They are delivered with great solemnity, usually without anyone asking the obvious follow-up question.
When will you be giving the land back?
The answer, of course, is never.
The contradiction is difficult to miss.
If these institutions genuinely believe they are occupying stolen property, the moral course seems straightforward. Transfer the deed. Return the property. Relocate elsewhere.
A church could return its land.
A university could return its campus.
A presidential library could return its grounds.
Yet no one proposes doing so.
Instead, we get speeches.
Could they even return the stolen land?
Suppose a church in Denver decided tomorrow to return its property. To whom would the property be returned?
Which tribe?
The one that occupied the area when American settlers arrived?
The tribe that occupied it before them?
The tribe they displaced?
The tribe before that?
How far back should we go?
History rarely provides clean answers. Land acknowledgments are not seeking answers. Instead, they simply signal virtue.
One characteristic of these acknowledgments is that they require no sacrifice or resolution.
Returning land would require sacrifice.
Funding scholarships would require sacrifice.
Improving struggling schools would require sacrifice.
Reducing crime would require sacrifice.
Repairing broken infrastructure would require sacrifice.
Reading a prepared statement before a meeting requires nothing but a long face and an air of seriousness, and without any resolution.
That is precisely why these rituals have become so popular.
Colorado seems especially fond of symbolic politics.
Symbolism is inexpensive. Talk is cheap.
Solving problems is not. Results are expensive.
Mount Evans was renamed Mount Blue Sky because John Evans, the second territorial governor of Colorado, was involved in a massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in 1864.
Stapleton, Colorado, became Central Park after it was discovered that 5-term Denver Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a KKK member.
Now, Denver officials want to add slavery acknowledgments before conducting city business.
Yet none of those actions has repaired potholes, reduced auto theft or other crimes, improved educational outcomes, shortened emergency response times, or made downtown feel safer after dark.
Changing names changes maps.
It doesn’t change lives.
History contains no shortage of atrocities.
Should city councils acknowledge Roman conquests?
Genghis Khan?
The Thirty Years’ War?
The Black Death?
The Holocaust?
The Armenian genocide?
The Cultural Revolution?
The Rwandan genocide?
The list never ends.
Every civilization has conquered someone.
Every nation has committed injustices.
If every government meeting begins with a growing list of historical acknowledgments, there will eventually be more time spent reciting the past than governing the present.
Given the state of “governing,” maybe that’s a good thing.
Governments exist to solve today’s problems, not to endlessly recite yesterday’s tragedies.
Denver residents are far more concerned about crime than about ceremonial acknowledgments.
They care more about homelessness than about historical disclaimers.
They care more about functioning schools than about symbolic statements.
History should be taught honestly, preserved faithfully, and remembered with respect.
But public officials were elected to govern the living, not to perform rituals for the dead.
If a church truly believes it holds stolen land, it should return the deed.
If a city truly believes that symbolic acknowledgments improve people’s lives, it should be prepared to explain exactly how.
Otherwise, perhaps it’s time to spend less time on acknowledgments and more time solving the problems facing the people who elected them.
"There is a kind of virtue that is cheap. It consists of jumping on cost-free bandwagons of public feeling — perhaps even deeply justified public feeling — and winning approval by espousing the right opinion." from a letter from Hillsdale College
"If every government meeting begins with a growing list of historical acknowledgments, there will eventually be more time spent reciting the past than governing the present.
"Given the state of 'governing,' maybe that’s a good thing."
Well said, Doctor.