Definition
A land acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes the connection of indigenous peoples to their ancestral land and serves as a public expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory you reside on.
I would like to start today with a burglary acknowledgement statement.
A burglary acknowledgement is a statement that recognizes a place where people have lived historically and continue to live today, a place that I have personally burglarized in order to take all the cool stuff that was there.
This statement calls attention to your ongoing connection to your house, which I robbed blind, and acknowledges the importance of confronting the often violent history that forced you to leave your house when I broke into it wielding a tire iron. It also recognizes how institutions such as me have benefitted from your dispossession.
It is my hope that I can work with you, the Cumberdale family, to better explain our difficult history to the public; i.e., that you had an 80-inch TV and I did not.
In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, I would like to acknowledge the Cumberdale family, as well as other peoples whose homes I have robbed, and their expensive stuff that now resides in my house. I recognize your ongoing historical connection to your home, your land, and to a much lesser extent, your Nespresso machine. I do this to pay tribute to you, the Cumberdale family, and to your elders past, present, and emerging. I hope to inspire greater curiosity among non-Cumberdale peoples about the stuff which I stole from you in order to halt the erasure of your history and to encourage support of other burglarized communities both locally and globally.
I also recognize that the sovereignty of the Cumberdale family over their home was never ceded even after their new robotic vacuum was unjustly removed from their home by me. Not even the noble Roomba can sweep away the painful history of our encounter.
I also want to thank the Cumberdale family for their hospitality and stewardship of their large firearm collection. The serial numbers may have been filed away, but the connection to your family history will never be ablated.
In summary, I commit to continue working hand-in-hand with the Cumberdale family to honor our shared history and build our future with truth. I know the Cumberdales appreciate my candor and integrity on this matter.
I would also like to point out that this acknowledgement should not be taken as an admission of guilt nor a promise to return any of this awesome stuff I stole. Rather, it is an opportunity for me to signal my virtue — or “virtue signal,” if you will — to a wider audience so that they might have the wonderful opportunity to bask in my magnanimity, just as I bask in the warming light of the ProSun RenuvaSkin L32 Therapy and Tanning Bed that I, uh, recently acquired.
