Did you know that property ownership is “whiteness,” which is a shorthand for white supremacy? Apparently, property is “whiteness” because the concept of property ownership and property rights is a western, therefore “white,” and was historically a way for white men to steal the land from indigenous peoples. And since property ownership is now a form of oppression, it shouldn’t matter that rioters and looters are destroying and stealing property because people’s lives are more valuable than things. And yes, that is really the arguments people have made.
Of course, these ideas are riddled with factual and logical problems. First, property ownership is certainly a feature of western civilization dating back to ancient times, but it is not inherently white. Scholars like Robert Bucholz, PhD, trace the origins of western civilization back to ancient Egypt, and there is credible evidence that ancient Egyptians owned property. And as you know, Egypt is on the African continent and its native people do not qualify as “white.”
Secondly, while it is painfully obvious that some of the ways in which people have acquired property in the past were not always good or beneficial, it should be equally obvious that pointing out all the flaws in one system of property management and romanticizing another is fallacious. And there are plenty of flaws in how Native Americans conceptualized property. For instance, the members of tribes did not own land individually, but rather considered all the land controlled by the tribe to be common. This led to a problem called the tragedy of the commons, in which the lack of individual accountability and ownership leads to the over-exploitation of natural resources because everyone fears that everyone else would take too much, so they try to take more than their fair share first.
Also, this system of property ownership (or lack thereof) did not keep these tribes from fighting. On the contrary, these tribes engaged in brutal warfare to gain new territory or retake their ancestral lands. One could say that that would qualify as theft and even oppression of the weaker tribes by the stronger tribes.
Finally, the ownership of private property is actually the remedy to oppression, not the source of it. Property rights create necessary safeguards against the state seizing its citizens’ personal property, homes, and businesses and also make the state a neutral arbitrator in disputes among citizens. And in countries like the United States, these property rights are extended to non-citizens. In fact, one of the vital steps developing countries must take to lay the foundations of a free, robust economy is to protect property rights because people need to know what they build or invest in today will be there tomorrow.
And yes, people matter more than property. That doesn’t mean that protecting property isn’t important or that refusing to do so doesn’t have dire consequences. And let’s not forget how much property matters to people in ways that transcend commercialism and overconsumption. Are we really willing to tell people whose businesses burned to the ground, whose homes were greatly depreciated or destroyed, and whose cities were partly razed to the ground that things don’t matter? And do we really think that innocent people had this coming because there is still injustice in the world, injustice that these people did not commit, nor can they cure?
Consider the ridiculousness of the claim that the fact that some people have more property and possessions than I do means that they are oppressive and that I am oppressed. The beauty of living in a country with property and economic rights actually means that no matter how much someone else has, I still have the same rights to the fruits of my labor and the things that they can buy.
The real source of oppression is when radical activists take over people’s homes without compensation and try to deny homeowners any recourse. No one deserves to live in a place in which their most treasured asset, their home, can be seized by others simply because the latter aren’t willing to build something for themselves. Unfortunately, that is exactly what’s happening in places like Edmonds, Washington, a suburb north of Seattle. A group that calls itself Sovereign Citizens is doing just that.
Of course, this raises some serious questions like whose land is it? The last tribe who took it by force? Or the tribe with the most sacred beliefs about the land? And this line of “thinking” doesn’t hold up to any logical standard. My ancestors migrated from England about 400 years ago. Do I have a right to cross the ocean and kick black British subjects out of my ancestral lands and take over their homes? Absolutely not.
There is no denying that the ways in which Native Americans were treated in the United States was abhorrent and deserves our condemnation. Some of this mistreatment included displacing Native Americans from their homes, as with the Trail of Tears. Even so, those who have committed such atrocities are long since dead, as are the ones who suffered because of them. Letting people who may have ancestors that lived on lands hundreds of years ago invade the homes of innocent people doesn’t rectify these sins of the past. It perpetuates them. If a hostile takeover of indigenous land was wrong before, why should we permit it now? Who will protect today’s indigenous Americans currently living in places like Edmonds?
What is more, it doesn’t make sense that we are being told by groups like Sovereign Citizens that we need to vacate our lawfully acquired property while tens of thousands of illegal immigrants pour across our southern border and claim to have a right to live in our country. These migrants from Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa have no legitimate claim, ancestral or otherwise, that justifies these rights claims. A country belongs to its citizens who have a right to their culture, language, and traditions. These citizens also have inherent rights to the property for which they have worked and legally obtained.
And what about those who have inherited their property? They didn’t earn it themselves. Interestingly, the same people who say property perpetuates a system of white supremacy also is shaming us because they say African Americans have been at a historic disadvantage for building generational wealth, which is something we should all have the opportunity to build regardless of our race.
It is clear that those who say property is whiteness want everyone who isn’t white to enjoy the right of property ownership in ways that usurp the rights of anyone with the wrong skin color, ethnicity, or ancestral line. History has taught us that doesn’t end well.
Photo:
"Property in Europe" by Images_of_Money is licensed under CC BY 2.0
https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/f9014b84-19df-40c2-98cc-e97cbaffd8f5
Sources
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1238&context=articles
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/ancient-laws-0010981