Billie Eilish joined Bad Bunny in speaking out against ICE during her acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, slamming the organization after winning song of the year for “Wildflower.”

The singer was bleeped as she said “fuck ICE,” giving strong commentary during the speech. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe this. Everyone else in this category is so amazing. I love you so much,” she said, standing next to her brother Finneas. “I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land. And, yeah, it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE. That’s all I’m going to say. Sorry. Thank you so much.”

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[+] -25 points 9 months ago (19 children)

I'm pretty left leaning but the whole "stolen land" narrative will never land with the common person. It certainly doesn't with me.

I cannot be asked to be held responsible about the actions of people well over 200 years ago. I was born here.

Arguing that someone "stole the land" and thus it's yours is how you get places like Israel.

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  • [–] 44 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    That doesn't sound left-leaning. It's not about you. It's not about holding you responsible. That's a talking point straight out of the conservative victimhood playbook.

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    And yet that's what is always implied by these statements. "someone 200 years ago made a choice so you deal with it"

    No, fuck that.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Do you have an opinion on DEI?

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Sure: it's a good idea to improve diversity. Can't think of any reasons not to.

    I do think that corporations get it wrong, and it doesn't make sense to pick a less qualified candidate just to meet some arbitrary requirements.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    DEI tends to encourage the hiring of diverse people because they have been historically underrepresented due to past policies and systemic injustices. One could argue DEI is people making choices due to the behavior of people from previous generations. It seems at odds to support that and not acknowledge some concept of debt owed to people wronged by society in the past.

    Also, DEI is not about lowering standards. It's a pretty common dog whistle to suggest that corpos pick less qualified candidates because of DEI. I'm not suggesting you intended it that way, but going forward it's good to keep that in mind.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    No one's asking you to take responsibility, just to face reality.

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  • [+] -7 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Make a list of land that wasn't taken from someone else. I'll wait.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    That's not the point you think it is... It weakens your argument, essentially admitting that no one has the credibility to say the land of a nation is for any particular type of person from any specific place... The Earth belongs to no one, we simply divvy up and take ownership over the responsibility to govern maintain and preserve it, but this entitlement some cling to about god given rights to land is delusion, pure and simple.

    Also you're conflating things; saying "no one is illegal on stolen land" is not the same as saying "since it's stolen it's mine"... no one is saying that.

    You seem to be trying to argue that might equals right, when the rest of the left is fighting to maintain (or further establish) a rules based society, which is the opposite of might equals right and all that Stephen Miller bullshit.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    Amazon jungle tribals area
    Greenland (yet)

    That's what first comes to mind.

    Maybe you should rephrase your point?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Oh, sorry friend. You can't prove to me that the people living there didn't steal their current living space from another community member.

    It's just a stupid concept. You can't look at any piece of written human history that doesn't involve conquering land from others.

    What's the cutoff for something being stolen? The immediate area around where I live? A city? Does it matter if the people who came before had a concept of nations or borders?

    My point is: immigration policy in the USA is clearly broken for a plethora of ways that don't involve using some weird idea that a country's land is stolen. The average person is likely going to look at that part of the claim and latch on to it, contemplating how dumb the idea is. We should probably use arguments that make some sense when trying to convince undecided people to take a logical stance.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    I agree. This kind of rhetoric doesn't really help. I guess I get what she's going for here, but....trying to get people, en masse, to reject the very notion of someone being here illegally is going to take a lot.

    I personally find the over-emphasis on the restriction of the movement of people, while money can slosh all around the world with hardly any friction rather absurd, but I also realize that's not a widely-held view.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I personally find the over-emphasis on the restriction of the movement of people, while money can slosh all around the world with hardly any friction rather absurd

    Um, it's not the movement of all people that's restricted; it's the movement of poor people. If you're rich enough, you can basically go wherever you want whenever you want.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Oh, of course, but that's the case with nearly all of the people that I think you are talking about (the billionaires and the centimillionaires) - the rules and grind everyone else has are not really problems for them. But their money can circle the globe even easier than they can...

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (2 children)

    Readsettlers.org

    Stealing land and arguing everyone does it is how you get places like piSSrael and seppoland.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Terminally online alert. The fuck is seppoland?

    "B-b-but the "holy land" was stolen from us first!" - Israel

    You do understand that same narrative is what they use to justify "taking it back", right? They're not there illegally bro, the land was stolen from them.

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