I'm not taking it as an attack at all. The people who hated controlled burns for racist reasons (such as calling people "primitives") were being incredibly stupid. I am not denying that at all, that should be obvious. The point is, that in and of itself is not a reason to do controlled burns. The reason we do controlled burns is that they control wildfires, help make more of the state inhabitable, etc - we don't do it because it's the opposite of what racists did.

moreover people have been calling for controlled burns for decades (if anything, typically republicans). It's hard to believe at this point what's holding it back is racism.

The regulations ban the practices is the racism here

Part of what's holding it back is expensive multi-year environmental reviews for logging projects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li_Rv4t2htc

Yes, selective logging and controlled burns have to be paired if the forest has ever been clear cut.

Where I live (Santa Cruz Mountains) the vast old growth redwood trees were extensively logged (via clear cutting) into the early-to-mid 20th Century.

Then widespread logging just stopped. And for at least the past 50-60 years there has been intense hostility to logging. Everywhere, doesn't matter if public or private land.

The redwood groves that have grown back are all extremely densely packed, relatively small diameter trees mixed in with tan and coast live oaks and lots of smaller shrubbery. Lots of low branches on all trees. Lots of redwood needles and dead tan oak and coast live oak leaves laying thick on the forest floor.

Perfect tinder.

About 3 years ago a lightening storm sparked a fire that burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

Controlled burns would have helped remove the forest duff. But the trees themselves are perfectly set up to respond to fire, unlike in an old growth forest.

The point of bringing it up is because one of the natural questions is "why did we stop doing controlled burns?". If you don't address this, people will think there was a good reason when, in this case, it doesn't seem like there was.

This article is not written as a way to explain to the world the fact that California will begin backing intentional burns, it's written to explain why that wasn't already the case from a historical perspective.

It's insane how insecure you have to be to get triggered by attacks on groups of people from the past that share a continental genetic background

Is that really all that is happening though?

There is a trend that glorifies native populations over colonizers and it has been going on for years now, said trend is pretty often just thinly veiled racism. I don't think it's insecurity as much as awareness.

I don't think "glorifying" victims over oppressors is "thinly veiled racism". Colonizer isn't a race.

as a non-member of the "primary race" it absolutely is racism.

But, I cannot find any trend nor glorification in this article? Even not that there is a tone of "we don't do it because it's the opposite of what racists did" thinking (as a sibling poster states).. if someone gets that impression out of this article here, imo they have a problem - or I am too ignorant?

Considering that indigenous populations at large have been oppressed since Europeans made landfall to the Americas, a trend that interrogates their history and struggle, and celebrates their culture is a welcome change in the status quo.

After all, European history, culture, and heritage is still being celebrated even as its foibles criticized, so I fail to see how one culture's sharing of the limelight with another's constitutes racism.

Prove that trend and prove it's racism

Race matters a lot to many people.

Interestingly, race relations were at their peak in 2008. The trends of seeing racism everywhere and reading it into everything, people's personal views (notably, those of minority respondents, many of whom viewed race relations in far more positive terms than they do today), and more importantly the pervasive, institutionalized victim pimping that has spawned a billion dollar industry in recent years—these are all artificial, forced, and came about in the last 15 years.

Yes, race matters a lot to many people. It certainly matters a lot more than it did until 2008—to all "racial" groups, that is—and I can't help but notice that a lot of freshly minted "experts" are, fifteen years later, profiting very, very handsomely from providing "solutions" to a problem that has perversely only grown in proportion with the size of the industry itself.

> Interestingly, race relations were at their peak in 2008

You mean when a significant minority of the population was saying that Obama was a secret Muslim trying to impose Sharia law on the United States and McCain (whatever happen to people like him?) had to constantly squash it in his own party?

I think he might also mean the claims that Obama was born in Kenya and even releasing his birth certificate, the original, wasn't enough even though this wasn't an issue for other presidents

That seems uncharitable to the OP. Context is important. I think that in the present cultural climate, the OP's interpretation is entirely reasonable. He isn't saying European settlers or colonizers didn't make bad decisions (though often we are fed tendentious caricatures here), or denying that there might be something that can be learned from a native population. It's the forced emphasis.

Writing is not just producing a bag of atomic propositions. What is written must be justified and relevant. When something forced occurs within some piece of writing, it betrays a bias, or even an ulterior motive. In this case, controlled burns (or letting natural wildfires play out) aren't a new thing. They're older than agriculture, and they are and have been used across the world in modern times for some time. Look at a live map of forest fires and you'll notice how many are controlled burns. It's not as if we're considering the use of controlled burns for the first time and discovering some long-forgotten wisdom of the natives here. Frankly, what's weird is that California is just now doing this.

But I also wouldn't make a big deal out of this article either. I think learning about precolonial practices like this is interesting, regardless of the bias or motives of the article's author.

there's "forced emphasis" because controlled burns which had been occurring for 1000s of years were outlawed by european settlers, leading to the current catastrophic wildfires that we experience every year in california. historical context isn't some kind of "woke" gotcha - it's literally the history of controlled burns and why banning them has caused our current problems.

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, most of the forests in California were clearcut and the large, spread out, old growth forests that the Indians (native americans, indigenous people, etc.) used controlled burns on don't exist any more. In 1000 years we could possible get back to that but until then we will have to discover how to do these burns in the forest as it exists and decide if they are a good idea.

One of my favorite hikes in Oregon is a cermonial white oak grove that was crafted by generations of controlled burns. It's starting to fade, but walking the paths it's humbling to imagine what it was like at its full glory. I was also taught to think of the American genocide as a fait-accompli but of course the reality is more complex and the history has not been erased.