To the editor:

I have lived in Barrington for over 40 years and have never seen a more blatant example of racism and cultural insensitivity than the Barrington Town Council’s “Land Acknowledgment”.

This lame attempt to recognize the Pokanoket “ownership” of Barrington, after they were displaced by European colonists completely ignores the people whom the Pokanoket displaced when they settled Barrington.  Indeed, even those displaced by the Pokanoket predecessors are ignored in this acknowledgement.

Long standing theories about the peopling of North America postulate that people migrated from Asia to present day Alaska over a land bridge that existed 13,000 years ago. These peoples migrated south to the tip of South America and east to eventually populated the North American continent.

Recent anthropological research finds new evidence of Neanderthal settlements near present day San Diego,  California about 130,000 years ago. I can virtually guarantee you that if Neanderthals were in San Diego 130,000 years ago they were in Barrington before the Pokanokets.

My “23 and Me” account tells me that I am in the 90th percentile of present day Americans with Neanderthal DNA. (If you ever saw me you would see why.) Therefore I am aghast and appalled that my ancestors are completely ignored in the Land Acknowledgement. Since you good people of Barrington elected this Town Council, you bear equal guilt for this insensitive cultural travesty, and I am cancelling all of you, except for Janine Wolf, whom seems to “get it”.

Dennis Slonka

Barrington