A Day of Mourning
The American celebration of Thanksgiving is yet another opportunity for white people to ignore real history.
Since 1970, the Native Americans have declared the 4th Thursday in November to be “a day of mourning.”
Yet children in schools still dance around with bands of feathers and pilgrim hats, singing songs of brotherhood and turkey.
Adults still wish you each other “a happy Thanksgiving,” spend a ton of money on food and “Black Friday” deals and ignore any knowledge of the truth.
At the least, this is cultural appropriation and A disgusting display of capitalism and consumerism.
At the worst, it is literally celebrating genocide, rape, disease and colonization.
It is celebrating white supremacy.
1621 supposedly marks the “first Thanksgiving,” where pilgrims and the Wampanoag Tribe attempted to create an uneasy peace between them. The Wampanoag had stewarded the land successfully for over 10,000 years when the pilgrims showed up. The colonizers brought diseases that had weakened both groups and the pilgrims needed the Wampanoag to survive.
It was more an attempted diplomatic harvest meal than the big, happy “Thanksgiving feast” historians attempt to sell. It also only happened once- but it opened the floodgates for more europeans to come over which quickly led to the genocide and colonization that all but wiped out the Wampanoag and other Native People and continues to repress and harm their descendants.
A plaque in the modern day town of Plymouth reads:
“Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture. Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to experience.”
The words of two movement leaders, Mahtowin Munro (Lakota) and Moonanum James (Wampanoag), say it up best:
“Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that, if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian, and poor and working class white people.
The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.”
(Above quotes & image shared respectfully from this piece:
https://campuspress.yale.edu/yipp/we-did-not-land-on-plymouth-rock-plymouth-rock-landed-on-us-2/#.YZ5p46znkQY.twitter)
