On National Day of Mourning: Don't Be a Turkey
Here in the United States Thanksgiving is all about family, a turkey dinner, and football. However, the reality is that Thanksgiving day is a day that celebrates the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and a relentless assault on Native culture. Because of this the, back in 1970, United American Indians of New England established Thanksgiving as a Nation Day of Mourning. Participants in the National Day of Mourning honor the Indigenous People of America, and the struggles of these people to survive, even today. For these Native people it is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Indigenous Americans continue to experience.
Happy Thanksgiving! Think about it, you are celebrating genocide!
Many justify the day. They say, “Oh, but that is not what it is about for us, it is just an opportunity to gather and be thankful for family, friends and all that we have.” Ok, I get that! I am thankful, actually very thankful for all I have...but...yet…… in the present econony perhaps we should be celebrating what we have not yet lost....jobs,.....homes, FREEDOM. In any case, this tirade is not all about us white descendants of europeans, or our thankfulness, it is about the repression of the authentic history of our country.
This holiday that is upon us.....So, how about... moving forward, we all start a trend that for ua non-indigenous Americans, Thanksgiving be celebrated by a moment of silence for the atrocities of the past, and followed by the acknowledgement of the contributions of the Wampanoag Indians in Plymouth, and all those in soldiarity with them around the country who graciously cared for those helpless Europeans vomited out of the ocean, who slaughtered eventually slaughtered and oppressed them as thanks. Let’s stop celebrating Thanksgiving from a Eurocentric point of view. By the way have you made a contribution to an indigenous peoples project yet?
What are you teaching your children? Do you yourself even know the accurate history of this ”holiday”
The truth is that the pilgrims did receive help from the friendly and extremely generous Native-American tribe, the Wampanoag Indians, in 1621. However, the Wampanoag’s were not these naïve savages as the literature claims them to be, they had many previous dealings with fur trappers and traders. Europeans from Spain, Portugal and other places had already been plundering the America’s for decades. Unfortunately for the indigenous tribes of New England (and beyond), the Pilgrims gratitude was short-lived. It started with stealing their corn, and by 1637, Massachusetts governor John Winthrop ordered the massacre of thousands of Pequot Indian men, women and children. Most historians believe about 700 Pequot’s were slaughtered in Mystic, CT (My hometown). Many prisoners were executed, and the surviving women and children sold into slavery in the West Indies. This was the start of a genocide of Indigenous Americans, and the ultimate goal, to take the land from them and systematically plunder their resources. The genocide begun in 1637 marks the beginning of the conquest of the entire continent until most Indigenous were exterminated, a few assimilated into white society, and the rest were put in reservations to dwindle and die. Treaty after treaty has been broken by the US government. You would have to be living in a bubble not to be aware of what is going on right now at Standing Rock.
Now, on another note, back to feasting on your traditional “delicious” factory farmed turkey. If human genocide isn’t enough to make you lose your appetite, consider your turkey. The turkey that had a cruel death, and an even worse life. Each bite you take filled with flesh that was grown with GMO corn, antibiotics, steroid, and puss. Oh, yum.....
I have many friends who dread this holiday because it means they will be with family, and have to go through all that experience can be charged with. So maybe you just skip out on the “celebration” all together. If you do choose to be among those celebrating, yes, be thankful for what you have, but be cognizant. Bear in mind we are in some changing times (to say the least), and you can be part of that change. We don’t need to make American great again, as the true story of Thanksgiving shows, it was always far from perfect. That’s ok moving forward we can be a better people. But we need to care, we need to question everything, and we need to tell the real story! The real story about many things Thanksgiving, factory farming, but also climate change, sexism, racism, and homophobia. Now is the time to educate, organize and mobilize. You don’t need to go to Standing Rock, just educating someone about the reality of what Thanksgiving represents makes a difference.
https://zinnedproject.org/2014/11/the-politics-of-thanksgiving-day/
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/22/wampanoag-side-first-thanksgiving-story-64076
Not a big fan of PETA for several reasons, but this is a good, quick glimpse of some of the issues. This is focused on the problems of factory farming as far as cruelty to the birds, and quality of the meat. It does not address the work rights, pollution, climate change and other issues of factory farming.
http://www.peta.org/living/food/turkey-factory-farm-slaughter/
