Food For Thought On Thanksgiving...
Even though you may enjoy the great meal and the coming together of family on Thanksgiving, please be aware of this historical significance of this holiday. For the descendants of the indigenous people of "North America" (originally called Turtle Island), this holiday is represented by the sadness the Native American monument below speaks of.
As time has evolved, pagan rituals have been used to instill a revisionist sense of history in us all. It's cool to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with your family, friends and loved ones. However, please don't forget the atrocities committed against Native Americans in the name of imperialism. Their losses were to the same people that held our (African) ancestors in the most barbaric form of race-based chattel slavery the world had/has ever seen. The losses of the Native American people are also our losses. Our losses are also their losses.
It is the worst form of ignorance to be unaware of your history. It insults the memory and sacrifices that your ancestors made so that their descendants might have a better life.
It is the worst form of ignorance to be unaware of your history. It insults the memory and sacrifices that your ancestors made so that their descendants might have a better life.
- N. Abdul-Wakil
The National Day of Mourning
A Different `Thanksgiving' Perspective by Terri Jean
It's that time of year. The holiday originated by poor Pilgrims and their neighborly Indian friends is about to be set again on Americas' kitchen table. With televised parades and football games, families gather together to give thanks for the previous year, and to inject heartfelt hope into the year to follow.
All the while a growing number of protesters gather yearly in Plymouth, Massachusetts to mourn the traditional feast. Well, not the feast itself or even the thankfulness it is meant to instill; they grieve the fictional foundation the national holiday sits upon, and with each passing year those protesters continue to feel the incessant societal slap dispensed to this continents first people.
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Where's the 'Thanks' in Thanksgiving?
One of the most cherished American holidays is Thanksgiving, a day that Abraham Lincoln officially declared in 1863, in praise of "our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." In the early 1900s, Gimbels and Macy's saw dollar signs and commandeered the celebration, evicted the heavenly Father altogether, added a parade with Santa Claus, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or is it? Every American school child learns of the harvest feast where the friendly local Indians broke bread and shared turkey with the black-hatted, big-buckled European Pilgrims in a festival of interracial harmony and mutual respect. Yet, there is almost nothing true about this idyllic scenario--not even the turkey. This comforting mythology has concealed some of the bloodiest acts of race hate in American history. Let us pull the stuffing out of this Thanksgiving myth and get down to the bones of the Thanksgiving idea, which has some harsh and disturbing truths...
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In order to whet the appetite of the fierce Spanish dogs
for human flesh, New World natives were chopped up and
fed to the dogs!!!!!
for human flesh, New World natives were chopped up and
fed to the dogs!!!!!
The New World Holocaust!!
"From all this it is clear how a virtuous life in the preachers of the faith takes the place of miracles, so that unbelievers readily hear the words of life and see that it is reasonable to believe them, and thus finally they gain these men for Christ. But it will be just the opposite if their lives are stained by crime, especially by devastating their lands, by looting, invading and unjustly seizing the domains and properties of these same unbelievers. And if for this reason a countless number of them are killed and slaughtered, as we have always done and continue to do in the Indian lands of the west, nothing can be clearer than that we have become an effective obstacle to their conversion"
--(In Defense of the Indians, de Las Casas, p. 136). This is a famous quote from Don Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Defender of the New World people from his own rapacious countrymen. All we need to do to make it applicable to today is to change a few WORDS:"But it will be just the opposite if their lives are stained by crime, especially by devastating their lands, by looting, invading and unjustly seizing the domains and properties of these same unbelievers. And if for this reason a countless number of them are killed and slaughtered, as we have always done and continue to do in IRAQ, nothing can be clearer than that we have become an effective obstacle to their conversion."
--The Hounds of HELL!!
Read And See The Rest Of The Depictions Of This Entry...
"[The Spaniards] took babies from their mothers' breasts, grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against rocks. . . . They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. . . . Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."
Mandating Indigenous Holocaust EducationDr. June Terpstra
On yet another USA manufactured “holiday” where schools close to honor the savage conquistador, Christopher Columbus, who ushered into history the holocaust of approximately 11 million native north American “Indians” I propose a mandate for indigenous holocaust education, K-12. Like the new federal legislation introduced in congress to mandate education of the Jewish holocaust, I also propose we replace not only senior citizens arts and crafts but pre-school arts and crafts with education workshops developed to examine the denial of Indian genocide and removal; the denial of African Diaspora genocide and slavery, past and present; and, the genocide of Arabs and Muslims occurring in Palestine today.
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Who's The Real Terrorist?
I can sympathize with the native Americans only to an extent. From my understanding of history, the native Americans often returned escaping blacks to the white slave masters. It appears to me that some native American ethnic groups had their own brand of racial superiority close to the white man's and those very white men completely eliminated some native American ethnic groups. Be careful with whom you sympathize.
ReplyDeleteHey Lenny,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Well, there were Africans who were complicit in the holocaust of the Middle Passage, too. And unfortunately it's the nature of some humans to profit and/or gain power by any measure of means necessary - even if it means turning aginst your own.
So despite the oppressed being the oppressor in certain instances (which cannot be debated for it is true) it doesn't change the fact that europeans played a direct role in the genocide of Africans and Native Americans.
The axiology (value systems) of europeans are such that colonizing, conquering and attaining power is a "ME, MYSELF and I" scenario which is something to strive for which leaves chaos in its path.
Thanks again for your post, bro!
Thanks for sharing this Rod ...
ReplyDeleteHistory can be ugly and become deluded by forces who would like us to forget. This is always the case.
As African Americans who are same-gender-loving who often have to remind our own black family of this sad fact as they seek to marginalize and oppress us in the name a religion whipped into our ancestors by those who enslaved them.
History is a funny thing when we start to repeat it.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteYOU are sooooo right my brutha! The poignant point keeps repeating itself because as my MOM says (paraphrasing), "It's Black people who will have to to change (adjust) to circumstances and not expect white folks to. We control our own destiny."
Rod, what an excellent post, kudos to you for helping our sgl brothers get beyond the proverbial "box." And to the brutha who posted about the complicity of Native peoples who returned fugitive slaves to the white man. Here in NYC in 1741 when blacks were scapegoated as setting the great fire of lower Manhattan, it was Native Americans (Lenape & Manhatta) who helped blacks fleeing certain excecution for a crime they did not commit. Those native peoples hid & fed those blacks escaping certain death. So, its a double edged sword and I side with the Native Peoples who continue to suffer today as do we.
ReplyDeleteWhile I support the idea of a national day of Thanks, I can't in good conscience support a day of Thanks for a time when the Native Americans taught the white man how to survive and then turned around and killed them. I support people who turn this day into something personal for them. I myself have not 'celebrated' Thanksgiving in over 12 years. My family hates it and my co-workers think I'm weird but thats OK, this is who I am and my level of consciousness is very important to me. I think African-Americans need to re-think the whole Thanksgiving thing, just like we, Thanks to Dr. Karenga helped us re-think Christmas & now we have Kwanzaa-a celebration that I have embraced for well over 30 years now.
Thanx again Rod
Greg,
ReplyDeleteTHANKS so much for reading Nubian Knights Network. There's so many places to go on the web and I'm glad you chose to hang around my space for a few.
Keep on keepin' brutha. It doesn't matter if if anyone thinks you're weird. You always have to remain true to your authenticity.
And yeah, KWANZAA is the only cultural affirmation for African folks that I celebrate annually.
Again, THANKS FOR THE LOVE, GREG! IT REALLY A LOT!!