Your Thanksgiving Is Our Day of Mourning
I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do no want riches. We want peace and love.
~ Mahpiua-Luta/Chief Red Cloud, Oglala Sioux Nation
Update: after reflecting on the day’s true meaning, I decided to stay home instead, working on my poetry and catching up on news from Palestine and Lebanon.
Like millions who were raised in the stolen lands of the U.S.A., I grew up believing the fairytale of the pilgrims sitting down to a meal with Native Americans. In elementary school, we had plays where we’d dress up pretending to be members of either side of the fable.
It wasn’t until my late 40s that I’d research to learn the truth —
The actual Thanksgiving event happened in 1637 at the Pequot Indigenous Nation’s annual Corn Festival where Pilgrims entered the festival and massacred hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children, took their food, and called it a Thanksgiving.
This is the much-abbreviated version of the atrocities of genocide committed by the English.
There is zero to sugarcoat here.
And yes, I am ashamed of myself for perpetuating the myth for much of my life —…
