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FinalCall.com News
Perspectives
What are we thankful for?
By Yo'Nas Da Lonewolf-McCall Muhammad
Updated Nov 18, 2005 - 6:35:00 PM
Greetings to all my relatives. We begin the month of November dealing with The Real Thanksgiving. November is also celebrated as Native American Recognition Days—like Black History Month in February—but you and I know that we are worth more than a month.
I remember growing up in my house when Thanksgiving was celebrated. My mother felt it was the time to change history, by welcoming people from all walks of life. We would have about 100 people in our backyard.
There were five turkeys, seven pots of stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and an endless table of pies and cakes. She would gather everyone in the backyard for a “talking circle” and share what we are thankful for and present a poem, speech, song or even a dance.
With this much love from the community, Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday. Not only was school out for a four-day weekend, but it was also the best time to go shopping with all the After-Thanksgiving sales. As a young girl, I was very thankful. Or was I? Are we, as people of color, really thankful?
I recently returned to my mother’s reservation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, under sad circumstances. My 25-year-old cousin Shelly Poorbear was brutally killed.
But going back to my family’s homeplace was heartbreaking for another reason: 87 percent of people in the Pine Ridge Reservation are unemployed. It literally is the Third World here in the United States.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am thankful that I am able to wake up every morning in great health, under a warm home with my loving family.
But I am not thankful for the horrible conditions under which the Indigenous people have been treated. I am not thankful that the Pilgrims killed millions of my people, turned us into slaves and put us on reservations that are modern day concentration camps.
I am not thankful that we have been so comfortable with compromising by celebrating the day that the Pilgrims slaughtered thousands of Native Americans and giving thanks for taking over North America.
So, as we get ready for the four-day weekend, seemingly endless after-Thanksgiving sales, football games, turkey, cranberry sauce, and many other illusions of entertainment, let’s not be entertained by Thanksgiving. It has been marked amongst our people as a National Day of Mourning.
In Memory of Shelly PoorBear (Morning Star Woman)
Mitake Oyasin—All My Relations
