The war on Thanksgiving
The annual war on Thanksgiving begins. Via Orbusmax, the Seattle schools are using the holiday to indulge in oppression studies 101:
Dear Seattle Public Schools Staff:
We recognize the amount of work that educators and staff have to do in order to fulfill our mission to successfully educate all students. It’s never as simple as preparing and delivering a lesson. Students bring with them a host of complexities including cultural, linguistic and social economic diversity. In addition they can also bring challenges related to their social, emotional and physical well being. One of our departments’ goals is to support you by suggesting ways to assist you in removing barriers to learning by promoting respect and honoring the diversity of our students, staff and families.
With so many holidays approaching we want to again remind you that Thanksgiving can be a particularly difficult time for many of our Native students. This website http://www.oyate.org/resources/shortthanks.html offers suggestions on ways to be sensitive of diverse experiences and perspectives and still make the holiday meaningful for all students. Here you will discover ways to help you and your students think critically, and find resources where you can learn about Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective. Eleven myths are identified about Thanksgiving, take a look at #11 and begin your own deconstruction.
Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time
Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.
Look, I’m all for truthful, historically accurate lessons about Thanksgiving. But the “diversity”-peddlers’ agenda is not about historical accuracy. It’s about guilt-mongering and institutional racism indoctrination. One American Indian teacher struck the right balance last year:
Even American Indians are divided on how to approach a holiday that some believe symbolizes the start of a hostile takeover of their lands.
Chuck Narcho, a member of the Maricopa and Tohono O’odham tribes who works as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles, said younger children should not be burdened with all the gory details of American history.
“If you are going to teach, you need to keep it positive,” he said. “They can learn about the truths when they grow up. Caring, sharing and giving — that is what was originally intended.”
But that wouldn’t fit into the Blame America narrative, would it?
Tear up your kids’ construction-paper headdresses pronto and prepare for an Unhappy Un-Thanksgiving.
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How dumb. If anything, it’s the one American story that makes the Indians look like heroes. Hello?!?! They saved the settlers who didn’t know how to prepare for winter.
Well, I mean, who do you blame for the genocide of the American Indian people? Mr. Narcho is right on for younger students, but anyone in middle school and up should be mourning the massacre of these people.
We just can’t gloss over this history of genocide by only mentioning one of the few times that American Indians and English settlers got along.
“theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation.”
Yep, that about sums up the treatment of the Huron, Erie, and Susquhanna tribes by the Iroquois. What has that got to do with Thansgiving though?
/Oh, wait…
While we’re talking about historical accuracy- can anyone tell me what the actual origins of the American holiday known as “Thanksgiving” are?
Hint: Lincoln. Civil war ending.
The Plymouth fantasy isn’t it.
Rusty,
I know it is popular to throw around the term “genocide” when dealing with Native American history, but you might bit more careful about it. To start with, it is quite possible that America was depopulated by disease long before Columbus arrived. Oh, and the Indians were quite capable of waging wars of extermination upon each other…
Yikes…now they are doing this crap to Thanksgiving?
Still waiting for the anti-PC backlash that I have been hoping for all these years.
So let’s see…so far they’ve trashed Christmas, Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day and Halloween.
I wonder how they will destroy New Year’s Day, and blame it on American Imerialism?
But what about the Turkey Holocaust?
(warning–video plays automatically)
Native peoples were definitely quite capable of waging wars of extermination on each other and taking lands.
New Year’s Day? will not be destroyed, because that day is the only day worth celebrating as far as these despots are concerned. Eat, Drink, Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll, yep that is their religion!
It is pathetic. I pray something can and will be done to stop this insanity!
There isn’t a single, advanced civilization in recorded history that hasn’t done these things. Why is it that America-hating liberals in America and abroad single America out?
At my son’s school I’ve asked his teacher not to present Thanksgiving as a “nanny state” holiday.
That means, teach the history of native people all year long. And leading up to Thanksgiving, delve into the creation of that holiday based on solid historical terms.
The teacher asked: “How do I do that precisely?”
So we laid out a process for teaching that part of the curriculum.
What was important for the teacher to understand was:
I don’t need my son being isolated among his peers as somebody to be felt sorry for because of the martial and cultural extermination of millions of native people world wide.
The point is, he is right there now contributing his spirit and intellect to the life of that classroom.
He has a lot to share about the way he eats, prays, and lives inside his family.
He willingly accepts the responsibility to share with his class so they might know him during this time. But he also knows to tell them that he is one person who has native blood running through his veins.
So he makes sure his friends know that he is just a doorway to a wider field of learning.
Teach the truth and let the kids deal with it in an enlightened classroom environment.
Kids are strong when they are being raised right. In our culture, the kids are treated as “small” elders. And just like our elders, they need to be guided through things new to them.
Get the therapeutic multiculturalists out of the picture. They are ruining education. Yesterday’s thread about the core faculty for racial equality at Columbia is a case in point.
Maybe it’s because I was born in Europe, but to me, Thanksgiving has always been about giving thanks; for our family, for the food we eat, for life itself. It never occured to me that it was to give thanks for ‘a hostile takeover of the country’. Who knew, my kids are obviously very misinformed.
The left loves to portray Indians as peaceful loving people who never did anything wrong to anybody, until Europeans came here to America, which is utter bunk.
This revisionist PC of history is akin to what the soviets did after the October revolution…they sought to totally erase and rewrite the past so as to further their goals. The left here in America is doing the exact same thing.
Nonsense!
Nicely done, Grey Fox!
Whoa, dude…
Just when does THATbegin…?
Has Ward Churchill found work with the Seattle Public Schools?
Well, obviously New Year’s Day (and the whole Gregorian calendar is a tool of the impressive Western powers, the most notable of which is America. Therefore, we should celebrate some other day as the beginning of the new year, which will probably be calculated by counting phases of the moon or something.
Sheesh. What holidays aren’t being hit by this sort of “Let’s make certain that some kids feel bad, by telling them how oppressive they are”?
OT – a little
The assault on Christmas has already started before we are even close to ending Thanksgiving. Seems a hardware store that I like to frequent will not allow Christmas trees to be called “Christmas Trees”. They are to be called “Family Trees”. What a new “Lows”.
I need to find a good al’ Mom & Pop hardware store.
That from 1777, the Continental Congress. The final Thursday in November holiday is from 1863, when Lincoln, after listing many good reasons to give thanks said:
“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
In Europe, Thanksgivings for good harvests pre-dated the colonies.
Sorry, self-hatred is not necessary.
Fixed!
The REAL truth is that Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for having survived terrible tragedy and heardship through cooperation.
If I recall correctly (and someone correct me if I’m wrong), it was instituted by LINCOLN to celebrate our country having survived a Civil War. You remember that war, that was the one where we fought for tha rights of an oppressed minority and FREED THE SLAVES!!!
Whether its the survival of the colonists with the help of the natives or the celebration of our country still being together after ending slavery, the theme is similar. The celebration focuses on what we can do when we work together instead of persecuting each other. This should be the ULTIMATE holiday for diversity because it celebrates the TRIUMPH of diversity.
You know, all the lies, deception, and attempts to force me to hate myself for having pale skin have caused me to wonder:
Is there a special interest minority group for white heterosexual males?
I swear to God that I am now the new minority because the vast majority of people today belong to minority groups. I feel left out. Who is there to protect ME from being discriminated against?
And YES, it HAS happened. I was once fired and blackballed because I was not Asian. The lawyer I talked to said it was “reverse discrimination” and that no lawyer on the planet would take my case, even though it was obviously true. Ah, memories of the wonderful Clinton Administration, the people who invented the term “Politically Correct”.
For the record,
I am half Polish, quarter Irish, and quarter Lithuanian.
25% of my ancestors were persecuted by the British,
75% of my ancestors were persecuted by the Russians,
NONE of them came over on the Mayflower,
NONE of them were even HERE until the Industrial Revolution,
when ALL of them Immigrated here LEGALLY, following the rules and regulations to be oppressed until they were forgotten about.
So where are the reparations for MY ancestors?
…listening to the sounds of crickets…
Luckily the schools I’ve taught in haven’t come under attack by the PC police. I agree with Michelle that the history should be known, but it’s not necessary to push all of it onto these little elementary school students. Middle schools and high schools rarely have holiday “parties” or even acknowledge holidays at all.
What an excellent sentiment…and certainly the one I’ve tried hard to live and pass onto my children.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, just for the reason that I find so much for which I feel grateful, and always have…in poverty or relative plenty.
Gothguy- Nice point.
I wish to add that the myth of the peaceful “savage” misconstrues the history of many of the continet’s native people.
One theory as to why this has such currency among the Left is to encourage adoption of “docile” politics, where the assumption is how humans “naturally” exist in a state of peace- and that killing, especially killing in warfare, is a distortion of nature.
“Poppies….Poppies…..”
“Sleep pretty darling, do not cry. And I will sing a lullabyeeee.”
Give up your guns and “Don’t study war no more.”
Many native people died fighting. Brutally. Totally. The only way we knew how.
So did the settlers and the US Army.
Blood and iron builds enduring nations someone once said. For all the talk of the Leftists, this trend is still in motion. History has not “ended” as they like to believe and preach.
A great lesson to be learned: state-sponsored schools indoctrinate not educate.
Oh, it’s comin’, just wait and see!
Try teaching about the massacres and blood-letting committed by those of the Muslim faith – and see how far you get….
There are those who cannot stand any positive portrayal of America or any celebration of traditional beliefs.
It is sickening.
Not to quibble or belittle the point that was being made, but the Clinton’s appropriated this term from the Maoist Revolution in China.
Like Hillary appropriated the Ibo saying”It takes a village to raise a child” in order to bolster her socialist agenda against families in the USA.
What do you do with the truth in your midst that you uncover about who you are and how you came to be who you are is all that matters.
It is the only antidote and vaccine for your kids so they don’t get lost in all of this malarkey that is now nearly 30 years old in our schools.
Soap I live in FL and so far I haven’t run across “family” trees. That’s ridiculous! I’ll have to check my local “low” store.
Not entirely OT:
From Newt Gingrich’s weekly e-mail today:
Michelle, could you look into this?
Maybe alert Bill o’Reilly?
Viral anti-Americanism, not military might, is what is slowly destroying the greatest country in history. I am saddened to be alive to witness it.
Something you will never see on leftist letterman’s show:
TOP TEN REASONS LIBS HATE TRADITIONAL HOLIDAYS.
10 – Thanksgiving = turkey genocide (locavores unhappy!).
9 – Too many SUVs traveling to grandma’s house.
8 – College bowl games encourage competition.
7 – Millions of Christmas trees are cut down.
6 – Invading WASPS thought up Thanksgiving, not the Indians.
5 – Christmas lights = large carbon footprint.
4 – People are giving thanks to WHO?
3 – Winter lull in global-warming hype.
2 – Daycare centers are closed.
#1 – CHRISTMAS CELEBRATES A BIRTH,
NOT AN ABORTION!
In my house there will be Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve. On October 31st, my wife and I opened our door to a lot of little kids in costumes yelling trick or treat.
Any of you New World Order types want to take that away, please come by the house, and we will see who cries for their mommie first.
The attack on American culture is in full swing. I desire to fight back.
BTW, I will be saying Grace in Christ’s name also!
Thank you TimDenchanter. I too am a mishmash and
so is my husband. I am 50% Irish, 25% Scots, and 25%
Cherokee. I could be so very angry at a lot of people
but I am not. Every group of people on this planet has
at one time or another been the slave and the slave
holder, the killer and the victim. All you have to do is
truly read history and forget the pc crap! (Our
children have the genes of at least 5 different
ethnicities influencing them.)
Amen!
For the record, I believe John Adams used the term “politically correct.” He meant something rather different, however…
This is not surprising, since the Clintons were bought nad paid for by the Communist Government of Red China (and are still being bought …
ah … ahh … Ahhhh … AH-Hsu!)
What is most interesting to me is the aspect of the first thanksgiving storey that repudiates socialism.
The New England colonists were infected with an early variant of socialism, taken from a perversion of a New Testament account of early Christians holding all things in common.
This quickly led to the development of “the tragedy of the commons”, a well-proven economic law, in which nobody was optimizing the resources they had “common” among them, and they were steadily moving toward starving to death.
A self-preserving impulse led some of the leaders to re-examine their idealistic egalitarianism, and put the common property into the private ownership…and stewardship…of individuals. What resulted was a plentiful harvest, for which the Pilgrims were grateful. They likewise recognized the help of the Indians from whom they learn local lore, but with whom they also shared the gifts of their vastly advanced technology.
I can’t believe this from the PC crowd. Let’s just go and destroy everything that makes us Americans. Our countries history is not pretty, but with the wars between white settlers and the indigenous tribes there were bad actors on both sides of the conflict. It is time for them to deal with the atrocities committed by both sides and realize our culture won and the indigenous people lost a war of conquest that lasted from the 15th century to almost the end of the 19th century. The whole objective of the “Thanksgiving Holiday” signed into law is to honor the historical event and to allow the country to give thanks to their deity of choice for the bounties we receive as a nation and individually at the end of the harvest season.
As far as the war on Christmas you won’t see anyone in our little part of Idaho pulling any of this PC crap. Last year when Sears refused to honor Christmas the local Sears catalog store (usually carries just appliances and tools) broke with the parent company and had their windows painted wishing us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The local store owners know not to mess with this tradition or they will be shunned. I can’t say the same for Boise due to the Californication of Idaho is beginning in earnest due to all those fleeing to our neck of the woods.
Ramadan?
As I look back over my life, I can honestly say “Thank you” to God for keeping me alive. There are many times when I SHOULD have died, but I was spared. I have no idea why. I’m sure most of us can think of incidents which leave us scratching our heads.
Thanksgiving isn’t just a once-a-year thing with me, although it is extremely important. This year, we get to visit our son and his lovely wife.
What’s not to be thankful for? If you are alive and breathing, and able to enjoy a meal, see a beautiful sunset, bask in a sunrise, walk without pain, talk, read, listen, enjoy the company of others, live in freedom, then you have much to be thankful for. What harm is there in taking one day out of the year to recognize that? PC is BS.
Liberal Suggested Holiday List:
New Year (Chinese, Indian, Zulu…)
Earth Day
May Day
Summer Solstice
Winter Solstice
Bastille Day
New Deal Day
Great Society Day
Bill Clintons Birthday
Thanksgiving contributes to global warming too. All those turkeys cooking and people traveling to visit family. It’s gotta stop. For each hour a single turkey cooks in the oven, the sea level rises about 4 feet from the melting polar ice cap. Not to mention every time people leave the oven door open when basting the turkey. Don’t even get me started on the blatant racism of the white meat/dark meat selection.
Seriously, are we going to “Politically Correct” ourselves out of all the holidays? Let’s not celebrate New Years either, just in case somebody had a bad year. Not to belittle the plight of the Native Americans, but are they genuinely upset or upset because we told them they should be?
I have a small suggestion for those who attack our holidays, institutions and beliefs. Do a little research. Find the land of your origin and move the fu*k back there. If you do not like it here get out. I will resist, to the point of violence, your attempt to force your BS on me.
When I was a child, I was taught that:
Columbus came to America and though he was in India, so he referred to the natives as “Indians”.
It always bothered me that we perpetuated this mistake by calling them “American Indians”, especially since we have so many wonderful people from India who have earned that title.
It also bothered me when the PC term became “Native Americans”, since archeologists have long shown us that these “Natives” also immigrated here over the Bering Strait landbridge.
So, I struggled to find the most appropriate name for these noble people and finally came up with “Tribal Americans” because they are part of the over 500 Tribal Nations who settled this country before us.
This is the first time trying this out and I would greatly appreciate comments, especially from those Tribesmen among us. Does this appeal or offend?
BTW,
Personally, I have also redefined “PC” to mean “Pathetically Condescending”.
Oh, and while I’m OT, has it occured to anyone that these people (whatever title they like) might want to consider applying for statehood?
Think about it.
They get two Senators, like every other state, but because of all the different territories, think how many Representatives they would have?
Now there’s an interesting thought.
No worries….the sooner the USA becomes a caliphate, the sooner there will be no more traditional American Holidays to trash. Right ?
Government Schools hard at work to undermine the gratitude we should feel, for living in such a great country.
Isn’t it marvelous that there were NO OTHER native peoples EVEr oppressed ANYWHERE on earth while invading nations were busy getting built, other than here in the North American continent…..
It’s sad that the people against Thanksgiving have no idea what it is all about, and the history of it. They have this concept of “pilgrims”, an invention later on, and the indians settling down to a meal of all sorts of stuff. I guess they got it all out of out-dated, historically incorrect, politically correct history school books. Before you are against something, why don’t you try learning about it, instead of assuming? There will always be Thanksgiving and Christmas in this house, even if it is declared illegal. Ah, for another Shay’s rebellion……
Original story and update HERE
Nice to have an organization over 3 million strong to send emails out!
Seems I can keep shopping at my hardware store!
Thanks for the link, Soap At least some businesses are out there listening.
Posts from the FriendsOfMichelleMalkin Yahoo Group:
Thanks for the update Soap. I get those emails from AFA too. Sometimes, they are a little to quick to pull the trigger.
Rusty:
Here’s a newsflash for you. NO ONE READING THIS BLOG WAS ALIVE FOR THE FIRST THANKSGIVING. No one here did anything to Native Americans.
That we live in the land where we were born and raised does not make us culpable for the actions of others. Period. That’s like throwing the great-great-grandchild of a murderer in jail to make “reparations” for the ills of his distant (and deceased) relative.
Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to engage in this guilt-mongering, self-serving, self-righteous clap trap.
None. Whatsoever.
What happened was terrible. But…
1. No one is FORCING Native Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving. They can celebrate or mourn as they please.
2. If schools are going to be all about “diversity”, why deny the students who believe Thanksgiving is a time to GIVE THANKS for the freedoms WE ALL ENJOY? You know, acknowledging AMERICAN CULTURE for once.
I’m all for an accurate history lesson, but that’s not what this is. This is a guilt trip with a grade.
Yet another reason to homeschool.
Funny how the same people who consider Thanksgiving a “day of mourning” or Christmas a violation of the non-existent “separation of church and state” clause are the SAME people who see 9/11, or any day where a socialist/communist revolution cost thousands of lives, as just another day not worthy of attention.
Like MM said, THAT doesn’t fit into the “Blame America” paradigm.
Um….when I was up in Alaska…they go to great lengths to tell us that humans got to the American continents over the land bridge there. If that is the case, then aren’t the so called Native Americans also immigrants and not “native”?
Just asking.
Well, I am not going to be anywhere near as eloquent as Bear…nor do I think I ever could be, but as I am also 25% Cherokee, I gotta tell ya that this Injun will not only be celebrating thanksgiving this year as I have every year prior and will be every year forward, but also Halloween, Christmas, and all the other holidays.
I decorate the house to the hilt starting in October and lasting until Three Kings representing each successive holiday during that time.
And, I am the one who cooks the entire dinner from start to finish, banning my wife from the kitchen the whole day. I even do the dishes afterwards.
These holidays are not for re-hashing the past history. It is for celebrating togetherness with your friends and family. It is a time for coming together as a family, to see old friends that you haven’t seen in a very long time, or maybe only once a year. It is for closeness and yes, joy and happiness. It is a period of time in our country where we are supposed to put aside our differences, even for just a short time, come together and stop all the nonsense.
I think, just my opinion, but I think that this is the root to why the Liberals truly hate these holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas reminds them that they have a very, fundamentally flawed view of what family is. They are made to see that married people with kids are indeed happy and yes, the right way to be. It does not celebrate the “strong, powerful” woman like Murphey Brown or anything of that nature. It is the exact opposite of the abortion lobby’s view of the world, and spits in the face of the feminists who feel that a married, stay at home mom is something to be pitied.
But mostly, thanksgiving and Christmas are about God. The Christian God and thanking him for our families and all we have, as well as the ceremonial and traditional celebration of His coming to this planet in the guise of His mortal Son to free us from the fires of Hell.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the very root fo why they hate these holidays so much. Whether or not Whitey gave the Indians small pox or the Indians gave Whitey a VD, people getting offended at the beautiful lights and decorations or whatever else is merely a prop and an excuse to steal away two of the most worthwhile and beautiful holidays that man has created.
According to a magazine that I recently read, it is believed that the first Thanksgivings was celebrated in Texas in 1597 along the Rio Grande river. Juan de Onate was a Spanish explorer whom he and his men nearly died from thirst.
When they arrived at Rio Grande, Onate and his men had a day of Thanksgivings. They had meat from the game they killed, wine from a monk and fish that NATIVE AMERICANS brought!!!
This is why I’m doing to do all I can to help my sister and brother-in-law to put their children in private school to get away from these no nothing indoctrinating teachers.
I’m sure that they will learn how the Native Americans stole from, fought and killed each other. And that some were cannibals.
THANK YOU for stating that better than I did!!!
Maybe we should employ the Cluestick next.
Oh, and all those who are talking about the real nature of the “Progressives”, try reading this for amazing enlightenment:
http://tr.subscribermail.com/cc.cfm?sendto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eglennbeck%2Ecom%2Fnews%2F11132007a%2Eshtml&tempid=c78f4e15f5484395aed9f53c33025f7a&mailid=a2135135ab754f8bbb389e100c75da22
See my comments in #47 above
Doesn’t fit with the template, but a few inconvenient T-Day/Native American facts -
There are more Native Americans living within current US boundries now than there were in Columbus’ time.
The Native Americans had been at war with one another long before outside feet reached American shores.
We are regularly told Native Americans did not believe in land ownership. In the next breath we are told “their land was stolen”.
If we are going to keep “Grievance Theater” score, Native Americans got in the biggest bang in killing vastly more white – and black, yellow & other red skinned – people:
they gave a gift called “tobacco” to the white settlers.
But it’s not their fault the Dems\liberals are intent on destroy America’s holidays, if not America herself.
#60 Tim…I did see it – but I’d started my message and then got called out into the plant and when I got back, finished and hit “submit” and in the meantime, you’d far more eloquently expressed the entire thought.
The native-americans learned what happens when you don’t enforce immigration.
First they spend an inordinate amount of space in that letter PEDDLING DIVERSITY, and then they turn right around and push emphasis on one segment of our society: the “NATIVE.” Native? I AM A NATIVE! EVERYONE BORN HERE IS A NATIVE!
I’d like to plaster this across every one of their foreheads: “E Pluribus Unum” — Out of many, ONE!
Don’t want to rain too much on the discussion of when/where a celebration of Thanksgiving originated..but if my history serves me right, in Leviticus 7:11, we read about what is to be done for an expression of thankfulness. Timing on this would be about 1440 BC or there about. With that said, there is more than a little bit of historical precedent for a celebration giving thanks.
I prefer “Authoritarian Liberalism” myself, although that term certainly doesn’t match up well with the letters “PC.”
I could tell where that whole Seattle school diatribe was going the moment I sas the words, “critical thinking.” That’s code for what we call “America-bashing” in plain English.
On a related note, when it comes to the misapprehension of the Americas as some Garden of Eden before whitey arrived, during a cross-country road trip back in 1995 I remember visiting a little Pueblo settlement in New Mexico called “Acoma.” It claims to be the oldest continually occupied settlement in North America, pre-dating the Spanish arrival by some centuries.
What’s most remarkable about Acoma is that it was obviously chosen primarily for its qualities as a defensive position; the entire settlement is located on top of a large rock with only one viable pathway to the top. The tour guide confirmed that the locals had been fighting each other long before Christopher Columbus showed up.
So much for the condescending racism behind the whole “
NobleSavage” canard. The locals were just as bad as neighbors as the Europeans would ever be; the latter just happened to be more technologically advanced.This is true, leepro. We are all Native Americans.
Let me get this straight, we are still fighting the Colonial Wars? That War was so five minutes ago SMILE. People can’t change American’s traditional Holidays, unless we let them…in other words who is going to stop them?
The reoccurring holiday was the idea of a magazine editor
Wow, Bear,your first one was beautifully written.
I’m 11/32nds Miwok, and American Indian or just “Indian” is fine with me.
I prefer Miwok, though; just as most Cherokee, Lakota, Hopi, etc. probably their proper tribal designation.
I didn’t die an alcoholic and a drug addict.
Each day is a day for giving thanks by this Bear.
Glad to be sharing the planet with you all.
By the way, Leatherneck- I believe you and I are cut of the same cloth. I learn from you.
Semper Fidelis is your version of my clan’s “Strength and Honor”.
Out.
Did someone say Turkey?
You too, RetFireman!
Nothing really changes. Divide and conquer has been an accepted strategic concept for thousands of years. The ProgLibs want different segments of the American population hating each other. In chaos is opportunity; for the enemies of peace and harmony. The truth of this concept is apparent just on MM’s blog in the past week.
The Jena 6
The Columbia ultra slimming dieters
The attack on Thanksgiving.
The Prog/Libs want POWER
PROG/LIBS…. Sort of sounds like Frog Legs doesn’t it?!
Couple of things:
…Was the European conquest of the indigenous peoples of North America inevitable? Yes, of course. Read “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond. As with all conquests throughout history, it was ugly, cruel and barbaric.
…Should we be mindful of the horrible manner in which our forefathers treated the indigenous peoples following their conquest? Absolutely. Shameful chapter in our history, and should be studied and taught so as to avoid repeating same.
However, our modern celebration of Thanksgiving has nothing to do with any of the above and should be dealt with accordingly in schools.
As a Kiowa/Comanche/Choctaw “Native American”, it has never occured to me to resent Thanksgiving.
- Rusty
Maybe, but why do it on an occasion we can look at as an honest example of cooperation between the newcomers, and the natives? If you want to ‘celebrate’ the oppression of the native Americans, there are plenty of other dates one can choose, where actual oppression took place.
I feel for the native Americans, I do. But fact is, more advanced civilizations supplant less advanced civilizations. That’s the way of the world. The Dalai Lama, a representative of a perfect example culture, recognizes himself that this is common sense, and necessary for the advancement of mankind (you can see this in the documentary “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama).
The names have been changed to protect the inocent.
“Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims. And especially do not trust Hillary Clinton. For all these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.”
Wednesday
Aren’t you glad you were told, Lonewolf?
dakine,
if the European conquest of the peoples of North America was as you say, “inevitable”, then how does studying it or teaching it prevent it from being repeated elsewhere?
Cultural ascendency is no less a fact of life now, than it was then. Superior civilizations will always edge out those which cannot compete.
btw, “Guns, Germs, and Steel” is indeed an excellent book, although most of what it describes is common sense.
Why don’t they just throw tomatoes?
I am Wopahoe and Heckawee. My kids have Cherokee and I am proud of that. I am also Thankful everyday for this country and for which it stands. We are here today and thankful for another year of blessings!
Reason 259 why multiculturalism doesn’t work and ultimately will end in balkanization and quite possibly a war. Who’s truth and who’s history? The only way it works if for one group to stifle and be made evil.
Where are we supposed to go with that?
I don’t know about anybody else but I have had enough of this crap. America is not evil nor are whites nor are Americas founders and settlers.
an excellent book about pre-Columbian Americas is the following
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
does contain a lot about warfare between the various tribes
Of course American Indians believed in land ownership.
The basic unit of Indian society was the family (a subdivision of the tribelette, which was a subdivision of the tribe,) not the individual. So families, not individuals, exercised usufructory rights over land and resources. That doesn’t make them communists. More like corporations.
Does any one individual own Walmart, or Ford or Google? Does that make them communist (Google may be a bad example)?
Acorn bearing trees, for example, were owned by specific families, who excluded non-family members from harvesting them. In addition, families each had traditional hunting grounds, which they protected zealously from “poachers.”
Just as animals in nature have their own territories, the Indians, who considered the different species of animals to be tribes of “people,” learned from their neighbors and staked out land for their own exclusive use.
Only stupid-*ss communists reject land ownership. I hate it when communists project their wretched values onto Indians.
Thanks, memyselfandi.
My wife, Kelly, just left for a meeting at the school where these issues abound.
I’m lucky. I have homework and dinner duty in between work details.
Peace!
Many great thoughts above – no need to repeat – just to applaud.
But forewarned is forearmed:
You don’t need this comeback for Thanksgiving, but during the “holiday” season, when someone says “Happy Holidays” to you, come back with “Any particular ones?”
Yashmak, I was referring specifically to our hopefully not repeating the shameful manner in which we handled the post-conquest treatment of those conquered. Ours is a great country, but we’ve made mistakes and it’s okay to acknowledge and learn from them, yes? Also, while the basic premise of Guns, Germs and Steel may be common sense, the details covered by Diamond are fascinating.
Just an odd perspective to share.
Discrete facts about us Indians generally don’t communicate the tenets of native life lived by a vast number of people on the Southern and North American continents in all of our various settings.
Retrospective study of these discrete elements fall short of communicating *how* life had been sustained for centuries before and after the Europeans came.
Unless a person can grasp the primal elements of native communion with the life force- not some abstract Zen BS as practiced by hucksters and New Agers- but the deeper Life and Death rituals of worship- the details of material culture are merely a melange of peculiarities that will never yield any true wisdom about us as people who still walk among Americans today.
We’re still here.
America: Love it or give it back
“Fascinating” in what way, Dakine?
#94 – heh?
This is to you Rusty,,,, As a Native American who currently lives on a Reservation I am very thankful to the Lord for what He blesses me. Whats wrong with giving thanks to Him Rusty? As a native I have the common sense to believe that the whole New World would not remain only for natives forever and we Natives are so thankful that a Muslim Empire or Asian empire did not conquer the Americas. I do acknowlege of racism and other sins brought on by the Europeans but who is without sin should throw the first insult. Anyway Rusty join the 21 century and give Thanks to your maker. At least in the USA it does acknowledge its past mistakes and moves on. I don’t think Canada will give up its Thanksgiving day either.
They can take my drumstick away from my cold dead hands. and dont even think about the pecan pie.
Some of us. Not all of us.
Keep in mind, that guilt over stolen land has motivated many “scientists” to lessen the land claims of various tribes.
Yes, humans have moved about the planet for centuries. But not all of us had to use “the land bridge” to get here.
Tarahumaras in Northern Mexico (my father’s side) didn’t. Dineh (Navajos) on my mom’s side did.
A certain amount of accuracy is required to discuss us with some intelligence. There are enough of us here in this forum to make this caveat worthwhile.
Also keep in mind that there were no “En Dios” (Columbus’ Archbishop of the Fleet de las Casas’ name for people they first encountered) before Columbus landed.
We were just “the people”- which many of our tribal names meant literally.
Dineh- the People. Tarahumara- the People.
“en Dios” meant literally “in God” because of the hospitable nature the first crews encountered by “the People”.
It was a Catholic projection of a name to characterize the spirit of the people the explorers encountered.
We didn’t “exist” as Indians before Columbus.
I have that little carboard merchandiser assigned to me now where I live.
But it doesn’t mean anything. My given name and my clan do.
The rest defines me based on what i am not for others who are not me.
Make sense? These are things we teach our kids so they can be who they really are.
No resentment over it. That was a tough lesson. But once learned, there is prosperity and abundance in ways that are unimaginable.
Stay tuned. The world is turning upside down and changes are afoot that will amaze even the most skeptical.
aJ- Throw down your drumstick and back away slowly. Good boy. Now, let go of the pecan pie. Okay. Put your hands where i can see em!
You are so true blue, dude.
Proud to know ya.
There is plenty to give thanks for on thanksgiving and they can take all this PC bullcrap and shove it.
Thanks bear, ditto back atcha…