USA TODAY: ‘Thanksgiving Represents the Darkish Shadow of Genocide’

Within the pursuits of “range” and “inclusion,” USA As we speak was keen to play Debbie Downer on Thanksgiving. On the highest of web page A-2 of their Wednesday-Thursday paper got here the headline “Indigenous people plan day of mourning.” Reporter Michelle Shen started: 

How do Indigenous individuals spend Thanksgiving?

For a lot of, reasonably than a celebration of peace and shared prosperity between Native Individuals and Pilgrims, Thanksgiving represents the darkish shadow of genocide and the resilience of Native individuals.

The identical message was despatched on Twitter: 

For a lot of Indigenous individuals, Thanksgiving represents the darkish shadow of genocide and resilience. https://t.co/F30KkNCMw4

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 23, 2021

Shen added: 

For tribal citizen Dennis W. Zotigh, Thanksgiving is “a day of mourning.” Zotigh is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo Winter Clan, and a descendant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, each principal conflict chiefs of the Kiowas.

“To most Natives, Thanksgiving will not be a celebration,” Zotigh says. “Natives, significantly within the New England space, keep in mind this tried genocide as a factual a part of their historical past and are reminded annually throughout the trendy Thanksgiving.”

Joshua Arce, president and CEO of the Partnership With Native Individuals, known as Thanksgiving “a day of mourning” that creates multigenerational and intergenerational trauma. He associates it with Eurocentric phrases that got here to dominate Native peoples, like “colonization,” “discovery” and “manifest future.”

Naturally, these “Native” leftists wish to educate a historical past of “genocide” and colonization to high school youngsters: 

[Sioux Indian Julie] Garreau says the highest factor that individuals can do is get educated and study the actual historical past of Thanksgiving.

Garreau factors out that Native Individuals in South Dakota have lengthy been making an attempt to alter college curriculums to extra precisely replicate Indigenous historical past however have been repeatedly shot down by the state Legislature.

Garreau and Arce all described studying about Thanksgiving as a harmonious celebration involving mutual cooperation and respect. They skilled a impolite awakening in maturity upon studying the true story and understanding the dynamic between the colonizers and the colonized.