William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not “a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children.” In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.” Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the “Thanksgiving dinner” was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.
Am infuriated. One of the first teaching jobs I got was as a history teacher in the NYC public school system. How in the facking hell does this country get away with not teaching their children about this massacre? No wonder when it comes to public education I am on the side of conservative homeschoolers and radicalunschoolers than with the Bloomberg loving UFT?
How can I look into the eyes of a child and say "Happy Thanksgiving" after reading about the horrible beginnings of "Thanks Giving"? more this way»
Consider this. The current inflation rate in Zimbabwe is 3,714%. Yeah...you read that correctly. Quadruple digit inflation. Add to that 80% unemployment. One third of the population depends on food aid from the international community, which of course requires sufficient infrastructure and stability for food to get through.
I think you already have what amounts to economic collapse. No work and no one can buy anything. more this way»
Submitted by mole333 on 5 December 2008 - 11:43am.
Together, Columbus Day and Thanksgiving are the foundation myths of America. I have been ambivalent, in the litteral meaning of the word, towards Columbus Day for years now. I celebrate America and Columbus' "discovery" of the "New World" because the result of his discovery and the ultimate founding of America is that my family, myself included, is alive and thriving today. Without America, my family would have been exterminated in the genocide of Nazi Germany if not before that in the genocide of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and later Stalin's genocide in the Soviet Union.
But I am reminded every Columbus day of the genocides on which the founding of America was based. My family had a refuge from genocide because of a previous genocide committed against the natives of America. How's THAT for ambivalence?
This year I have read some new info to bring into my annual Columbus Day article. This last year I read two books that discuss the Americas before Columbus: 1421 by Gavin Menzies and 1491 by Charles Mann. Both present controvesial but interesting theories of what happened before Columbus in the Americas.
The year 1421 is the year when China possibly discovered much of the world. And 1491 is, of course, the year before Columbus sailed. more this way»
It is Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is the time we remember the 11 million people (including he 5 million non-Jews too often left out of our remembrance) who were killed by the Nazis in WW II.
Written in Pencil in the Sealed Freight Car
Here, in this freight car,
I, Eve,
with my son Abel.
If you see my older boy,
Cain, the son of Adam,
tell him that I…
--Dan Pagis, as quoted in Ariel Hirschfeld’s chapter in Cultures of the Jews, David Biale (ed.)
I read this poem, evoking the emotions of a woman crammed into a freight car on her way to the death camps during the Holocaust, right before I read Elie Wiesel's most recent edition of his book Night, describing his own experiences in the Holocaust. His book is, needless to say, chilling. But the additions in the latest edition make it even more so. If you read earlier editions, you might want to read the intro to the new one because he mentions things edited out of the original.
In Night Wiesel describes in considerable detail the experience of the freight car taking him to the Auschwitz. Everything about the experience was dehumanizing, mile by mile stripping away the humanity of the Jews not only in the eyes of the German guards, but even in the eyes of the Jews themselves. In many ways Dan Pagis’ poem is rehumanizing those who went through the experience, by framing it in terms of a Biblical incident that supposedly frames human origins. When I read the description of the freight cars in Night I kept returning to this poem, contrasting these two portrayals of the same experience in my mind. Both are born of the same experience but in many ways they are mirror images: the dehumanizing, “humans as freight†experience, and the experience that encompasses all of humanity, thus rehumanlizing those who experienced those freight cars. They are not contradictory versions, but are two sides of the exact same experience: the narrow one of what the experience meant right at the time to those directly involved, and the expansion of that highly personal experience to put it into the context of human nature and human history in general. What we do to each other now replays the family tragedy of the Biblical myth. more this way»
This is one of the most powerful speeches I have ever seen given (I was able to catch the whole speech in bits and pieces as people were reporting about it through YouTube) and it is even more powerful once read.
Why? Rudd enacts with this as law an acknowledgment that white privilege is founded on government policies that sought to make Aborigine Australians extinct.
Here's the quote :
The uncomfortable truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful.
There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that value is a fair go for all.
There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all.
There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.
It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.
We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves.
As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well.
Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history.
In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate.
In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul.
Apology Speech by Kevin Rudd 13th February 2008 to the Stolen Generation.
Part 1. A little History
Part 2. Personal Interviews
Part 3. Footage from Australian supporters
Part 4. Apology Speech by Kevin Rudd
The Stolen Generation is a term used to describe the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who were removed from their families by Australian government agencies and church missions, under various state acts of parliament, denying the rights of parents and making all Aboriginal children wards of the state, between approximately 1869 and 1969. The policy typically involved the removal of children into internment camps, orphanages and other institutions.
I have been moved to tears by the incredible gesture of Australia's Parliament under their new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
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"What James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them."
