Healing

IIt is important to understand how terms are used both in this Toolkit as well as in broader anti-racism work. The definition of racism is prejudice with the power to enforce it. However there are differences on what this actually means and there are a host of other terms used in this work. The posts on this page explore various interpretations and emphasis.

Like the below graphics that portray a wide range, a palette of colors (used in ceramic glazes); so definitions are nuanced. Just as you see many colors of green, there can be many definitions for “racism” and often the different definitions have distinct uses.

NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING

Since 1970, Indigenous people & their allies have gathered at noon on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US Thanksgiving holiday.

Dispel the Myths of Thanksgiving

Q1)
WHO INVENTED THANKSGIVING?
——————————————————————–
Q2) DID PILGRIMS AND INDIANS LIKE EACH OTHER?
——————————————————————–
Q3) DID THE MEAL PICTURED IN THANKSGIVING PAINTINGS EVER
HAPPEN?

Essayist: Why I Don’t Celebrate Thanksgiving

I have been taught to give thanks every day, not just on the one day of the year that other people say we should be the most grateful.
I myself don’t celebrate the day called Thanksgiving. For me, what we are celebrating is the arrival of colonialism.

This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving.

They still regret it 400 years later.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in the American story, the Wampanoags are braced for what’s coming this month as the country marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and Indians.

History Matters: Murder of Natives by Myles Standish

Following the captain’s “terrifying whirlwind of violence,” Philbrick writes that Standish carried the head of Wituwamat back to New Plymouth. His soldiers were “received with joy.” Hailed as a hero, Standish mounted the severed head of the Indian warrior on a pole and displayed it on the roof of the fort.

Decolonization, A Guidebook For Settlers Living On Stolen Land

by Tanya Rodriguez|Dec 26, 2020 The full article is here… Excerpt from the article… I learned something yesterday When I share with a white person they can not decolonize on stolen land they get really really fragile and pissed that yet again, another brown azz takes...

Rethinking How We Celebrate American History—Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Generations of Native people, however, throughout the Western Hemisphere have protested Columbus Day. In the forefront of their minds is the fact the colonial takeovers of the Americas, starting with Columbus, led to the deaths of millions of Native people and the forced assimilation of survivors.

Unlearning Columbus Day Myths: Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day

It is estimated that in the 130 years following first contact, Native America lost 95 percent of its population. …
Celebrating Columbus and other explorers like him dismisses the devastating losses experienced by Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere in the past and the ongoing effects of colonialism today.

American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving

“FOR TEACHERS GRADES 4–8

A PDF that can help tell the real story.

“Environment: Understanding the Natural World

The Wampanoag people have long lived in the area around Cape Cod, in present-day Massachusetts.

The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue

In truth, massacres, disease and American Indian tribal politics are what shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.
The myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear.