Another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone. How did you celebrate this all-American holiday? For most people, Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends to come together and be thankful for the blessings of this land we call home. Tradition designates this as a time for food, family, food, fun, food and more food; a wholesome family celebration dating back to the time of the Pilgrims. There was a time when I too in blissful ignorance viewed Thanksgiving in this way. As school children we’re fed sanitized Euro-centric myths and half-truths about the true origins of the Thanksgiving holiday. When the true history of Thanksgiving is known, it’s easy to see why so many of my Native American brothers and sisters call Thanksgiving a National Day of Mourning.

Here are the facts. In 1637, the English settlers moved into the Connecticut valley, home of the Pequot Indians. Once there they surrounded, attacked, and set ablaze a town full of Pequot Indians. They literally burned them alive. If anyone escaped the fire, they were hunted down and hacked to pieces. At the end of this unspeakable carnage, the depraved English settlers (invaders) actually thanked their God for the victory over these helpless and innocent people. Their degenerate Governor John Winthrop declared “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots." The first official Thanksgiving Day was a celebration of mass murder. How sick and depraved is it to celebrate such an atrocity? To this day still, the fourth Thursday of November is commemorated as a day of thanksgiving and celebration. The mass slaughter of innocent people is nothing to celebrate.

The genocidal attitude of the European settlers is evident even before the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. In 1623, a sermon in Plymouth Massachusetts “gave special thanks to God for the devastating plague of smallpox that destroyed the majority of the Wampanoag Indians.” The smallpox was intentionally passed to the Wampanoag. Today that would be called bio-terrorism. The genocide and oppression of America’s indigenous peoples was the goal of the European settlers and their descendents. How many of you have heard the expression “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”? It wasn’t so long ago that such expressions were commonplace. In today’s politically correct society such racist remarks are usually not so blatant, but the attitudes still prevail.

How can anyone of good conscience possibly celebrate the racist genocide of a people? As an African-American I am keenly award of the history of slavery and oppression of my people in America. I am also aware that the Native Americans were the only ones to offer refuge to those of us who escaped from the slave masters. We owe them a debt of gratitude. How then can we participate in a holiday that celebrates their subjugation to our slave masters?

Now that you know the truth, how will you spend the next Thanksgiving Day? Will you celebrate the genocide and oppression of an innocent people, or will you view this as a day of sorrow and shame? Have sorrow for the Native American ancestors and shame that a country can celebrate such atrocities.