The White Woman of the Black Son & A Share of An Incredible Indigenous Offering of Music and History
I am a both/and kind of woman
I have been since I was girl
I love to climb trees and stack wood
Love to wear a skirt and whirl
Today is The Day of Mourning
And also of Gratitude
Family
Togetherness &
Loss
Can we look both with Love
Without gloss?
On my walk this morning I asked a woman, Do you celebrate Thanksgiving or The Day of Mourning?
She told me she makes good food for her family. She told me she is heading out to Whole Foods to get collard greens. She said, “I’m a white mom and…I forgot collard greens.”
Her son is black. He is fabulous. I have always loved his energy.
It did strike me as odd that it didn’t seem dissonant to only focus on food and family without at least a note of acknowledgment to the origins of this holiday given that she very politically active on the liberal side and clearly felt really bad for forgetting collard greens in cultural appropriateness toward her son. But when I mentioned that I hold space for both…that gratitude is always good, but that maybe we could untangle it from genocide…she said, “That’s valid.”
People are open. People can learn. People can grow.
I saw light in her face. I saw love. And the piece below is an extraordinary invitation to take an hour out of your day to listen to some wonderful Indigenous Music that is very healing and uplifting, as well as come to terms with the real origins of “Thanksgiving.”
In order to undo inversion
We have to recognize
The incursion
That Pilgrims in the name of Christ
Pulled the greatest heist
A genocide
They were thankful to succeed
Even partially in removing
Indigeneity
Slaughter is not the place to find gaiety
But there is a gratitude that can move beyond
Duality
To realize we all come from Creator
When we live in Oneness
We will honor the Sovereignty of others
Peoples
And Unique Tribes
No more bribes
Time to imbibe
Gratitude for being Alive
And Bless Our Great Mother
Love One Another
End the Doctrine of Discovery
Honor the Treaties
Give Pack the Public Lands
Find Loving Ways To Inner/Understand
Support the Indigenous at Thacker Pass
Because Lithium America is
Just bad Gas
