Over 2,000 pounds of food was recently donated to the Wellington, Kansas Community Food Bank by Wellington High School and Eisenhower Elementary School students for Thanksgiving. Amazing.
But are you aware that Native Americans protest this holiday? That they consider it a day of mourning, for reasons none of us are ever taught in school?
Did you know that Thanksgiving was celebrated, on November 25, 1491, when Santiago defeated the last Muslim stronghold in Grenada? That it had nothing to do with the Pilgrims?
According to Ralph de Unamuno, “On this day, King Ferdinand gave thanks to God for this victory, and the Pope of Rome declared this day to forever be a day of Thanksgiving for all European Christians.
“… One lyricist, Rass Kass…states that: ‘When you celebrate Thanksgiving, what you are actually celebrating is the proclamation of the Pope of Rome, who later, in league with Queen Isabella, sent Cardinal Ximenos to Spain to murder any Blacks that resisted Christianity.’
“These genocidal policies were justified by Pope Nicholas in the Inter Cetera Papal Bull of 1452, which called for the King of Portugal “to invade, search out, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans, whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ’.
“These are the true religious and political motivations that formulated the white supremacist mindset that was the foundation for the economic colonization of the Americas and its Native peoples.
“…Thanksgiving [in the United States] celebrates the subjugation of non-Western people for colonial purposes. Its roots are…connected to…events that occurred in [Connecticut] in the year 1637, when 700 men, women, and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their ‘Annual Green Corn Dance’:
“…Surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch, [they] were ordered from their ceremonial structures and…shot down. The rest were burned alive in their homes.
“The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared a day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 Pequots. Subsequently, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor or President since was to honor that victory, thanking God that the ‘battle’ had been won.
“The [Thanksgiving} we celebrate is in observation of that massacre and upholds this colonial mentality.”
If you celebrate, be sure it is for the right reasons and that it is pleasing and acceptable in the eyes of God, our Maker.
“O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.” (1 Chronicles 16:34 KJV)
For more information:
http://www.manataka.org/page1391.html
http://laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/november26-03/roots.htm
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/firsttday_19991126.html
http://iamnotarapperispit.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/the-real-meaning-of-thanksgiving/
http://www.afrostyly.com/english/afro/diverse/nature_of_the_threat.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre