"Thanks for coming to America"

[shadowknows69]

Why do you come to my shores white eyes?
Are you friend or foe?
Such secrets we could share as brothers
A green and spacious land is ours and yours.
Take what you will from our Mother but waste it not.

Come feast with us white eyes
Bountiful has our Mother been this year
A fellowship of strangers, yet not too strange.
Different worlds of the same universe
Hopefully in harmony as the Great Spirit wills

You hunt with loud sticks of fire
We can teach you quieter ways
And how to give as much as you take
Grandfather sky watches us all
And the Great Spirit can be angered.

Why do you mock our songs and Gods white eyes?
Your Jesus sounds similar and familiar
Do you not walk the paths you show to others?
Come smoke with us in peace white eyes
And our prayers can reach all our spirits.

Why won’t you learn from us white eyes?
Bison fall and are lost not used
You take pelts for wealth not warmth
Rake and rape our Mother looking for shiny things
No regard for the old ways.

Why have you lied to us white eyes?
So much land to share but you want it all
We continue to teach but your ears are stopped
Have we tried to enlighten a badger?
Deafened by its lust and need for blood?

Why do you kill us white eyes?
We could have been brothers
All this on which to live
But you keep coming white eyes
Taking all we have to give.

And leaving despair
-S

[Brother_1969]

1. This is one reason that my family does not celebrate today.

It is basically a day honoring the betrayal of Native Americans, the taking of their lands, and the genocide of their many peoples. This is not something to celebrate.

Another reason to not celebrate Thanksgiving is that it is centered around giving thanks to God. A national holiday with such a religeous core is contrary to the separation of church and state.

Instead, we should all mourn that we live in a country that came into being through hatred, bigotry, and slavery and continues to flaunt basic human dignities.

[tjwash]

5. Yeah...but...the natives in North America had wars and issues...

...before the Europeans...came here...so...it's OK that we stole their land, slaughtered their people, and virtually erased their various cultures from the face of the earth. We were...actually...doing them a favor!

That was :sarcasm: by the way.

There was an extremely ugly group of creepy crawlers here at DU that slithered out from under their rocks which used variations of that theme to justify the European based genocide in another couple of threads earlier. A lot of it looked like it was copy/pastes off of "stormfront.org".

Welcome to DU by the way...

[shadowknows69]

2. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[shadowknows69]

3. One little boot for the afternoon

:kick:

[Bright Eyes]

4. Great Poem.

This reminded me of it

[hermetic]

6. Thank you for that.

And welcome, Brother.

I quit "celebrating" this holiday a couple of years back, for those reasons. I do plan to watch "Alice's Restaurant" though. That's part of my personal tradition.

I'm glad I missed the dust up in the earlier threads. There is, no doubt, a big rift forming. Write on!