Thanksgiving Reflections: A Call to Remember
Every year, we’re asked to gather in gratitude around a holiday that was never meant for us. Thanksgiving wasn’t built to honor Black history—it was built to erase Indigenous resistance and celebrate colonial conquest. And yet, we’ve been indoctrinated to adopt it. To smile through it. To forget that our own traditions of gratitude, gathering, and storytelling were powerful before they were replaced. We come from people who gave thanks through ceremony, through community, through survival. But instead of honoring that, we’re taught to celebrate a sanitized version of history that led to everything being stolen—land, language, lineage, and legacy. This isn’t about guilt. It’s about clarity. It’s about reclaiming memory. About refusing to let stolen narratives define our joy or our truth. So this year, I’m choosing to remember. To speak plainly. To honor the fact that our history didn’t begin with slavery or assimilation—it began with brilliance, with sovereignty, with sacred rhythm...
