Native Americans are the more legitimate Americans in this country, and we need to remember that. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
This Thanksgiving, as you sit in the middle of that dinning room used once a year, think about a community that is often misrepresented and, regretfully, forgotten: Native Americans.
Native Americans are an indigenous group who has survived the colonization of the Europeans in North America. They should not only be remembered, but be celebrated, recognized and respected by the government as well as society.
After all, they are the real Americans.
Thanksgiving dates back to the seventeenth century when Pilgrims, the early colonists of the Plymouth Colony, celebrated a successful harvest season with 90 Native Americans who were invited as guests.
Except, in the following years, the Pilgrims had a Thanksgiving nearly every time they slaughtered an entire village of Native Americans.
The genocide of Native Americans by colonists is one often omitted from historic records.
“On Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks. We give thanks for being the invader, the exploiter, the dominator, the greedy, the gluttonous, the colonizer, the thief, indeed the genocidaire,” said sociology professor Dan Brook from the University of California at Berkeley.
It’s been over 500 years since the beginning of the Native Americans’ era of genocide.
“Native Americans, at least those who have survived the over 500-year-genocidal project, are the poorest ethnic group in the richest country of the world,” Brook said.
This trauma has left wounds in the lives of Native Americans struggling to find their long lost honor stolen by the hands of the colonizers.
Exactly one year ago, the United States Census Bureau reported the population of Native Americans at 5.2 million, taking up only 2 percent of the total population reported in 2013.
Not only are they a demographic minority, but many are living in poor conditions.
“The federal government is responsible for managing Indian affairs for the benefit of all Indians,” Forbe’s Shawn Regan said. “But by all accounts the government has failed to live up to this responsibility. As a result, Native American reservations are among the poorest communities in the United States.”
The federal government is to blame for much of the past mistreatment of Native Americans in society. Unfortunately, the damage is done. Our society should not be blamed entirely for what happened hundreds of years ago to Native Americans.
In a world where there is a lack of originality and traditions, where dinners are often seated in solitude and praying is extinct, Native Americans and their values merit additional celebration.
Allow this publication be a call to action to do one thing that will impact them positively, from looking for ways to help these people, to simply researching more about them, to learn their censored truth.
Some might cling to making memories shared with family, watch football and attempt to deny any sense of responsibility, or convey any remorse for the genocide of Native Americans.
This Thanksgiving, as you cut the pumpkin pie and get as stuffed as the turkey on the table, remember Native Americans — past and present.
Opinion columnist Sebastian Troitiño is a finance and marketing junior and may be reached at [email protected]
Thanksgiving … celebrates the failure of early American Socialism at Jamestown.
Getting to take off work for Thanksgiving celebrates one the many socialist concepts we love to embrace in this country.
Really? An employers decision to close for a traditional holiday is a socialist concept??
Really?
It is.
As is the 40 hour work week, the weekend, and paid vacations.
What 40 hr week? ObamaCare has cut that to 30 hrs; which is a true Socialist concept.
I’ve only read your comments on this thread so far, so I attempted to “follow” you on Disqus, but, alas, you rendered that impossible. Denied!
I’m not sure why you were denied. But I will be here for a while … Check this blog out from my grad days … http://uh-conservative-underground.blogspot.com/
Type the blog address again. It’s not showing the complete URL.
Try again if you want.
Since Thanksgiving came from the Plymouth colony, you are about 600 miles and 20 years off. And Jamestown’s problem was that the people that came were 4th sons and such from the nobility who thought they were too good to do manual labor. James Smith had to get food from the native americans and basically had to tell the settlers if you don’t work you don’t eat. So tell me how this was a socialist experiment please.
So I was having a little nip and got Jamestown and Plymouth mixed-up, but the Socialist experiments at both places were apparent. In a place were labor was required of the aristocrats and the common man, the one’s who worked the hardest to produce for the settlements soon found out that the one’s who worked the least still ate handsomely, and received the same benefits as a whole. At Plymouth, it wasn’t until Wm Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family, to do with as they wished, that the place started to take off — the free market played a good part in our Thanksgiving. At Jamestown when the settlers were turned free to their own devices, the place did finally get on the right track. John Rolfe did remark that the policy of private property for the families brought about a more favorable attitude in when they benefited from the own labor and enterprise.
Bob seriously, where are you getting this from? Jamestown was a charter, a commercial venture to find gold. It was not until John Smith made the rule “don’t work, don’t eat” that they finally started to thrive. Up until then the aristocracy did not want to work at all and everyone was starving. As for Plymouth, before they landed they wrote the mayflower compact, which is considered to be one of the founding documents of our democracy. The pilgrims were far from socialist. I challenge you to find one historian that would say the Mayflower compact was socialistic in nature.
They may have not known they were practicing the ideology, but for all practical purposes the early practices of the places were failures.
For Jamestown, yes, UNTIL James Smith implemented you don’t work, you don’t eat. But also remember there were other factors such as supply ships being lost to storms, the Virginia company continuing to send more people without more supplies and a poor location. The system of governing, with was based on a governor and English law were never socialist. As for Plymouth, that was not a failure though they had a rough start but as I said they based their community on the Mayflower Compact which you can read online (is a very short read) and no where in that document is there any socialist ideology. Also history has shown in no way were their system of self governing socialist in any form.
So in the end your statement of “Thanksgiving … celebrates the failure of early American Socialism at Jamestown.” has been proven to be unfounded.
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving, Bob, and everyone else. We may not agree but that does not mean we can’t have civil arguments.
Dang TB … not only can you put two sentences together, I didn’t realize that you had a smoking hot bod … great work. What is your thesis ? “The Texas Goth Experience”
HA HA one that was years ago and two, its on underwater basket weaving with psychedelic colors, you know, typical liberal stuff. *grins*
So now … love handles?
more like … well what word would you use for handles big enough for Godzilla and over twice the years of your average college student.
Ah .. your still beautiful to me.
Don’t think about the negative happenings of the past. Be thankful that the Pilgrims were able to come here and for the friendliness of the Indians toward those who landed at Plymouth Rock.
BAD BAD U.S.!!
You must ignore and forget that you have been a beacon of freedom and liberty throughout the world. You must forget the billions of lives you have saved defeating fascists tyrants and global genocide. All of your inventions and assistance that have increased life expectancy and standards of living for the entire world population was nothing but corporate greed!
You must ignore history in that well before the first colonists arrived on Plymouth Rock it was actually European explorers who brought disease that wiped out the native american populations.
BAD BAD U.S.!!