I see red

"Not Forgotten" by Maxine Noel

It is Thanksgiving and I have much to be grateful for even if this is the worst year I have experienced since I relocated to the US in 2006. 

"Still Dancing" by Jon Labillois

Since I have made America my homeland I have come to love Thanksgiving even more than Christmas as a holiday of observation. 

MMIW protesters

As a practitioner of shamanism it is a tradition that is fraught with conflicting stories and sentiments. 

Art Heals: The Jingle Dance Project

How the holiday is enshrined in US history - how it commemorates the pilgrim and puritan settlers tales of arrival in their New World versus the atrocities committed on Native American tribes already living here, how they treated the people then and now - is a sad and sorry tale, an open would that has yet to heal. 

Sarah Ortegon in Times Square on March 7/Maria Baranova

As with all things American, the history of the Americas is a brutal tale of greed and gore that has never been fully or truthfully acknowledged by our government and its leadership. 

Tia Wood Special - 2017 Gathering of Nations

I have therefore decided to raise my red flag on Thanksgiving 2020 to focus on the plight of indigenous women and girls, abused and killed, missing and gone. 

The REDress Project - Jaime Black

Today I join Métis artist Jaime Black, creator of the installation piece “The REDress Project” and Tia Wood, champion jingle dancer/singer of 2017 Gathering of Nations fame, and all those in the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) movement.

MMIW performance by A Tribe Called Red

Thanksgiving is kind of like Columbus Day for Native people. Why would we celebrate people who tried to destroy us? 

The Thanksgiving Myth - NY Times
photographed by Tailyr Irvine for the @nytimes, written by @brettya1

Thanksgiving stories were among the few appearances made by Native Americans in popular historical narratives, effectively erasing history-altering crimes, like the killing of tens of millions of buffalo, from the country’s consciousness. That massacre led to the mass starvation of Indigenous people.