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There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.
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By Netfa Freeman
November 23rd, 2007
blackstarnews.com
There's nothing like one-o-them home cooked meals by Momma.
Just the thought of extended family getting together and partaking in the bonding ritual of a feast, is enough to bring a nostalgic tear to the eye.
And when something becomes a tradition it can be hard to break from, even if its roots prove to be decadent and warped.
Even though many African people in the United States know not to recognize Columbus Day we have yet to renounce Thanksgiving and we neglect its true historical significance. Who can deny that Columbus was nothing more than a colonial pirate who stumbled, lost and starving, onto the shores of this continent? He would have certainly perished if it weren't for his indigenous rescuers, whom he repaid with plunder, pillage and enslavement.
We take comfort in knowing that he wasn't from Africa, and that the likes of him committed in essence the same assault on Africa. But doesn't Thanksgiving have the same decadent origins? How absurd is it for Black people/Africans to recognize Thanksgiving as anything other than a "celebration in the taking."
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U.S.A.: Why I Hate Thanksgiving
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First Genocide, Then Lie About It
By Mitchel Cohen
November 29, 2003
With much material contributed by Peter Linebaugh and others whose names have over the years been lost.--MC
The year was 1492. The Taino-Arawak people of the Bahamas discovered Christopher Columbus on their beach.
Historian Howard Zinn tells us how Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. Columbus later wrote of this in his log. Here is what he wrote:
"They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of sugar cane. They would make fine servants. With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
And so the conquest began, and the Thanotocracy -- the regime of death -- was inaugurated on the continent the Indians called "Turtle Island."
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