What is “Thanksgiving” to a descendant of the enslaved?

Holiday season is here in the US. It’s ironic that for the majority of my life, I didn’t participate in the Thanksgiving holiday season in any way. A wanting observer from the outsides, intrigued by the season and also aware of the wanton history of this nation and the impact that White European settlers had on the First Nations people on what was formerly known as Turtle Island.

For years as a child and young adult, I’d longingly wished I could participate in the holiday season and know first-hand what it was like to be in on what it all entailed. During the majority of my youth, our culture was mostly silent on the true nature of the impact of European settlers and how this land we live on was acquired. Similar to how it was clear that Black folks were a permanent underclass here in America, yet the depth of that story was always conventionally left out of the discussion, and outside of folks who’d made it their mission to stay woke, not deeply informed either.

In the 2010s, I finally got my head on right and left the religious group that’d dictated so much of my life and how and what I was freely able to celebrate.?

Finally, I was free to partake in celebrations like Xmas and Thanksgiving.

The only problem was that now that I was free to celebrate, and it was no longer a religious mandate that prohibited involvement, I was confronted with whether I’d actually wanted to be involved in the first place.

I wasn’t a particular fan of consumerism, nor well positioned to participate in it on any meaningful level anyway, even if I had been. I’d spent all of those years wanting to participate and should have done more to stop and more deeply reflect on whether I actually wanted to participate or if I was just experiencing some powerful form of FOMO as a result of the pervasiveness of our consumer culture where it relates to these specific holidays.

It took me several years to untangle myself from my upbringing and make more courageous decisions about where I’d land in relation to these holidays. Not really a good feeling when you consider I’d gone more of my life not celebrating than I had participating. I’d built these occasions up to be these enormous things in my mind that demanded I not give them up again. The reality was that when it came down to it, I didn’t feel good about participating in them.?

I was well aware of the history of how the White settlers had committed atrocities on a massive scale across this continent. Not only to my people but to our Indigenous siblings and others. It tainted this holiday with the blood and pain of slaughter and suffering. Why did I want to ignore all of that? I didn’t, yet I was aching to participate in the mythos of this cultural moment. And then, at a certain point, it was harder and harder to excuse what was so obviously true; that I was unintentionally ignoring the suffering of the First Nations folks because I didn’t have a good framework for this new stage in my life. My conscience was driving me in a different direction, but I was disassociating from what I knew I was feeling deep down inside, and that was that I didn’t have any interest in participating. But, I kept letting all of the other shit going on in life keep me distracted enough from making a real, lasting decision, and the year would go by, and next thing you know, it’s that time of year again.?

My conscience was driving me in a different direction, but I was disassociating from what I knew I was feeling deep down inside, and that was that I didn’t have any interest in participating.

My wife and I made a choice, a few years back that we wouldn’t be participating in the ways we had before. The racial upheaval, the Water Defenders, the indigenous folks in Hawaii fighting to protect their lands, our family in Puerto Rico struggling to hold on to their autonomy, the uncovering of the native schools in Canada; the struggles in Asia, the “Arab Spring” all of that shit just made it impossible to look at this holiday season through the same eyes. The problem was that I was also not fully investing in a better alternative. And that half-hearted approach wasn’t really doing me any favors.

This year, knowing that Palestinians across Gaza are experiencing a historic level of hell-on-earth has meant that there is no way to pretend that this holiday, nor the Western practice of ignoring the history of a thing in favor of “civil celebration and gathering of community” is going to be the thing that allows this culture of ours in America to dutifully and obediently sit quietly while the world burns.

And obviously, this isn’t all of the folks in our culture. I’m reminded every time I log into any social media app there’s always gonna be folks willing to put their own safety and well-being on the line as a means to live by a deep calling of justice and love for neighbor. I want to be part of that community. I try to live my life that way too, and for the most part, I believe that I do, although, if I’m really being honest with myself, I’ve gotta ask, “Do I ALWAYS?”.?

I’m reminded every time I log into any social media app there’s always gonna be folks willing to put their own safety and well-being on the line as a means to live by a deep calling of justice and love for neighbor.

I’ve been looking at LinkedIn as a new opportunity akin to Twitter back in the 2-teens. If that’s the case, then this platform has presented itself as a means of disturbing the peace, community organizing, and massive education. I’m trying to get down with that.

With how deeply centered on work and career LinkedIn is as a platform, it's one of those places where you’re putting your money where your mouth is in a very different, very visceral way when compared to many of the other more informal and "social" platforms. People are quite literally making a choice of community over potential financial opportunity by speaking up here. I guess, in a way, it’s how you figure out on a more real level where you would have actually stood when it came to n/zi/s terrorizing our global family (especially the West Africans, Romani’s, LGBTQ, disabled folks, and our Jewish fam) in the 30s and 40s; LGBTQ+, women's or Black folks liberation — anytime in this hetero, male, and White dominated western world; or the First Nations' struggles during the times of those Schools which the west claims it ended (I think sometime in the 1980s); and on and on. There’s been too many times when I’ve been more quiet than I’d wished looking back, and this is not one of those times I want to be able to look back and say, ‘I was so preoccupied with whether I should than actually lending a voice and some space in my day or on my platform that I wasn’t involved'.

People are quite literally making a choice of community over potential financial opportunity by speaking up here. I guess, in a way, it’s how you figure out on a more real level where you would have actually stood...

This is why I’m incredibly encouraged by the literal millions of people leveraging their personal platforms and putting everything on the line in solidarity with the Palestinian folks being hammered by missile strikes, bullets, firebombs, hunger, thirst, anguish and pain, and death and despair all around them. These are just ordinary folks who, like Dr King and Mrs Coretta Scott-King, individuals, who saw themselves as called to something important, timely, and larger than themselves that they were willing to sacrifice their own comfort and safety to amplify and work toward changing for the better.?

Over the last few years, we’ve all watched as a term of wisdom has gotten demonized and bastardized by a subset of people intent on keeping our culture and the next generations ignorant, uninformed, and complacent regarding the very changeable ills of this world, that too is by design. There’s a reason the Black community latched so firmly onto the idea of getting and staying woke because it's a helluva powerful sentiment. You get clarity, which can in and of itself be a feat to accomplish depending on the cultural moment and our own situations….but it’s the staying part, the part that demands we continuously pay attention, that can often be elusive, especially as we participate in a culture that wants us to bread and circus our way into a certain kind of numbness. One that wants us to ask, “If he bought it at Jared’s?” more than, “Is it okay for a major military power to commit war crimes against an indigenous population that they've made to languish and confined in an open-air prison for decades? How do I help?”.

There’s a reason the Black community latched so firmly onto the idea of getting and staying woke because it's a helluva powerful sentiment.

When you see 'certain' individuals frothing at the mouth over the expression of a sentiment that encourages communities to be vigilant and watchful as demands this moment in history, it should speak volumes on what their deepest intentions look like. I am incredibly proud that it was Black people who coined the term, who’ve stood stalwart in holding onto this sentiment and done so much to answer the call and response “You woke?” — I truly hope that you are. If not, ask yourself what it’ll require for you to get yourself free from bondage….then reach back and help just one other person.?

As thankful as I am for the existence, work, and sacrifices of luminaries like the King’s, I’m very appreciative today to be in the age of leaderless movements. Of a collective call and response that allows folks to step up and, equally so, step back as needs arise and circumstances change. I don’t know that the struggle is beautiful, but I see a lotta beautiful people engaged in this struggle.

I don’t know that the struggle is beautiful, but I see a lotta beautiful people engaged in this struggle.

I give so much deep appreciation and thanks for everyone whose existence enabled me to write this, to think my thoughts, and helped me to get free from the shackles of an authoritarian group that sought to steal my power and autonomy. I hope that I can be part of helping some other folks now free themselves…and at the same time support the work of liberation we so desperately need around the globe.

I hope for a free Palestine. For peace for Gaza and the 2 million+ Palestinian people. I wish that our media and the leaders of so many of our various nations and institutions would refuse wholesale to use our Jewish family as some sorta chess piece, and a cudgel, exploiting the deeply painful atrocities visited upon them as a means to justify the violence happening.

If we’re looking for added reasons to reconsider how or even if we want to participate in the unnecessary consumer side of this holiday season, doing the research on div/ est \ment and bo /yco \tting could be eye-opening…and life support for our 7 MILLION+ siblings in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo and around the globe. I been holding onto this older model iPhone for a hot minute, and long as it keeps working for me, I'm hoping to hang on to it for as long as I can. Once you know that corporations like Apple and Google are building billions of dollars in wealth, and in part, off of the backs of essentially an enslaved labor force on another continent, the idea of the latest phone hits different - when you learn it requires minerals mined under circumstances like this. There’s no Apple, meta, Google product, or Tesla model that’s worth children being forced to labor in mines and families to live in poverty. If enslavement is a necessary part of their products supply chain, then we owe it to our global family to question: the existence of those products; how frequently they’re rolled out to store shelves; those corporate leaders that prop this system up, and by doing so benefit financially; as well as our level of involvement in this death circle as consumers.

If enslavement is a necessary part of their products supply chain, then we owe it to our global family to question: the existence of those products...

Stay safe out there folks. There’s cops around the corners and coons and opps looking to undermine the work. Build community and keep dealing hope. All power to the people.

—?

Epilogue:?I read somewhere that if you start on YouTube at any one place, any video, regardless what it’s about, you will always end up droppin’ down a rabbit hole that dumps you out into wh\yt /e supr\ m /@cy and the so-called manosphere. That being the case, that’d mean that if I start watching something like Ryda, or Your Mines Still, and I walk away, left to its own devices, we’d end up at some shit celebrating the likes of ‘mein kampf’, which is pretty fucked. Why are techies, VCs, CEOs, and engineers not concerned that society as a whole gonna kick they ass for allowing this type shit to be the case?

That being said, why aren’t corps like meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Nestle, etc, not afraid of ...US? The people. Meta/Facebook damn near participated in the cooptation of our political process with the assistance of “Cambridge Analytics” and their apologists. Nestle taking our water like THEY own it ALL. Why are we tolerating this shit en masse? In 2023 we’re fully aware that the company that Steve Jobs turned into a household name is participating in a modern slave economy.

And why the fuck are CEOs who exploit workers, the poor, and our environment not hesitant to eat in public at this point - in fear of public outcry that would seek to hold them accountable? How are we as a culture not enraged by the existence of whole nations' essentially forced into slavery to build fuckin’ mobile devices and fuck’ Elon’s hoopties?

Kids. Forced to exist and die in holes in the ground, open pits mining minerals. Someone I saw on a clip expressed the sentiment that ANY time the West goes to Africa it’s ALWAYS to steal. No lies detected. (wish I could credit that clip) I see you McDonald's trying to Rap-Wash your reputation. How many times do these corps (Walmart, Wells Fargo, etc) get to Black-wash their bad reps using OUR culture, our vibes, and our souls? Ideally, we should reserve our collabos for the deserving.

How long did it take NBC, CNN, or FOX (BIG news media) to even speak on the Palestinian struggle? Are they not ALSO human beings worthy of our empathy? Maybe if they were literally awash in oil and why\tness, they’d care about their pain too. If same said mass media outlets cared about antisemitism, they’d have refused to platform powerful people with documented histories of discrimination, bigotry, s/xual assaults, never mind avowed ra /cists and their cronies — at some point why didn’t one of em think twice about ahem, DJT, and his whole ass squad. It’s like Mark Ferman’s LA PD didn’t beat the living shit outta Rodney King and try to hide it. Even the company that makes Tiki Fragrance Torches understood the importance of calling things by their name.

That doesn’t even begin to explain the questions around Oliver North having his reputation laundered with the help of our mass media. Pay attention to who you let influence your perspectives. Malcolm wasn’t playin’ when he warned us, be careful or they’ll have us feelin’ for the oppressors and with disdain for their victims. Pay attention to who speaks on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and other nations from any perspective that doesn’t tout AFRICOM and Western violence as the sole solution.

I see people on this platform trying to silence folks calling out big business for fuck shit like “it’s not professional”…..let’s never forget the things that at some point in time have passed for “professional” and socially acceptable — selling human beings like property (that shit alone was foundational to the modern wealth of both Europe and the Americas; whole ass banks, insurance companies, policing, medicine, the stock market in NYC, etc.); getting people addicted to pharmaceuticals in order to create new and “committed” customers; drowning an entire town downstream of an insanely rich man’s shoddily built infrastructure (hey Carnegie); surreptitious surveillance devices pushed on consumers without warning; gifting Adolf Hitler for his birthday (Hey hey Henry Ford); poisoning the environment and then hiding the science to prevent catastrophe; and on and on. It’s almost as if doin’ dirt while wearing a suit somehow absolves one of any sins, regardless of how heinous.

So when anyone fixes their face to tell you “Keep that shit off this platform. It’s not professional.”, remember whose interest they’re actually serving, it ain’t for the people, and it ain’t for liberation.