Seattle schools warn staff about Thanksgiving 'mourning'

Seattle schools warn staff about Thanksgiving 'mourning'

06:17 PM PST on Wednesday, November 14, 2007

By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News

SEATTLE – A letter from the Seattle School District is raising some eyebrows about Thanksgiving and how it should be handled in the classroom.

The letter tells school district staff that the holiday is seen by many Native Americans as a "time of mourning."

It all started three years ago when some Native American parents voiced concerns about how Thanksgiving was being observed in Seattle Schools.

"In terms of what they were seeing in some of the use of the feathers and those things because those are of spiritual and ceremonial significance to us," said Willard Bill, Seattle Public Schools.

For the past three years, the Seattle School District has sent a letter to teachers and staff, telling them "Thanksgiving can be a difficult time for many native students."

http://www.king5.com/education/stories/NW_111407WAB_no_happy_thanksgiving_TP.3449914.html

is usually the cry of someone not wanting to think about the perspectives of others.

Interesting article - thanks for posting!

Two hundred years from now will Thanksgiving be observed in Iraq on March 19?

When and under what circumstances are people allowed to emigrate? Would it be fair to say the Turks occupy Turkey? Or Russians Russia? Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa? All of these peoples made well documented emigrations to where they live now with military force. At what point do folks not get criticized for having their ancestors live and move about the earth?

And it seems it varies depending on which people are the subject.

or guilt for emigrating. And it's not about criticizing white people for having ancestors who immigrated here.

It's about one culture understanding that another culture was the victim of genocide and other human rights violations, and having enough decency to get why a celebration of that might be offensive, particularly when the dominant culture uses the sacred objects of the oppressed culture in that celebration.

It's no different than understanding why the confederate flag flying over the capitol might be offensive to African Americans, and why they might not appreciate sacred items from African cultures being appropriated for use by white people during such a flag-raising ceremony.

Poor poor oppressed Americans...

Thinking causes wrinkles you know.

Very nicely put!

:)

What are they mourning?

or at least making the attempt to understand.

Your explanation and example is nicely done, lwfern.

But did they genocide a culture when they came here and do they continue the oppression of that culture? Therein lies the difference.

We just don't (yet) know enough about early human history to make definitive statements about who did what to whom. It certainly is an interesting subject, though.

Damn mammoth killers.

;)

I'll be damned....

with an agenda who attempt to use the discredited "mammoth overkill" myth to counter attempts by Native Americans to present their cases for everything from land claims to religious rights.

a change that was to their disadvantage. Disease may have also been a factor. ;)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060221090316.htm
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2007-08/07-040.html
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/mammoth.html

Third theory - Death by disease:
http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Biota/megafauna_extinctions.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/megafauna.html

(snip)

"Neither camp is about to give in, and now a third hypothesis has emerged. Scientists who find neither the climatic nor the blitzkrieg theory convincing argue that rampant disease was the main villain. In this view, the megafauna were betrayed not by the naivete of the big animals themselves but that of their immune systems. And it was not the spears carried by people that wiped them out, but the pathogens carried by dogs, rats, birds, parasites and other living baggage that accompanied the continent's first human arrivals from Siberia."

(snip)

There was nothing which could bring together the two races ... neither language, since the one spoke French, and the other Gaelic; nor institutions, since on the one side there was the carefully worked out scale of feudalism, on the other the vaguely federal patriarchal tribes; nor judicial conception, with primogeniture on the one hand and limited election on the other. Nor indeed did they have any common interest.


Roger Chauvire

:eyes:

...is that it makes it easier to tell who's a racist.

Just sayin.

The American settlement is recent in the history of civilizations. Russia was settled by "russians" sometime in the first century. The Turks start emigrating around the 9th century. The Bantu language crossed the African continent over about 1000 years. The American settling was not just the settling of one area but the complete wipe out of many many cultures extremely quickly. Almost an entire continent of people GONE within 300 years.

The Native Americans? Yes they emigrated...beginning around 40,000 years ago. And they fought and various cultures were wiped out between them...but nothing so expansive and complete as European colonization.

I agree with the poster above. This isn't about guilt this is about recognizing that this was not just a standard migration and that it was relatively recently.

Technology advancements vastly accelerated what would have been the slow, steady domination of North America by Europeans.

The Native American culture was not able to stand up to the system supporting European colonists. They had iron and steel bronze and people to work them. They had gunpowder and horses and people to ride them. They had plows and windmills and graineries and sawmills and knew how to use them as well. And they had guilds and universities to work on advancing and passing on that knowledge onto more people.

This was culture clash. The Europeans were able to use the resources here more efficiently than the Native Americans were willing or able to. European industrial practices of the time were not environmentally destructive because the scale was far too small to impact the overall environment. It wasn't until the late in the latter half of the 19th Century that the expansion of the railroad and steam power really started environmental problems. Of course, those attitudes eventually led us into our current difficulties.

stealing land and forcing Native Americans to "reservations" is another

of the people the emigrants found when they arrived at their destination. And that should NEVER be justifiable.

...Lets re-write history......or better yet ignore it.

Why is it "raising eyebrows"? Why can't people just be informed of something without feeling threatened?

Why not bypass it altogether and just be able to say, "I can see how that might feel hurtful. I'll keep it in mind"?

I think conquer is more like it

I'm just referring to the subthread above where people are nattering over whether American Indians can really be called "native" because they "immigrated" too.

Their feelings should be included in thoughts about Thanksgiving..thanks for this article because now I will be thinking about that, too.

That is the way we have always celebrated the holiday with our children. A day to acknowledge and be grateful for our blessings. It's never had a patriotic meaning for us, although we remember the first Thanksgiving.

I can understand why it could be a day of sadness for Native Americans.

With all of the mindless striving for more and more "stuff," I think Americans need to have, at least one day, where they stop and look at what they actually have and what is really important.

Here's what some people remember:



http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen11272003.html

I can see why it would be like German Christians "celebrating" the holocaust, and saying, well, there's nothing offensive in this because we don't think of the offensive parts, we just think it's important to set aside this day to be grateful for what we have.

besides maybe we should wear hairshirts and flail ourselves instead of counting our personal blessings and feeling thankful.

you said your family remembers the first thanksgiving, and I wondered in what way. I take time out on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day for a similar thing, to honor the memory of those who died. I don't even know if honor is exactly the right word, but to take some time for some reflection. Lately I've been speaking to other groups as well on those days, doing something, you know, but counting my blessings and feeling thankful isn't exactly how I would describe it. More like truth telling and reflection. Not flailing myself, I'm not a big fan of pain. :)

It's not meant as a personal attack. My family celebrates thanksgiving. We are getting together and doing the traditional thing, but at this point in my life it's with the inlaws, they are older, I don't know that there's any point in trying to change their traditions. I go along quietly, I don't fight it, so I am at fault in that myself.

That's different though in that it's at least private - different than doing public school activities that are wildly insensitive to the reality of what Thanksgiving was proclaimed for, and expecting the people from the culture that was victimized in that to just get over it and join in as the dominant culture uses the anniversary of a gross human rights violation to celebrate all the good things they have.

I feel the same way about Columbus day, we have a day to honor a genocidal asshole who was instrumental in torturing and exterminating a peaceful people. I think it might be time to confront that as a culture, and say this is wrong, and do away with Columbus day entirely. Thanksgiving might be better spent as a day set aside for social justice, for counting our blessings (which is not so different, deep down, than acknowledging our privilege), while coming to an understanding of why we have those blessings, and recognizing a social obligation to help others who have been oppressed, and don't have those privileges or blessings.