Join the Indigenous Solidarity Network, Catalyst Project, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), and Resource Generation on Thursday for “Rethinking Thanksgiving: Taking Action for Indigenous Land Defense.” This event will take place on November 26, 2020 at 12pm Pacific / 3pm ET via Zoom for 1.5 hours.* Register here. We will screen the film “Invasion,” hear from special guest Molly Wickham, spokesperson of Gitdumden Clan, and connect and take action together. ASL interpreters will be on the call and the movie will have subtitles.
From the Indigenous Solidarity Network:
“Some Indigenous Peoples refer to ‘Thanksgiving’ as the ‘National Day of Mourning.’ It is a day founded in a myth about this country’s origin–one that reframes a long history of attempted genocide as a friendly feast. This year many people are mourning loved ones lost to Covid, as well as state and vigilante violence. For some of us, this will be a different ‘Thanksgiving’ – one with limited contact due to Covid precautions. This is a time to mourn, reckon, fortify.
This can also be a time to celebrate the visions and wins of movements towards Black Liberation and Indigenous sovereignty such as the Breathe Act, and #LANDBACK. A multiracial working class movement is winning electoral power, and building power for the sweeping, transformative changes we need in the near future and for the long haul. This is a time to pause and give thanks to powerful Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and poor and working class organizing that is giving us a pathway to a safer, more caring, and liberated future and a healthier planet.
This ‘Thanksgiving’ let’s look at the myths and lies the US is founded on and get aligned with Indigenous self-determination and land stewardship. This requires commitments from all of us that reach throughout the whole year, and not just this specific day.”
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Below are some ways to take action and deepen your learning:
- Register for our Thursday webinar to learn more and take action as part of a week of solidarity with Indigenous Land Defense.
- Support NDN Collective’s #LANDBACK campaign to return the Black Hills and public lands into Native hands.
- Check out this “Rethinking Thanksgiving” Toolkit created by the Indigenous Solidarity Network to support you in further learning.
- Indigeous people are rising up to protect land and water and end to violence against Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit peoples. Here are a few examples to learn about and support: Kumeyaay Nation’s efforts to stop Trump’s border wall; Pueblo Action Alliance’s #WaterBack to reclaim all unsettled Indigenous water claims in the U.S. SouthWest; 1492 Landback Lane Haudenosaunee Land Defenders resisting private development on Six Nations Reserve; Warriors of the Sunrise’s encampment in the Hamptons, Long Island, NY by a group of Indigenous women from the Shinnecock Nation.