The November holiday we have come to know as Thanksgiving, which runs against the tail-end of our nation’s election cycle, is a reminder of the dark thread between the colonization of our fields, our plates and our minds. The similarities may go unnoticed or at least diminished in favor of the more delightful, amicable tale of “pilgrims and Indians.” You know, the one we all learned and sang about at our first-grade recitals, wearing headbands embellished with feathers made from our small, traced hands. Afterwards, families would accompany their little ones through the lunch line at the school cafeteria to be served turkey smothered in gravy alongside perfectly square-shaped dressing with our carton of cold, frothy, white milk. The custom of food as a connector is a unique yet familiar part of our collective existence. Food has shown up during times of respite and bereavement in Black and southern white communities for generations; it’s a communal link to our shared experience as rural, Southern people. Food has also been at the center of our joy in times of celebration, so the idea that the “first Thanksgiving” at Plymouth Rock in 1621 was a cross-racial feast of geese and other waterfowl stuffed with onions and herbs, venison, corn, squash and nuts is actually not a far removed one. Equally important is the fact that the presence of European colonizers pre-dates this supposed gathering by several years. So by the time of the “first Thanksgiving”, Africans had already been forcibly enslaved on the continent for a number of years and the presence of colonizers had already sparked the spread of mass disease among Native communities. The irony of this outbreak, which reduced the Native population by nearly 90% in only three years, being referred to as “Indian Fever,” is an early indication of the manipulation of language as a political and cultural weapon.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article256029122.html#storylink=cpy