A participant in a protest of the U.S. presidential election results in Oakland, California, on November 13, 2016. Photo by Elijah Nouvelage
Poet Tiffany Midge, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is breaking up with America but she's taking back Thanksgiving, thank you very much:
You broke me, America. You broke us. Like HULK SMASHED our relationship to indecipherable shards. Like, you pulled a Humpty Dumpty and nobody’s horses and king’s men are putting us back together. Consider us toothpaste squeezed out of the tube. Done. Kaput. Take the cannoli. I think you know why. But I’ll explain in the interest of transparency. Recently, when President Obama proclaimed the month of November to be National Native American Heritage Month, and then the very next day in an interview about the Dakota Access Pipeline and paramilitary police waging war against citizens at Standing Rock—stating that he was going to “just let it play out for several more weeks”—well, that hurt. Maybe it didn’t hurt as much as the mace and pepper spray, or the people who got shot with rubber bullets, but still, dude, so not cool. Lately too, there’s just been injustice piled on top of injustice piled on top of injustice. It’s like a Russian doll of injustice. Or a Dagwood sandwich of injustice. A totem pole of injustice. Mass shootings, cop killers getting off, ominous clown sightings, folk singers awarded Noble Prizes in literature, baseball fans cheering the Cleveland Indians while actual Indians are being terrorized in North Dakota, and WTAF, America? Donald Trump winning the presidential election?! Really? Really? You’re twisted, America. You’ve gone coocoo bananapants.Read More:
Tiffany Midge: Hey America, I’m Taking Back Thanksgiving (Indian Country Today 11/15)
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