Today, many of you are celebrating American Thanksgiving, but I wanted to take a moment to use this platform I've somehow stumbled into to do something different. Today is the National Day of Mourning, a day where we take time to remember and mourn the suffering and deaths of the indigenous American people who were brutally colonized by the founders of the country. It is also a day to remember that their descendants are still suffering, that their struggles are not over.
Now, I am very white and living on stolen land. I am not the expert here and I don't think it would be my place to explain the struggles the indigenous Americans are facing.
But I do run a fairly popular Warrior Cats blog and I do think it would be worthwhile to highlight the fact that Warrior Cats and its fandom are full of Anti-Indigenous bigotry. You may notice that I use the term "Healer" instead of "Medicine Cats" and that's because the original term is blatant and disrespectful cultural appropriation that I don't want to take part in. And that's just one example.
HERE is a link to a comprehensive article researched and written by an All-Native/Indigenous team of Warrior Cats fans that details the harmful stereotypes the Erins use and suggestions on what you can do to avoid contributing to them. Please, read this document and take some time to think about what it says.
I also encourage any Native/Indigenous people who find this post to add to it or link places where my fans can support you and your communities.
Oh, what might have been. It would have been full of pictures and gifs of Hank Schrader doing miscellaneous Hanktivities: looking very smiley, looking very fierce, laughing, wearing shades, pointing guns, wearing DEA jackets and badges and lanyards, and, of course, perching on the toilet. We would have called it Happy Hanksgiving. It would have been great.
Sadly a decision was made. So, for those who would have enjoyed Hanksgiving, here's a Snoopy gif to make amends. For those who wouldn't, well, looks like it all worked out just fine. And there's more than enough Snoopy to go around.
Enjoy the popcorn. And however you mark today, we can only wish peace, love, and lots of good folk and lots of good food for all y'all. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
I've noticed over the years that there's a great deal of variability in the times that people in the US (and, presumably, Canada) serve their big Thanksgiving dinner.
I'm curious about the details. Is this a regional thing? Is it a matter of family tradition? In the USA, are people juggling meal schedules around football games and parades?
This calls for a poll!
My family tradition was Going Out For Thanksgiving Dinner, so don't feel that Not Doing The Huge Cooking Ritual disqualifies you from this.
Reblog for greater sample size, please!
If you want to include your answer and where you're from/where you live now in the tags or in your reblog, that should produce some interesting results that are probably meaningless by any statistical measure. 😄
If you’re looking for an easier way to explain gerrymandering to family members this week, here’s a visual! 🥧
Ger·ry·man·der (ˈjerēˌmandər): “the practice of dividing or arranging an electoral map into election districts such that the map gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections.”