Raiden’s

Mental Escapades:

Turkey Day

There are two major reasons to hate turkey day, as turkey day and not the day of thanks which completely misconstrued and lost in today’s day and age.

~ Yes I have a serious bent loathing on the subject, but follow me I actually have a point! ~

1.     First and foremost is the fact you are actually celebrating the day that signed the pact of complete annihilation of a race, MY race, of people. American Indians. I am Cherokee. Our people being of a natural giving nature, gave the alien pale forms food and skill of growing upon this foreign soil for what? To be slaughtered in the billions and prosecuted right up and into today.

Give that a second to soak in.

Billions of Indians slaughtered from the day of the pact blessed with shaking hands over a meal shared between men, only to be flipped and turned into a hunted persecution, domination, and intentional obliteration. From the start to modern day this act has been sanctified and celebrated every year. Can you imagine doing such a thing over Hitler’s wipeout of Jews? S. Africans? Congolese Nations? Tibetans? Serbians? Latinos? Man the world would go insane with uproar if anyone even thought of celebrating the start of those racial wars. Yet we have major football events, parades, tv specials, and parties completely dedicated to this.

Sorry all I can think of is how my grandma’s entire tribe was obliterated, literally. There are no full blooded members, and only less than a handful of half bloods, two handfuls of quarter bloods. By the time I and my siblings die there will be absolutely no trace of this extinct line. NONE, like the freaking dinos it will be gone.

I think about how my direct ancestors, the proud and peaceful Cherokee, were lethally collected and then brutally driven from the southern shores across states and into Oklahoma along the trail of tears. How many died from exhaustion, weather, sickness, starvation, and so on.

How then the government kept whittling or moving the reservations to suit their wants or mineral finds so that the people lived on damn near inhabitable land. How they then country wide gave them typhoid blankets, rat infested grains, and other infected things in a solid and documented effort to take more land by annihilation. And when that didn’t work, they took our children and stripped them of their culture, language, and identity by forcing them in mandated boarding schools. Creating generations who knew nothing of what they were or in some cases even where they lived or came from due to the children being too young. Thus breaking the eternal souls of the American Indian who mourned their children as if they were dead, my grandfather was one.

They never found his siblings and his name was changed to Bill. As a bonified American hero; rear admiral in the Navy and one of the first SEALs buried with honor and presidential appearance for his bravery and actions; he never forgot or forgave the day they came with busses and dragged him from his home slapping a stringed cardboard sign on his chest and shoes on his feet then cut his hair to a short crew cut. The bus was as cold as the boarding school, the sign read his name was now Bill, and with that he entered the white man’s world.

How today most of the reservations cannot support themselves or people since the towns and jobs are impossibly far and government checks barely cover cost or get spent on the liquor stores or drugs peddled in and allowed licenses while other businesses are not. How like many of todays poor get stamps or checks that barely cover fatty based foods and not the healthy stuff like veggies, and how that brings mass waves of diabetes effectively helping wipeout the minorities even more. Not every res has casinos or cash markets. Not every res has good schools or doctors. Nearly all reservations are located in remote rural places that make it hard for the people to find work or go to a decent school, which leaves the younger generations without solid education or college…. Which as we all know creates a rut you cannot escape.

Very few recognize exactly what they are celebrating on Thanksgiving Day.

Murder, slaughter, suffering.

2.   Besides that horror, there is the actual thankless part of THANKSgiving. It really should be called PLASTICgiving or SLAVEgiving.

All you do is spend the day either slaving in a kitchen over a meal that really truly isn’t worth it. – my biased hate of most turkeyday gross food aside – You make a giant bird that takes hrs and hrs cooking; then eventually after its torn apart u have to debone it and package it; cook every dish known to man: Stuffing, corn, sweet potato/yam something or other, cassaroles, pudding or fruit gobby whatevers, bread, rolls, pies upon pies… yada yada. Then sit down for a whole 30 if your lucky while yelling at kids to not gobble or throw junk, yell at husbands to use a napkin or fork and quite waving the meat around while talk/arguing some point or sport or whatever, catch food flying at your head from said kids, play nice to some chick or dude that got invited that you really wish had read the implied ‘do not respond to plastic invite’… O’ and you got all your brood dressed nice and combed for this event, done up the house, checked the animals for nonflea infested ready to bite and tear up the place mode by kicking them out. – Then clean it ALL up!

or

If you’re lucky enough to GO and invade some other house:  Then it’s the get the brood fancy dressed and combed, smelling right even if the boys always seem to have some wak smell lingering from foreign substances growing in their closets or under the bed… arse crack?... and spend the entire drive warning them with deep serious threats of bodily harm if they say… light nanny’s hair on fire or decide to mud wrestle in the back yard or decide now is the time to let every dark secret you’ve kept bottled up the entire year out in a wide spread freak flag… so fun… then spend the entire time helping do food or avoiding those people you secretly loath only to discover you apparently have ‘come torture me’ stamped on your head or rump. ~ Again plastic smiles, plastic conversation, plastic ‘we are perfect’ all trampled over you.  

And then it’s the plastic prayed or toasted thanks circled around the table in all the usual forms, which never really is the real deal ‘thanks’ you should be giving or any actual act you’ve done besides herd in your brood and thanking god none of you died in the process over the year.

Very few have actually gotten off their butts and gave in the actual sense of the word or spirit of what this holiday is suppose to be. Giving food to those that do not have, giving items they need, giving time to those that are basically ignored. I do not mean just dropping a turkey off or a basket of food at your church or whatever. I mean seeking out the REAL needy people and giving. The guy digging in your trash or living in a shack, the woman who’s got 3 kids and no job, the elderly down at the home who would give anything for attention or a surprise. – And not for just the day. Continuing as you can all through the year.

Basically not be plastic.

If you’re going to celebrate DO it knowing what and why and actually giving a damn outside your little sheep bubble. See what is really going down in your hood and help out. Give things people need: Jobs, Bills paid, Homes, Cars, Clothing and toys, Education… so on. Even if it’s just a small amount, that small amount adds up. It doesn’t have to be money or food, it could be anything. Even a smile and ear makes a big difference.

SO, yah, Turkey day isn’t my holiday. I get fed up with all the plastic judging people with fake attitudes and fake style or airs. Money don’t mean a thing to me, I really truly hate pretty much everything on the table, I don’t do fake… anyone who knows me would say A-Fraking-Men to that, and for me it’s like dining over dead bodies…much like giving me flowers, why would you hand me dead things and want a kiss or praise? You misewell have handed me a severed hand or arm…. *shakes head* It makes no sense to me.

At least I can use the arm to beat you with.

I may not be the most sane being on the planet, but I do have my priorities… and those with me either get off their butts and DO or they don’t get fed…. When, if ever, they convince me to slave on freaking Slaughterday.

This year they didn’t push.

This year I was pampered.

This year we had Ezmart chicken, slurpy’s that last all day, oven baked cinnamon rolls dripping in cream.

This year I tried not to think too hard.

… and this year Caveman took my sharp shiny exploding toys away… so this year there was no ER or cops. *sighs hard* SO SO SO wrong!

This year I missed my boys super for really bad.