Coffee Break [9/10/23]

Your mid morning pick me up

9/10/23 Hannibal 24

North Americans are celebrating several holidays today. It’s Thanksgiving in the Great White North. Or, as @myopicprophet likes to remind us, ThanksTaking. But cost and supply chain issues may disrupt this year’s feast. Here in Murica, it’s still officially Columbus Day. It saddens me that many of my fellow Italian-Americans continue to observe this holiday without knowing its origins and how cheaply our ancestors in this country were bought off. Our assimilation cost us both identity and community, which only serves to uphold white supremacy. Thankfully, it’s also Indigenous Peoples Day. Everyone, regardless of where you live, can use this interactive map to learn whose land you are occupying. And I urge Americans to honor the Indigenous people by joining the 33 lawmakers calling for the release of Leonard Peltier, a Native man unjustly imprisoned for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. Contact your Reps and Senators. Thank those who have signed the letter to President Biden. And demand that those who have not add their names.

Have a great Monday, DeadSplinters!

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24 Comments

  2. The story of formerly minority-coded groups that were allowed to be “white” in America should really replace the Founding Fathers as our national myth. It really is the through-line of American society. Imagine telling Italians 100 years ago that they’d be “white” eventually; I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have believed you!

    • You can see some of the weird ways it worked in baseball in pre-Jackie Robinson days.

      Some Latino players were allowed, others weren’t, and there was no clear sense of what was going on in most cases.

    • There’s a minister from the BLM movement, can’t remember his name, that has a great talk about it. He calls it the Room On the Bus concept. This idea that space is limited but YOU have a shot at a seat- power, wealth, whiteness. The American Dream. But in reality of course everything the real seat holders are doing is making less and less room for anyone. But a certain segment of our society still thinks they are the ones going to get that seat. Get your Powerball ticket today so you can cozy up to Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos on the ride!

      • I am old enough to have experienced some anti Italian bigotry. In the form of dumb dago jokes and insulting assumptions about crime. Nothing compared to what Black, Indigenous, and other people of color have had to endure. But it did give me some small understanding of what they deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately even in my own family that wasn’t always the case. I had an aunt whose wealthy husband was disowned by his father and cut off financially because he married a Catholic Italian woman. And she somehow never made the connection between that and her own horrible feelings and opinions about Black people. 🤷🏻‍♀️

  6. welp…according to the map im not currently occupying anyones territory…so thats nice

    but tbh…i’d have been pretty surprised to find out differently…..we’ve been here a looooong time

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