I’ve had this blog for a long time. When I revisit old posts I’m taken back to the point in time I felt inclined to get those feelings out. There’s one post I remembered writing recently that just felt really poignant to dig up and link to today. It’s a post I wrote five six years ago on Thanksgiving 2015. I wrote about being thankful for being black. I was working at Squarespace and it was the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests erupted around the country because George Zimmerman faced no consequences for his deadly actions and this movement amplified these devastating conversations about race in America. It feels like it was so long ago but also yesterday that I was in the streets yelling, Hands Up! Don’t Shoot! Probably because I echoed those same chants earlier this year in NYC. This time to defund the police.

That blog post from years ago is an earnest exultation expressing, that’s right, how excellent it is being black. I remember feeling compelled to write it because the very idea that a chant needed to be uttered that black lives matter made me feel like I needed to express my connection with that statement and the pride I have for my black life. I read it around the same time as the Rittenhouse acquittal and it was both cathartic, but also infuriating to know not that much has changed since then.
Yesterday the murderers who attacked Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced, but the life they took is still lost. Though there is relief in the fact these killers did not escape punishment, it’s another testament to the amount of evidence, public outrage, pressure, and really the right circumstances needed to ensure a just decision. We are still being profiled, targeted, and scapegoated by racists/the police. Nothing will change unless this country is ready to face the larger societal issues of systemic racism and really understand the resistance some people have to teaching this country’s actual history in schools. Why it is so horrifying to some white parents, they are insisting on censoring and removing historical events, books, and ideologies from curriculums.

Everything is a mess right now, but simultaneously things are not so bad. I’m in Florida with my family. I’m about to eat my weight in turkey. I have wonderful relationships. I’m more involved with my community. There are definitely things that make me consider, as my therapist would say, the glass is half full. I am certainly trying to practice more gratitude in my life because there is plenty to be thankful for. It can be easy to spiral into negativity when we’re surrounded by news stories echoing an imminent doomsday and not seeing the drastic change needed to correct the trajectory of this country. Though, if we zoom in and look immediately around us, there is good there. I’m grateful for where I am and excited about where I’m going, but will forever be cognizant of the ills of the world. It puts into perspective how important it is to be kind to each other and extend grace as often as possible.

Before I end this post I would be remiss to not mention the bloodshed and shame associated with this holiday due to the horrific atrocities this government has perpetrated on the Indigenous people of this country whose lands the US is occupying. This holiday is not a happy occasion for Indigenous people, but a remembrance and mourning of who was lost and what was stolen.

May we all remember what truly happened on this day.

It feels weird saying Happy Thanksgiving, but I offer that well wish in gratitude and thankfulness, and will never forget the violent history in which this holiday was conceived.

May we eat all the food, remember the past, and think about ways to revolutionize how we currently live.