Old Mole Variety Hour for November 25, 2024

Nimiipuu Mole Julian Ankney hosts this decolonial Thanksgiving Show, which features the following segments:

• Beginning in grade school, American school children are steeped in the American mythology of Thanksgiving, cosplaying pilgrims and their Wampanoag hosts peacefully breaking bread together to celebrate the harvest, erasing and sanitizing the history of the genocidal land grab that would play out in New England and across the country. But, as recorded in a plaque at Plymouth Rock, "Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon ...in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Julian Ankney and Lakota Cheyenne organizer/activist Roben White talk about the brutal historical realities that underpin Thanksgiving and the ongoing Indigenous struggle to decolonize the holiday.
• Less than two years after John Trudell's wife, three children and mother-in-law were murdered in a house fire within hours of Trudell burned a U.S. flag outside FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Trudell gave a seering Thanksgiving Day speech unpacking the links between colonialism, capitalism, and U.S. militarism. We hear excerpts from the 1980 speech by the legendary spoken word poet, playwright, Vietnam-era veteran, and indefatigable activist with the American Indian movement. And we listen also to Trudell's song honoring the legendary Oglala Lakota land and water defender Crazy Horse.