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COAIM BLOG CO AIM LATEST NEWS MEDIA
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November 21, 1988 We, the American Indian Movement of Colorado, would like to accept as an article of good faith Lieutenant Governor Mike Callahan's invitation to feed some two dozen American Indians today, but it is difficult to do so given the tactics and methods used to achieve these ends. The plan to serve dinner to hungry members of the American Indian community of Denver in the back of a a Buehler Mayflower moving van not only cheapens one of the greatest expressions of sharing by indigenous people with Europeans, but it also serves to exploit, for commercial gain, the most disadvantaged people in the United States. Such methods would not, and should not, be tolerated by any other racial or ethnic group in this country, and it will not be tolerated by the American Indian Movement of Colorado. Imagine the outcry that would accompany the State of Colorado inviting a group of Jews to celebrate Passover in the back of a Mogen David wine delivery truck. Imagine the embarrassment of the State of Colorado inviting Blacks to celebrate Juneteenth in an Aunt Jemima pancake factory. Imagine the disgust if the State of Colorado invited the Chinese community to celebrate their New Year at a Charlie Chan film festival. Such insults would be unthinkable, yet American Indians are expected to be gracious and feel flattered that the State of Colorado has invited them to eat in the back of a moving van. And this is not just any moving van. This moving van represents the pilgrim ship, Mayflower, that transported a group of intolerant English vagabonds who continued a wave of death and destruction against American Indian people that continues today. Quite frankly, many American Indian people are far from honored by this overt and insensitive commercial display. Although we do not begrudge any Indian people the right to feed themselves and their families, we take great exception to the methods that have been used both by the office of the Lieutenant Governor and Buehler Mayflower in exploiting hungry Indians to promote their Always Buy Colorado program. If the Lieutenant Governor and Buehler are truly concerned about the Indian people Colorado, then we would suggest something more than media carnivals to indicate their concern. We would have suggested that the money spent on creating and promoting this event could have been donated to the Denver Indian Center to feed hundreds of Indian people, rather than twenty two. We would suggest a concerted effort to advance a legislative agenda to increase funding for the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs, and an expansion of the statutory mandate of the Commission to include urban Indian issues as a priority item. Finally, we would like to remind all involved in this event, and the general pubic, that Thanksgiving Day to many Indian people is a day of mourning, not a day of celebration. Although Indian people have much for which to be thankful, and we give our thanks to the Creator every day, Thanksgiving Day is a day on which we remember the millions of Indians who were slaughtered by disease, warfare, and relocation because of a promise made on that first Thanksgiving that has been repeatedly broken. So, the fourth Thursday of November isa day for us to honor and remember our relatives, and t o give thanks that we have survived a 500 year long genocide, and we have no intention of demeaning that Thanksgiving by participating in circuses while our people starve, and certainly not in the back of a moving van. Mitakuy Oyasin |
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Colorado AIM Contact us at
denveraim@coloradoaim.org or
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