Thankful On Thanksgiving For Oppression?

This is my friend, Native American leader Richard Twiss, speaking about the abuse against Natives by the white power structure of our country. The first one minute and twenty four seconds of this video Richard throws it down (because he’s speaking at a conservative Christian college’s chapel service, it seems like he eased up a little on them the last minute of his talk. I’ve heard him bring it for hours before!). Over the last few years Richard has opened my eyes to the atrocious treatment in which the white dominated government of the United States, since day one, has bestowed upon Native Americans.

Did you know that Native American reservations aren’t even owned by Natives? We all think they own their land. They don’t. A person appointed by the President is their liaison to the land they live on, and before anything happens on a Native reservation, this man has to give them approval!

This was their country. We took if from them and now are continuing to oppress them.

On this day I am thankful, among many, many other things, for one thing in particular:

That Jesus Christ came to this earth as a baby of no status or privilege, incarnating himself into a broken world and righteously loving all of humanity to Him, even though many didn’t, and don’t, want to believe. I am also thankful for Jesus brutally dying on the cross, that my sins are forgiven because I believe in an unchanging God who longs to flood this world and all humanity with redemption and reconciliation to God, and to each other.

With that said, on this thankful day of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for what Jesus did so I, as a white man a part of the dominant culture that has given me extraordinary privilege for doing nothing other than being birthed into a powerful socially constructed group of people, can sincerely apologize for:

Metaphorically and physically raping and pillaging the Indians over centuries, the thing that created this holiday; and using the death of Christ for the cultural sins of slavery, colonization, the crusades, racism, sexism and anything else that holds others captive because they are not like the dominant culture of the day.

I’m sorry. And I’m thankful I believe in a God who is bigger than all of my people’s sins committed on behalf of God’s name.

Please watch the video of Richard. It’s powerful. Here is Richard’s website and here you can find him on YouTube.

Much love.