For me and many others, the month of November has always been associated with Thanksgiving. While many of us non-Native Americans are eating our turkey and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving Day, Native, or First Nations, Peoples are honoring a Day of Mourning.
In Tonya Mosley and Allison Hagan’s  November 25, 2020 piece, they share that “ for Native peoples’ Thanksgiving isn’t a celebration. It’s a National Day of Mourning” (Wbur). They share that “many Native Americans say Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the slaughter of millions of Indigenous people and the theft of their lands by outsiders… [Native Americans] declared Thanksgiving a National Day of Mourning 50 years ago.”

Kevin Robinson, our magazine’s founder, reminded us that the European colonizers faced a “harsh new environment that would have killed (them) without the goodwill of the Wampanoag Tribe’s show of Health Equity.” However, “the Marginalized BIPOC communities of today have not realized the same health equity.” In return for their generosity and goodwill, they were murdered, raped, and violently removed from the land that they belonged to. 

There continue to be huge disparities in our healthcare system that negatively impact Indigenous, Black, and other communities of Color.  I personally know BIPOC who have lost loved ones because of the way the healthcare system has viewed them as less than human.  But until last year, I didn’t notice it. I didn’t really feel it, like deep in my bones.

My father died from Alzheirmers Dementia in December 2022. He took a drastic turn for the worse after he fell and broke his hip in April 2022. This was when I found myself most often navigating the hospital, rehabilitation, and long-term care systems. My father was/is one of the most important human beings in my life. He was a white, upper-middle-class, cisgender male with good health insurance and a long-term health care plan. He had two white upper-middle-class daughters. He had a lot of privilege, yet it was devastating to watch the way he was treated and the level of care he received. It made me so angry and broke my heart to see someone I loved so dearly so dehumanized.

I understand that facilities are severely understaffed, underpaid, and overworked; yet it is still painful when someone that you love is neglected through the current healthcare system. Although my sister and I tried to make sure that one of us was always with him, there were, of course, still things we couldn’t do and were not allowed to do by ourselves. Once, my dad was left for hours sitting in a wheelchair, sliding down until he almost fell off. He was left in his own feces because we weren’t allowed as well as able to lift him ourselves to clean him. He was left in bed for an entire day because there were no therapies on the weekends and not enough staff to get him up to move around. We were told that he was “too big” to get therapy in the group room and therefore needed one-on-one care. His 5’10’’ height and 160 lb body seemed to be an imposition on the therapists. We were told time and time again he gets “too agitated”.

When I think about health equity today, I can’t help but wonder: if this was our experience as a white, cis,, middle-class family, what kind of care are  BIPOC families receiving? What kind of care are BIPOC families receiving that also can’t afford insurance and long-term health care plans? What about families that don’t have the privilege to be able to take turns being with their loved ones at the hospital all day, let alone pay for a caregiver? If my father wasn’t being treated like a human being, what about their loved ones? What about them?

I am a little ashamed that it took me this long to really feel it. It took my heart breaking for me to TRULY understand, for me to FEEL, not just know it intellectually. It cracked me down to my bones and it all came flooding in. I think that most of us disassociate and distance ourselves from the plight of “others” to avoid the overwhelming sense of grief and suffering that we would feel if we were to open our hearts. Yet, this is exactly what we must do if we want to create a world where we are all treated with dignity and respect, regardless of our race, gender, ability, or economic status. We can support each other and hold each other up. If we do this for each other, nothing is impossible.  

I do know some white folks who have stopped celebrating Thanksgiving. I haven’t done that yet, and I transparently am not sure if I will. What I will do is continue to share what I have come to learn about The National Day of Mourning and the REAL history of Thanksgiving. And I will continue to fight for equity in my everyday life.