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First Voices Indigenous Radio

On this week’s episode, First Voic­es Radio digs deep into its 28-year-old Archive and brings lis­ten­ers oth­er inter­pre­ta­tions and obser­va­tions sur­round­ing the Amer­i­can hol­i­day known as Thanksgiving.

In the first half-hour, Robert Jensen is an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor in the School of Jour­nal­ism at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Austin and a found­ing board mem­ber of the Third Coast Activist Resource Cen­ter. In his writ­ing and teach­ing, Dr. Jensen draws on a vari­ety of crit­i­cal approach­es to media and pow­er. He has addressed ques­tions of race through a cri­tique of white priv­i­lege and insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism. Dr. Jensen and Tiokasin dis­cuss the his­to­ry of Thanks­giv­ing, based on themes in his book, The Heart of White­ness: Con­fronting Race, Racism and White Priv­i­lege” (City Lights, 2005). More about Dr. Jensen at http://​rober​twjensen​.org/

In the sec­ond half-hour, we present John Trudel­l’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Address.” Although his remarks are from 1980, lis­ten­ers will be amazed at how Trudel­l’s obser­va­tions have stood the test of time and still ring very true to today. The names of U.S. politi­cians that Trudell men­tions have changed over the years but the issues that Native peo­ple faced then and now remain the same. John Trudell (19462015) has been iden­ti­fied as a poet, a fight­er for Native Amer­i­can rights, an agi­ta­tor, and lots of oth­er things. But if you were to have asked him which of these descrip­tions best suits him he would have refused to be pinned down. Actu­al­ly I don’t con­sid­er myself to be any of those things. They’re things that I do but they’re parts of me. They’re not the total.” Indeed, Trudell was the com­plex sum of all that he saw, endured and accom­plished in his 69 years, a time in which he expe­ri­enced more than most peo­ple might in sev­er­al lifetimes.