Talk:National Day of Mourning (United States protest)

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Date checking[edit]

The formal National Day of Mourning activities did begin in 1970, according to web sources. It is unclear whether the references to a violent confrontation in 1968 refer to informal activities, or if it is just a botched date. I'll do some more looking. Brian Rock 15:47, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

There was apparently some violence directed against the protesters in 1997. This was widely reported on in 1998, so this might be the actual date. The text of the article would point to the late 1980s, though, so the issue in my mind is still unresolved. Brian Rock 16:01, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
After finding more web-based info supporting the 1997 date, I've decided to change it. Brian Rock 16:08, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

Coverage[edit]

The whole article focuses rather too narrowly on this one specific "National Day of Mourning" without reference to the institution of a national day of mourning, or national days of mourning due to other circumstances, e.g. the death of heads of state, or large-scale accidents. Burschik 15:36, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NPOV[edit]

Anyone who reads the opening paragraphs will see the NPOV problems in this article.

Thanksgiving day, for them, is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture. Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.

While the treatment of Native Americans by European settlers was, by today's standards, horrific, the language and tone used in this article has a very obvious POV. Jrkarp 21:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Sounds like you disagree with what the National Day of Mourning is, and not what the wikipedia article says about it. Bugg42 18:38, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, I completely understand why they have it, and I couldn't care less if they do. However, the words that I put in bold do not convey pure fact; they are obviously intended to convey the point of view of the author. They are hardly neutral. Jrkarp 04:58, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"No I completely understand why they have it, and I couldn't care less if they do". Obviously this guy is racist imperialist and flagged this for shits and giggles.
what you highlighted in bold are true, factual statements — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.204.6.138 (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree that the article appears to convey a point of view, but in a different way than described above. The sections "Will the Protest Ever End?" and "Wamsutta's Speech" seem to be included to make a point rather than providing meaningful information for the article. They could have just as easily have been included as external links to other sites. For example, the entire "Will the Protest Ever End?" section could have been easily replaced with a simple sentence outlining the concerns of Moonanum James and a link to his comments. Statements such as "When police brutality no longer exists in communities of color" seem to be included to make them more visible rather than as a way to make the material accessible to the reader.

I agree with your points, and see that as further evidence of bias as well. Jrkarp 04:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It might be worth noting in this discussion that the words in bold are taken from the plaque that the town of Plymouth erected at Cole's Hill to acknowledge the National Day of Mourning. They are not, then, the words of this article's author but the "official" description of how the day came into being."
Wouldn't it be more effective and informative to cite the plaque and not paraphrase from it? It seems like an important thing to point out.

Jrkarp, the genocide on indians isn't a POV statement. It's a fact. NO ONE can deny that it has taken place! And no one can deny that indians still are becoming victims of vicious racism. The inclusion of the paragraph "Will the Protest Ever End?" is also needed, as very few of the readers of the article would bother to open the link and read it if it wasn't. But if you have heard any criticism of the protest you should feel free to include that too, if you think that would make it less POV:ish.--DaGrob 17:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And why are you trying to deny native americans their right to speak out against police brutality, racism and imperialism? They have a right to express why they think that Thanksgiving is humiliating and demeaning!--DaGrob 17:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jrkarp isn't trying to deny freedom of speech--there are important policies of Wikipedia that should be followed in order to form a proper encyclopedia. I'd also argue that the inclusion of "Will the Protest Never End" is a completely unnecessary section; the information and references the speech should be included in the body of the text if it is important. Including full texts of speeches, while perhaps something for wikisource, is definitely not best as is. Read Wikipedia:What wikipedia is not Moonty 08:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"The genocide on indians isn't a POV statement. It's a fact. NO ONE can deny that it has taken place!" >> Not according to historic records. The vast majority of American Indians sucummed to disease NOT genocide. I have changed this writeup to reflect the widely held historic view and scientific evidence. From: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997), "Death by Disease" by Ann F. Ramenofsky in "Archaeology" (March/April 1992), Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (2006) NHRodman 18:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the context of the discussion about how this article should read, the question of whether a genocide did or did not happen is irrelevant. Those battles belong in other entries. It is worth noting that entries on the Christmas holiday do not delve into the question of whether or not jesus actually existed, was born, was a god, etc. The only salient detail is that the holiday commemorates something that the faithful believe happened. Likewise, this article should explain that the Day of Mourning is thought to commemorate what some people allege, believe, contend, and think happened. That is, the point of THIS article is to explain the holiday/tradition, not to take sides on whether that tradition is based on fact or fiction.

There are plenty of other places in Wiki-land for you to hash out the truth behind claims about genocide. In that regard, it might be interesting for people interested in following up this issue to consult the U.N. definition of genocide, and see whether the Indian's experince meets those criteria. My hunch is it probably does, especially when one considers such things as the intentional destruction of cultural values and lifestyle. But again, I will leave that to others to decide.

A final thought would be that there is something anachronistic in using that term here, as "genocide" was specifically used to refer to 20th century events, namely, the Holocaust. No one alive at the time of the Pilgrims and Puritans would have recognized or thought in terms of "genocide," in other words. Admittedly, since 1945 the usage of the term has been expanded to cover things besides the Holocaust, e.g., Rwanda, Kosovo, etc. (See, e.g., http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007043) This makes sense, but in the interest of clarity, a re-write of this article might therefore use wording like the following: "... in actions that, if they happened as is alleged, would today be described as genocide against the Indian community...."

C d h 01:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Date confusion[edit]

The National Day of Mourning is an annual protest held on the third Thursday of November (known to many as Thanksgiving) in the United States of America since 1970.

Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of the month. Is the National Day of Mourning the same day as Thanksgiving, or the third Thursday? Either way, the above intro should change. --PurpleRain 21:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

National Day of Mourning?[edit]

Isn't a national day of mourning when the President of the United States signs a proclamation stating all flags are to be flown at half-staff, businesses are to close early, etc. Like what happened when Ronald Reagan died? Happyme22 17:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

Are there sources for anything on this page, other than the first paragraph? All of the links that say "source" in parenthesis are broken. Is there a source for this speech that was pasted verbatim into the article? It seems out of place. I haven't seen that much text pasted into other articles. Urlass 15:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked up each of the obsolete sources via Internet Archive and put in current replacements with identical content. Admittedly not in ideal ref form, but I'm leaving that task to someone else more adept at ref usage.--Goldfndr 01:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wampsutta or Wamsutta?[edit]

I've seen it both ways. --Goldfndr 02:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bias[edit]

The second opening paragraph was full of so much anti-Indian hate that I deleted it. It added NOTHING to the article but bias. Whoever wrote the paragraph needs to realize that inherent within the idea of citing sources is CORRECTLY citing sources. I am a colonial history doctoral student and this paragraph completely misrepresented Diamond and the literature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.180.242.96 (talk) 06:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise, I edited a part of the Later Protests section to remove part of two sentences. I edited "Speakers are by invitation only, so they enforce their own point of view." to delete the second half of the sentence, since it appeared to be aimed at assigning motive to the protest organizers, which reflects a negative bias that is not supported by documentation. I also removed the word only from an earlier sentence that originally read "All are welcome, but the UNAINE remind participants that this is a day when only the Native people speak about their history and struggles, including contemporary ones." The sentence after that, stating that speakers are by invitation only should clarify who chooses the speakers, and removes any assignment of motive that is not supported by the words or actions of the UNAINE.The1TrueBen (talk) 20:42, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Speech[edit]

I removed the speech at the end of the article. A full transcript of a speech is not encyclopedic material. If the speech is to be included, a subsection about the speech should be added, and quotes from the speech should be used, as opposed to the entire thing. Jrkarp (talk) 16:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1997 violence section removed[edit]

In looking over the 1997 violence section, I realized that essentially the entire section was almost word-for-word copied from one of its sources, namely [1]. There are two issues here: first, we can't accept verbatim text from another source unless it was posted by the copyright holder of that source or it is otherwise licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. See Wikipedia:Copyright violation. For this reason, I've removed the text completely.

Obviously the article is poorer without any account of this issue at all. However, I have a second concern that I would like those restoring the section to consider: relying heavily on sources with a particular point of view (as this section did) is not consistent with the policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. We are obligated to find neutral news sources for statements of fact, or to indicate whose point of view we are presenting if we are presenting a particular viewpoint. Various points of view should be balanced and cited if at all possible. -- SCZenz (talk) 23:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Context and other sources[edit]

This article really needs additional, third-party, valid sources. Obviously the day of protest was started in an era of protest, but academics have studied that time and must have written about this as well, or journalists have, and in a wider sense than just covering a particular day's activities. There has been much writing about Native American activities and history. These are the sources that should be used, not just the UAINE organization's own accounts. What is the perspective of other American Indian tribes? Do any disagree? How about the ones making good revenue from casinos and other facilities? Times have changed since 1970 - all evils may not be cured, in terms of the speech at the end, but much has changed. I would agree that a National Day of Mourning, in the traditional sense, should be explained.--Parkwells (talk) 18:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Please note that the Wampanoag question the involvement of UAINE in the Day of Mounrning. The absence of Native community voices (contrast with political activists) makes this article questionable. See also: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/daymourn.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.141.142.162 (talk) 21:52, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Historical issues[edit]

The Thanksgiving page says the first official Thanksgivings were 1621 and '23, proclaimed by Governor Bradford, and not '37 proclaimed by Winthrop as stated here. Can this be reconciled? 129.215.25.81 (talk) 11:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (February 2018)[edit]

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Look-over, source check, tone, etc.[edit]

I'm going to look this article over, check and archive sources, attempt to improve the tone and maybe add some pictures (I will carefully review the preceeding discussions above). I will work in my sandbox but please feel free to leave suggestions here. Light&highbeautyforever (talk) 15:53, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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