Anti-thanksgiving and anti-colonial protests started in several US states where protesters damaged many storefronts and destroyed a war memorial.
According to the report, more than 10 businesses in Portland had their windows broken, including Chase Bank, the New Seasons Market, and Hawthorne Boulevard. The vandals even spray-painted on their walls, like “Pequot Massacre”, “Land back”, “1637” and “F–k thxgiving”.
The LandBack campaign is an Indigenous movement against white superiority. The Pequot Massacre points to the 26th of May, 1637, slaughter on the Pequot tribe by Connecticut colonists that killed 500 adults and children on the banks of the Mystic River.
The organizers of this protest said that Thanksgiving represents colonization, capitalism, and gentrification. Furthermore, the protestors pulled down a statue in the city, which was built to honor soldiers of the Civil, Spanish-American, Mexican, and Indian wars, named the Soldiers Monument.
The Portland police arrested three people, each on 10 counts of criminal mischief. The damage that the demonstrators caused is estimated to several thousand dollars.
Protesters were held in Chicago as well, they failed in their attempt to pull down the statue of President William McKinley by tying a rope to a car. President McKinley’s drive for expansionism is now considered racist and genocidal to Indigenous people.
Moreover, in Washington, a statue of Abraham Lincoln was damaged with red paint. Also in Minneapolis, the demonstrators pulled down a George Washington monument and poured yellow and red paint on it; along with that a “Pioneer Statue” was spray-painted with the caption “no thanks”, “no more genocide” and “land back”.