Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, where we

remember the past and choose to repeat it. Today's episode is a remix of a five-part series of

episodes we did several years ago about telling native stories beyond what the U.S.

tends to share about its history. The series stretched all the way

from Columbus to modern day, and today we're sharing the highlights real of what stuck out

to us looking back. Sources today include Democracy Now, in the Thick, Intercepted, Backstory,

citations needed, The Dig, Code Switch, making contact, let's talk native,

ideas, Native America calling, and break dances with wolves.

As much of the United States prepares to mark Thanksgiving this weekend, many Native Americans will gather in Plymouth to commemorate the 47th National Day of Morning.

This year is dedicated to water protectors at Standing Rock and to the struggle for recognition of Indigenous People's Day.

To discuss this and more, we're joined in San Francisco by Indigenous historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz.

She's the author of an Indigenous People's History of the United States and co-author of all the real Indians died off and 20 other myths about Native Americans.

Welcome back to Democracy Now, Roxanne. Could you tell us, as the nation prepares to observe

Thanksgiving, a national holiday ostensibly meant to honor Native people, what are your

thoughts?

Well, thank you for having me on the show.

Actually, it's never been about honoring Native Americans.

It's been about the origin story at the United States,

the beginning of genocide, dispossession, and constant warfare from

that time, actually from 1607 in Jamestown, until the present. It's a colonial system that was

set up. There's a sort of annual calendar for this origin story, beginning with

Columbus, October 12. Why celebrate Columbus? It was the onset of colonialism, the slave trade,

...