🦃 Mondays with Morales: Of Turkeys, Tax Fraud, and Tribal Justice ⚖️

⚖️ Leonard Peltier's 50-Year Wait: A Symbol of Indigenous Injustice 🌅 Alcatraz Gathering Sends Message: Indigenous Resistance Endures

Dec 02, 2024

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
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🦃👨‍👦 This week, President Biden pardoned two turkeys and his son Hunter, letting them go free from punishment. 😮 But many people are upset because he won't free Leonard Peltier, a Native American leader who has been in prison for 50 years! 🎖️🏹 While rich and powerful people often get pardoned, Native Americans continue fighting for fair treatment. ✊ They showed their strength by gathering at Alcatraz Island to remember their history and demand justice. 🌅📜

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🗝️ Takeaways

🔑 Biden pardoned turkeys and his son while ignoring Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier's 50-year imprisonment
🏹 Indigenous communities continue fighting for justice through peaceful gatherings like the Alcatraz ceremony
⚠️ Trump's potential self-pardon could signal growing authoritarianism
🗽 America's pardon system reveals deep inequities in the justice system
🌵 Indigenous resistance remains strong despite ongoing colonial patterns

By Maextro Morales

Hermanos y hermanas, another week passes in our beautiful desert city of Tucson, where the saguaros stand tall like ancestral witnesses to the ongoing saga of colonial justice in these United States.

Today, we need to talk about pardons, priorities, and the painful perpetuation of historical patterns that continue to plague our Indigenous relatives.

Last week, as families across the settler nation prepared their dinner tables for their celebration of conquest disguised as gratitude, President Biden participated in that peculiar colonial ritual of pardoning turkeys. Two birds named Peach and Blossom (and no, Mitch McConnell wasn't one of the turkeys pardoned) will live out their days in comfort at a university farm, saved from the fate that awaits millions of their feathered relatives.

How generous of el presidente, no?

Now, let's talk about Hunter Biden's pardon. While many are up in arms about this, let's keep perspective, mi gente. Remember Trump's first pardon?

That went to our own local tormentor, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, without even following standard pardon procedures. At least Biden's pardon, problematic as it may be, followed proper channels.

But this brings me to the heart of today's reflexión, mis amigos: Leonard Peltier.

For those who don't know, Peltier is an American Indian Movement leader who has spent nearly half a century behind bars – longer than many of our young activists have been alive – imprisoned based on evidence so flimsy it would make a cardboard casita look sturdy. His case has become a symbol of the systemic injustice faced by Indigenous peoples, with international human rights organizations calling for his release for decades.

Just days ago, thousands of Indigenous peoples gathered at Alcatraz Island for our annual Thankstaking Day sunrise ceremony, where I stood among them as Leonard's powerful words were read to the crowd. Earlier that week, Biden pardoned turkeys while continuing to ignore the pleas of Native nations for Peltier's freedom.

Fifty years. Let that sink in like monsoon rain into our parched desert soil.

Biden, who stood before tribal leaders with rehearsed remorse, spoke pretty words about historical injustices against Native peoples. He apologized for the wounds of the past while allowing those same wounds to fester in the present.

How many more Thanksgiving turkeys will be pardoned while Leonard Peltier remains behind bars?

Looking ahead, mis amigos, let me share a prediction: Trump, in his characteristic self-serving style, will likely make his first act if re-elected, not his promised mass deportations (his first broken promise of day one), but rather pardoning himself. Watch as he preemptively pardons his family, friends, and possibly even his favorite Fox and Friends news personalities.

These aren't just pardons – they're warning signs of growing fascism, racism, and xenophobia spreading across our nation like wildfire.

But if there's one thing I learned standing on Alcatraz at dawn last Thursday, it's this: Indigenous peoples have survived centuries of colonial violence and injustice. We have always been here in our homeland of Turtle Island and will continue to be here, resistant and resilient as the desert itself.

The message is as clear as an Arizona summer sky: Justice remains a commodity reserved for the privileged. You can be a turkey, you can be the president's son, but if you're an Indigenous warrior who dared to stand against the empire?

Pues, for you, there is no mercy.

Here in the borderlands, where our Indigenous and Chicano histories intertwine like desert wildflowers after the rain, we understand this truth in our bones. We see how the system pardons its own while criminalizing our existence, resistance, and survival.

Until next week, mi gente. Keep fighting, keep resisting, keep demanding justice for ALL our relations.

¡La lucha sigue!

Maextro Morales
Escribiendo desde el corazón del Pueblo, en occupied Tohono O'odham territories