Listeners may know Venice Williams as Lake Effect's regular Dig In! contributor and as the executive director of Alice’s Garden and the Fondy Food Center. But people scrolling Facebook in the days just after the election, saw her using her voice in a different way.
A post to her personal Facebook page about her feelings after the election went viral. Thousands of people around the world shared it and resonated with her words.
Williams says the response to her post has been incredible and surprising.
"If you are a friend with me on Facebook, you know this is how I write a post. I write the way I speak, so I never saw it as a poem or piece of prose, but my deep feelings pouring out," she explains.
As her post explores, Williams says her work hasn't changed in light of the election. She intends to continue creating community and nurturing these communities to enact change in whatever ways she can.
"We're about to collectively celebrate a federal holiday that was the beginning of colonialism for the United States of America."
But she also notes that election season comes at an interesting time, before a holiday that she says is indicative of the same attitudes that led to the election of President-elect Donald Trump.
"We're about to collectively celebrate a federal holiday that was the beginning of colonialism for the United States of America; that for my Choctaw heritage and for all of my indigenous siblings, began the attempt to dehumanize us, to massacre us, to act like we could just be dismissed and erased," says Williams.
"You can celebrate family, you can give thanks, you can bring forth a spirit of gratitude any day of the year you choose to."
Given the foundation of the holiday, she no longer celebrates Thanksgiving and she encourages others to deconstruct why they continue to celebrate the holiday.
She says, "Even though [Thanksgiving] will not be eradicated in my lifetime, I am called to use my voice, especially in my community, to say: come on y'all. You can celebrate family, you can give thanks, you can bring forth a spirit of gratitude any day of the year you choose to. But for me, with my African and Choctaw ancestry, I can no longer participate."
For people who are interested in changing or ending their Thanksgiving festivities, Williams suggests holding celebrations of thankfulness on a different day unconnected to the holiday or using the day of Thanksgiving to fast, pray and reflect.
