Rachel was on the couch reading the paper when she felt someone tugging on her pants. When she looked down, there was little Betty peering up, curiosity furrowing her brow.
"Yes dear?" Rachel said.
"How come those people were yelling at the parade today?"
Rachel crinkled her nose, then patted the couch beside her. "Come sit next to mommy, and I'll tell you a story."
Betty climbed up and settled in expectantly.
Rachel began, "Once upon a time, on what seemed at first like a perfectly ordinary day, some brown rabbits were playing in a valley. They and their parents and their parents' parents had lived in the valley so long, none of them could remember what it was like to live anywhere else.
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"On this seemingly ordinary day, some gray rabbits came from over the hill into the valley. At first the brown rabbits didn't mind, but then the gray rabbits turned out to be very rude.
"First of all, they erroneously went around saying they had discovered the valley ."
"But mommy," Betty interjected, "the brown rabbits were there first!"
Rachel nodded. "That's right, honey. The gray rabbits were quite insensible. And on top of that, instead of just eating the foliage, they pulled it up by the roots so it wouldn't grow back. They were also very lazy, and made the brown rabbits dig their burrows for them.
"The gray rabbits didn't like living near the brown rabbits, so they made them all move to one side of the valley. Every now and then, they decided they needed more space, so they made the brown rabbits move into smaller and smaller parts of the valley. And they were always the parts that had the least foliage.
"Whenever the brown rabbits said they didn't want to move anymore, the gray rabbits attacked them and killed as many of them as they could, until the brown rabbits finally gave up and moved where they were told."
Betty crossed her arms and pouted. "Those gray rabbits were really mean," she said.
"A lot of them were," Rachel replied, "but not all. Some of the gray rabbits started to realize just how mean all this was, and that perhaps they should do something to stop it.
"Plus, some new gray rabbits moved into the valley because they had been oppressed over the hill, where they lived before. They didn't like to see the brown rabbits suffering the same injustices they'd come to the valley to escape from.
"These rabbits got together with the brown rabbits and tried to talk to the other gray rabbits, to get them to stop being mean. Sometimes the gray rabbits listened, but the reforms they made never seemed to make much of a real difference. Sometimes the gray rabbits just called the ones who organized with the brown rabbits `fur-traitors.'
"In general, the gray rabbits said that they'd really like to help the brown rabbits, but they just didn't have the resources. They did, however, have the resources to declare a special holiday once a year to celebrate the rabbit who `discovered' the valley.
"The brown rabbits and the fur-traitors thought that was very hypocritical.
"So they got together and formed a revolutionary block. They went and protested this holiday and the many years of oppression it represented. They declared that the only way to make things better would be to do away with all forms of oppression, and the systems that uphold oppression. "They opposed the institution of a holiday glorifying the beginning of the valley's bloody history."
Rachel took a deep breath and looked at her daughter. Betty waited a moment for her to continue, then asked, "What happened next?"
"You have to decide the end for yourself," came the answer.
Betty lifted her chin and replied boldly, "Mommy? Can we go yell at the parade next year?" Rachel smiled. "Sure thing, dear."
Happy (anti)Columbus Day!
by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo Columnist
