Thanksgiving 2005

Maybe it is important, every now and then, to actively question that which we take for granted.

All of us are victims of our culture. Things that we believe are true and honest, are in fact lies and distortions. I'm not saying that we shouldn't celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving, I am just saying that we should do so mindfully.

Whenever we participate, even indirectly, in violence and genocide, we are tarred by that brush. We are beneficiaries, at least those of us born to caucasion parents, of the expolitation of people of color. We are beneficiaries, at least those of us born as Americans, of the exploitation of other nations. Face it, for all the good that is the United States, our history and our present in bathed in the blood of innocent people.

Americans are kind, generous, often compassionate people, but we owe our present power and standard of living to the genocide of Native Americans; to the usurpation of land and wealth and natural resources of other lands and people.

Maybe this Thanksgiving, while celebrating with our friends and families, somewhere in the festivities, we could pause and ask forgiveness of all those other people we have harmed.

Ask for forgiveness from the Potawatomi, Lakota, Nes Perce, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Aliut, Koniag, Delaware, Zulu, Yoruba, Edo Benin, Mexican, Hawaiian, Guatamalan, Iraqi and all of the rest.

Honor them with your food and festivities. Honor their memory and all that they sacrificed so that you can be here today, in America, with generous helping of food and warm homes, and good clothing and rich lives.
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No Thanks to Thanksgiving
By Robert Jensen, AlterNet. Posted November 23, 2005.

“One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States. ..”