My girl Justine posted this a few years ago, so all credit to her for writing. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Before you go be with your loved ones or whoever it is you choose to be with today, I’d really appreciate if you took a moment to fuck “tradition” and really think about what today (Thanksgiving) actually represents. Maintaining an active sense of consciousness is always, for lack of a better phrase, bueno.
Thanksgiving is exciting to me and I feel bad for saying that. I know feeling guity doesn’t get you anywhere, but there’s something about being happy on such an oppressive holiday that hella doesn’t feel right. Sooo before I do the whole eat a turkey, get full, and go shopping the next day deal, I really wanted to be conscious about what this day represents.
“On Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks. We give thanks for being the invader, the exploiter, the dominator, the greedy, the gluttonous, the colonizer, the thief, indeed the genocidaire, rather than on the other side of imperialism’s zero-sum murderous game. As Mark Twain points out in his War Prayer, wishing and being thankful for one’s own success and victory is, at the very same time, wishing and being thankful for another’s defeat and destruction. Do we want to make these kinds of wishes and give these kinds of thanks?
Native Americans, at least those who have survived the over 500 year genocidal project, are the poorest ethnic group in the richest country of the world. Each year, a group of Native Americans gather at Plymouth Rock on Thanksgiving Day to mourn and fast in honor of their people and in memory of what is lost. What do we want to be honored for? What honors are Americans thankful for?
With grave implications, Columbus wrote in his diary that with fifty men he could enslave the entire population and capture all their gold. This was no empty boast. The “savage” Arawaks were enslaved, many were tortured, their labor exploited, and their wealth stolen and shipped off to Europe. During this process of imperialist superexploitation, men had their hands chopped off, women had their breasts sliced and their pregnant bellies cut open, babies were thrown into the air, sometimes crashing to the ground and other times being impaled on those strange, shiny swords, presumably all in the name of Christianity, Civilization, and, eventually, Capitalism. The Arawaks were literally exploited to death and they are now extinct, all of them having been killed off through virulent brutality, overwork, and disease. Are Americans thankful they weren’t Arawaks? Are we thankful for not being the dehumanized “Other”?
The Pilgrims later came to America to escape religious persecution from the British, apparently in order to commit ethnic and religious persecution against the Native Americans and, later on, others. And this they did, and we in fact continue to do, effectively and mercilessly. At the time of the first Thanksgiving in the 1620s, it was also the dawn of another type of genocide. 1619 marks the first year that human beings were brutally “imported” from Africa to become slaves in America, if they happened to survive the cruel capture and horrific Atlantic crossing. So while Africans were being heartlessly torn away from their homes and families, viciously enslaved and dehumanized, tortured and killed, Native Americans were being attacked and annihilated. By the time that President Lincoln re-invented and instituted the Thanksgiving Day tradition in the early 1860s, the US was fighting its civil war. The US Civil War may have been fought over slavery (and labor more generally), though it was certainly not fought for the slaves (or for laborers). Sadly, there is much, much more to the tragic history of genocide and US complicity. Is it for this legacy that Americans give thanks? Are Americans thankful for the results of racism, sexism, and classism?
There are many reasons to celebrate and Americans have a lot to be thankful for. Genocide should not be one of those things. What are we doing on Thanksgiving Day? We would be appropriately appalled if Germany or Austria were celebrating a Holocaust Memorial Day, where Germans and Austrians got together with their families for dinner on their official day off, joyously remembering the things that are important to them, just as American families get together for Thanksgiving Day and think of things to be thankful for. (Similar scenarios, just as ugly, could be constructed for white supremacists, rapists, and murderers.) Some activities and events are inappropriate just because of the context in which they occur and the history of suffering they represent. Thanksgiving Day is clearly part of that history. Are Americans thankful for forgetting their own history, for having collective cultural and political amnesia?
We do not have to feel guilty, but we do need to feel something. At the very least, we need to reflect on how and what we feel. We should also review our history and what it means to us and others, while we must rethink our adopted traditions, including our Thanksgiving High Holy Day.”
Props to you if you read that! I took that excerpt from an article online. I copied and pasted just a couple key parts, but it was much much longer than that. Read it here (http://www.ccmep.org/2002_articles/General/112802_thankstaking.htm) if you want! It’s packed with hella information (a lot of it about the several genocides that the US has either aided in, or consciously chose not to stop), but it’s engaging and I learned a lot.
I’m not saying throw away all your food, or don’t spend the day with your loved ones. I’ll certainly be sharing a meal with my family tomorrow night in celebration of this “holiday” too, so I can’t be a hater. But at the very least, let’s really make an effort to know our histories, acknowledge the struggles that Native Americans have endured at the hands of this country’s forefathers, and be aware that while WE may have all the food and money we could ever need, there are a lot of people out there who don’t, and a lot of people who will not be having a joyous day.
Sooo Happy Thanksgiving, a.k.a. a day to give thanks for whatever it is you want to give thanks for even though this so-called “holiday” is based on european settlers mentally, spiritually, culturally and physically murdering the indigenous people of America and creating a country rooted in exploitation and genocide.
You may think I’m being morbid or all killjoyish. I know folks want to eat a lot and be with family and feel happy. Buuut I’m just saying, let’s promote consciousness and knowledge before turkey and shopping. Yay okay. Cool.
theidiotsheet:dareen:libraryland:amberclemens:oneay:lottieeeee:winterlief:
Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.
| — | Dwele, Flap Jacks |
| — | (paraphrased ) luis davila, jivamukti yoga instructor (via aux-camellias) |
| — | Binary Star- Evolution of man (via mischievoussouls) (via instantvintage) |
I should go back to Manhattan
it’s just a train ride away
I know nothing about leaving, but I know I should do it today
Sometimes I google words I still don’t understand like “trust” and “hearts.”
I miss life in the fast lane, where chances were interpreted as growth and never mistakes.
Life moves much more slowly nowadays, and chances have too much breathing room. Sometimes they get mixed up with thoughts I try to smother between my pillows, but both linger under my breath when I drink too much or sleep too little.
There’s too much grey area.
When did the brilliance fade away?
