Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving By Robert Jensen

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving
By Robert Jensen, AlterNet. Posted November 22, 2007.

Thanksgiving Day should be turned into a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of America's indigenous peoples.


After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States. I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given their common commitment to this country's distorted self-image that supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals, including a considerable number of my friends.

The most common argument went something like this: OK, it's true that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story -- about the European invaders coming in peace to the "New World," eager to cooperate with indigenous people -- which conveniently ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the continent. But we can reject the culture's self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends.

The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism -- that individual behavior in private is more important than collective action in public. The claim that through private action we can create our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption.

So this November, rather than mount another attack on the national mythology around Thanksgiving -- a mythology that amounts to a kind of holocaust denial, and which has been critiqued for many years by many people -- I want to explore why so many who understand and accept this critique still celebrate Thanksgiving, and why rejecting such celebrations sparks such controversy.


Once we know, what do we do?

Article continues:
http://www.alternet.org/story/68170/

[patrice]

1. There can be no real Thanks without Truth.

I am the first to say "We MUST recognize what 'we' really are" so we can give thanks for whatever really is good.

I don't think there is a problem with the notion of giving REAL Thanks, Thanks not based on lies, but rather Thanks for what really is good, as distinct from what really IS bad about Us.

The problem is with the strong tendency toward False Dichotomies and the Fascism that that generates: "You can't love your country and criticize it. We ARE goodness manifest, ergo we give Thanks, and anyone who disagrees is not Thankful, not Good."

Thank you very much for you post OG. What do we do? Go out and find others who understand our True nature and who are resisting the blasphemers amongst us. Be with them, face-to-face. Discover what our work is.

Solidarity!

[L0oniX]

2. Americans are lemmings who just go along with it all without questioning

[gtar100]

10. All 301,139,947 of them?

Think about this a moment in light of your assertion. Each person (as in 1+1+...+1=301,139,947) is an individual with thoughts, ideas, hopes, dreams, circumstances, possibilities and limitations. Most (if not all) individuals participate in groups, organizations, affiliations, and friendships. These groups have a general character, sense of direction, purpose, and meaning beyond the individuals involved. And in their turn these groups create relationships between groups creating larger "groups" or movements. None of this is static and the outcomes are multifaceted. Which one is the true face of America? DU members? MoveOn members? DLC members? Corporations? Churches? Little League players? Mountain Climbing clubs? The ABA? Congress? Your Friday night poker group? Freepers? Liberals? Fascists? Pacifists? Unions? Gangs? Book clubs? Code Pink?

What you see as "Americans" can easily change with a shift in perspective. That is the danger of generalizations.

[aquart]

3. A National Day of Hypocrisy? I think not.

We're not sorry. We wanted this land enough to kill for it and we killed for it.

Nobody here plans to give up an inch of this land. Or pay rent to the nearest tribe.

So take all this sanctimonious phony contrition and stuff it.

[patrice]

5. No one really owns anything REAL to give up.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

Not to minimalize the Genocide of Native Americans and Slavery, if we aren't there already, most of us are well on our way to the same status.

I think you are putting words "... give up an inch of this land. Or pay rent to the nearest tribe." in OG's mouth. S/he ASKED what to do.

P.S. Re "hypocrisy" see my mention of false dichotomies above. I think many people who employ them are out to claim un-due influence over the minds of others.

[patrice]

7. P.P.S. As far as all of my un-REAL stuff, you can have it! nt

[classysassy]

13. Justice

The wheels of justice grind slowely,but grind they do.

[noamnety]

4. k&r (nt)

[glowing]

6. The family I married into is part Native American... I still need to enroll

my son with the tribe. On applications, my husband identifies as Native American. Some of my in-laws live on the reservation. The most famous member of their tribe is Heather Locklear. Anyway, guess what, they celebrate Thanksgiving. Why? Because its a time for family to get together, relax, and appreciate one another. As for the whole pilgrim/ Indian b.s. that is protrayed in the Bush history books, they don't pay attention. And seriously, you have to live in a shell or a deep well to have not learned something about the real history and mass genocide that took place in this country.

[Irishonly]

9. Navajoes

I taught in New Mexico for a couple of years during the 80s. I taught in the public schools althought most of my students were Navajo. I thought they would not like Thanksgiving at all because of what had been done to all of the Native Americans. I was wrong. I remember one student telling me that if it hadn't been for them the honkeys would have died. That year I tried blood pudding for the first time.

[XemaSab]

8. Who should atone?

It's like the question of reparations for slavery.

My family came here in the late 1800's after slavery and after most of the extirpation of the Natives.

Yes, I still have white privilege, and I consider myself fortunate to be white in this racist country.

But nobody alive today killed the Native Americans.

[Berry Cool]

11. Same here. It'll never happen.

And it's not just because "people are lemmings" or any of that. It's because, shy of some religious rituals, holidays are about CELEBRATIONS--not about rending your garments and wearing sackcloth and ashes over the evils done by people who lived long before you were ever alive.

This guy is also assuming there is a "collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving" that is somehow evil. I would disagree. I think the "collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving" is quite different now from what he may think it is. It really HAS become a day to acknowledge and be thankful for (or at least attempt to be thankful for) the good things in one's life with one's family. That is not just a "create our own meaning in private" thing. It has happened in public. In a way, you could say it is as a result of the collective action of people in private, whether or not he thinks such a thing is possible. Honestly, when's the last time you heard someone, personally or in the media, say "Thanksgiving is the day we set aside to celebrate white people's conquest of America, yea hurray"? Does anybody celebrate it for that reason...even conservatives?

No one is engaging in "holocaust denial" by celebrating Thanksgiving. What they are doing is saying "I am grateful for my life the way it is now. I am not denying anything bad in the past that may have somehow served to shape life on this particular continent unfairly for my benefit. But that is not what this day is about."

In short, nobody can accuse you of celebrating something evil if evil is not what you are celebrating. And rejecting any celebration because you are accusing other people of celebrating evil, or of "holocaust denial," will spark controversy even among liberals when you yourself are a humorless stick-up-the-butt liberal.

It's quite simple, really. People tend to be resentful of being told that their celebrations, holidays and traditions are inherently evil. And they will need a far better explanation of why they should give them up than this guy has to offer. As for replacing it with an "atonement holiday"? Good luck with that.

[XemaSab]

12. I couldn't have said it better myself

I was musing yesterday that holidays are all celebrations of the values of a particular culture, and no culture or holiday is blameless.