Thanksgiving Ambivalence
While many of us in the US are looking forward to a long weekend of food and festivities, this is one of those celebrations that elicits some discomfort for me…
Because the settlement/colonization/appropriation of North America by Europeans has many dark dimensions of oppression and genocide (another of which was recently brought to our attention by Danny Ho), I have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. In the Bay Area, I’ve heard some folks call this holiday “Thankstaking”. On the one hand I think that the spirit of being thankful and sharing time with family and friends is very important, and on the other hand, we need to remember and recognize our collective history.
How do you feel about Thanksgiving? Please tell us in the comments section of this post!
And in an effort to share perspectives on this, here are directions you might want to look in:
No Thanks to Thanksgiving on Alternet
A People’s History of the United States
Blue Scholars: No Rest for the Weary
Understanding Power: the indispensable Chomsky
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Tags: ambivalence, colonization, history, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Thanksgiving.
3 comments
So…
Thanksgiving is good holiday because it offers an opportunity for people to get together with friends and family. But, I agree, it is important to remember how Native Americans have been and continually are oppressed.
The question is, do you eliminate Thanksgiving because it may inadvertently celebrate oppression of the Native Americans? Or do we return the lands that we stole?
I don’t think there is an easy answer.
Great to read your thoughts on this, Eugene. I know this is perhaps a peculiar post for BPR, but as API*s/Asian Americans, we are often connected to various facets of history, society, etc. We have heritages that have been drastically/detrimentally shaped by the actions of the US and western nations, and many of us as American citizens (and generally as people living in this country) play roles in shaping this nation’s direction (whether through voting, volunteering, consuming, working, etc.). The choice to celebrate or how to celebrate a holiday like Thanksgiving is to me part of this larger and more complex picture.
Because it’s relatively fresh in history and we’ve had postcolonial and civil rights movements in recent time, Thanksgiving continues
to be challenged and rightfully so, to make people aware of its distortions.
I’ve thought about this and it’s led me to questions about all of the holidays and rituals we accept without (or with little) question, especially those with origins that are unclear or in our distant past:
When were all of our rituals “inherited” because of subjugation? When were rituals voluntarily incorporated into my heritage and culture?
What should we do when/if that is discovered?
When and why does it matter?
You know what I mean?