The Vicious Reality Behind the Thanksgiving Myth

It is called "whitewashing". It has occurred and continues on every continent on the planet.

Why don't we just cancel Thanksgiving? Yes, that's the answer. Stop gathering with friends and family on the least-commercialized holiday of the year. Stop with moms and dads teaching sons and daughters the finer points of making gravy and carving turkeys. Stop saying grace before dinner. Stop with the family photographs and touch football games and the after-dinner naps and after-dinner conversations where, every once in awhile, something genuine gets said and people learn from it. Stop all of it. Because it's just wrong, wrong, wrong! Instead, let's just all go to work that day or, better yet, fast and sit in silence to atone for sins committed long ago that nothing can ever change. Yes, genocide is wrong, but virtually every thinking person in this country knows that what we did to Native Americans was horrible and that they suffer still. Will feeling guilty about that change anything? Will history classes that teach the truth--and I'm guessing that they do a much better job of it than when I was a student--stop Thanksgiving? Just tired of it. Let me enjoy Thanksgiving in peace and leave the liberal guilt for another day. Thanks.

Oh please... Spare me the hypocritical puling. Everyone who enjoys the freedom and high quality of life provided by America and the culture created by those horrible old white guys either shut up, or donate their ill-gotten incomes and property to whichever politically correct group they decide were “victimized.” Until then, the rest of us will celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas and the great country our forefathers sacrificed to provide. Happy Thanksgiving !!!

Thanksgiving celebrates genocide and land theft. Amazed that we still celebrate this barbaric history. Should be a secular day of atonement

Most Americans are secular now and they don’t think or care about Pilgrims, Indians, any of that at Thanksgiving. Anymore than they care about the historical origins of the names of the month. Thanksgiving is about food, family and shopping.

It’s funny how (mostly white) people freak out when the tiniest truths tarnish the ridiculous myths most of us grew up with. The story of the first Thanksgiving is as bogus as the idea that Confederate soldiers were “heroes”. Pop quiz: how many statues of Adolf Hitler remain in public in Germany? Answer: zero. It’s about time we did some similar soul searching in this country. Why not start your Thanksgiving meal this year by thanking the native people of the Americas for being stewards of the land before your ancestors got here? Baby steps....

Articles like this willfully miss the point that we wouldn’t be where we are if our predecessors hadn’t been where they were.

This is America. It’s all about telling ourselves pretty little lies or telling ourselves that it’s actually just too late for the truth to even be of much significance, if it even matters at all. Trump’s election is often referred to as a kind of apocalypse— a word that doesn’t mean “the end of the world,” but more of a “revealing.” And what it revealed is a kind of national karma. A karma that cannot and will not be undone until we have an honest reckoning with our history. That doesn’t mean we don’t celebrate national holildays. It just means we have to be honest and have perspective. Our feelings about holidays like Thanksgiving will no doubt change, but that’s the price of a just accounting of who we are, which is a small price to pay compared to the price people of color have paid for us to be here. Happy Thanksgiving.

Further reading, the book 1491, shows what the Americas were like before being "discovered".

Human civilization in the Americas was not as ancient and rich as that in Europe. They did not even have the wheel. They had no alphabet or literature or great artists. Where were their magnificent cathedrals. Where was their history of exploration of the world?

Thanksgiving is modeled on the Biblical festival of "Pentecost"-- or "Succoth"-- a harvest holiday, whose keynote is thankfulness. But despite its religious origins, it has nevertheless been a day that all Americans, regardless of religion (or of antipathy toward religion) can celebrate. What then about its *further* association with the myth or legend of a peaceful meal hundreds of years ago in which some Pilgrims and some Native Americans (indigenous people) gave thanks together? This legend, like so many others, is best understood as aspirational and inspirational, not historical. It pays significant tribute to Native Americans, their skill, humanity and good will, and in that way may inspire at least some (other) Americans to be more mindful and respectful of the original Americans, their rights, their plight and their cultural greatness. Yes, as with all legends, the historical reality was more complex and problematic--to some varying degree, on all sides. But such history should *not* detract from the very great value, in a society with so many different people, of one day that is for everyone, a day to try remember what good we do have and ought to be willing to share.

The cooperation narrative makes everyone look better, I agree, which is much of the point. As a fairy tale presented to school children it has a bit more charm than, well, kids, the history of the world is largely slaughter and conquest and your ancestors managed over 250 relentless years to push off their land and murder and isolate these noble native folks and their millenia-old civilization.

OK, so we need positive themes to help us be positive, good people. At the same time we need to be honest about past, present and future. There are positive aspects to the history. For example there were decades of more peaceful cooperation. That was across alien cultures. And today we long for something positive. That is all good and something to encourage. And the negative, dark histories? Embrace the truth. Once you accept that no person or association or nation is immune from truly bad deeds you can deal with the past negatives without fretting or forcing cognitive dissonance. And that in turn allows you, we, us to accept that our current political affiliations are inherently engaged in both good and bad and so we can hold "our own" accountable and still be loyal because we are being loyal to the idea and the ideal and not the name or our colors, or our false idols. So get over ourselves! Be honest and true to our ideals and then we will always have Thanksgivings worthy of celebration.

Well professor, in my circle thanksgiving is a secular day of gratitude for what we have now. Among the noteworthy: the folks gathered at our table, the memory of those now gone, delicious food. Of course I feel bad about the way native Americans were treated! But regret is not what this day is about. As I left 7-11 just now, the heavily accented Indian immigrant and I wished each other a happy thanksgiving, without a trace of irony, only niceness. I unloaded a grocery cart for the disabled lady behind me at Safeway, ethnicity not noticed. w We gave each other greetings of the day. Can we enjoy some pleasant unity here? I fear the woke among us dwelling on the negative history gives a monster like trump fuel to declare that the left plans to end this lovely holiday.

I'm more worried about what we do today that will be tomorrow's history.

I am shocked, shocked to hear that the pilgrims weren’t perfect. At least there is a hint here that the Indians themselves weren’t either, and played a losing hand poorly (perhaps for good reason, given the shakeup in Native American lives due to the spread of European diseases). None of this revisionism changes the bravery of the pilgrims in search of religious freedom, nor their indelible contribution to many of the best American values, from religious freedom to widespread public education to democracy to ultimately a strong abolitionist stand.

The world is a dark and messy place, full of contradictions. I have no doubt the Thanksgiving story could be told in many ways, some of them leaving little appetite for a feast. So do we ban all simplifications and rituals for the sake of correctness? Where does that leave us when we need a break from the rat race that leads to one place?