Thanksgiving Origins- Does it Matter?

steamboat28 wrote:

Jamie Stick wrote: Let's not gloss over history just for the sake of a holiday. If we can't have a holiday of thankfulness while also being honest about our ancestors' mistakes, then we've got much bigger problem than a gloomy holiday.

We have 364 other days of the year to teach others and ourselves about the harm past generations caused one another, but neither one of us lives in those generations; we merely live in the world they shaped.

I don't understand this insistence that in order to acknowledge the tragedy of the Native American genocide requires the ruining of the holiday. I'm expressly saying this does not have to be a zero-sum game, so why people treating it like I'm saying that it has to be that way?

Is it just an issue of not being able to imagine what Thanksgiving would be without a white-washed version of the Thanksgiving story?

Jamie Stick wrote: I don't understand this insistence that in order to acknowledge the tragedy of the Native American genocide requires the ruining of the holiday. I'm expressly saying this does not have to be a zero-sum game, so why people treating it like I'm saying that it has to be that way?

Is it just an issue of not being able to imagine what Thanksgiving would be without a white-washed version of the Thanksgiving story?

It's that the nominal purpose of the holiday is to give thanks for the things in your life you are grateful for. By focusing on a negatively-charged agenda, historically documented as it may be, one subverts the entire meaning of the holiday, which makes it useless.

That would be like asking Christians to spend most of Christmas Day or Easter Sunday discussing the brutality of Christians against the cultures they stole them from. Do I want to educate people on those, too? Yes. I do. But I don't do it on the holidays themselves because what they represent is more important, and can actually work to heal those wounds. In the months leading up to Christmas, I'll battle the notion that there's a "war on Christmas" by explaining the non-Christian origins of just about every single Western tradition, but on Christmas morning? It's carols and eggnog and togetherness, because that's the real reason we celebrate holidays.

I'm just asking for the same consideration of Thanksgiving which, in it's supposedly pure form, is one of the greatest holiday concepts to ever have existed.

steamboat28 wrote: By focusing on a negatively-charged agenda, historically documented as it may be, one subverts the entire meaning of the holiday, which makes it useless.

Did I say focus on it? Nope. You projected that onto my words.

Did I say make children feverishly memorize every date on which a Native American was rounded up and slaughtered on Thanksgiving? Did I say force them to explain the systemic eradication of the Native American way of life on Thanksgiving? Did I say teach children about the re-education camps that they put Native American children in in order to "rehabilitate" them on Thanksgiving? I said none of that and while I would like people to know all the details and ways in which European Americans decimated the Native American population and removed any way for their people to ever rebuild what they had before, that is simply not what I'm calling for by saying we should be honest with ourselves and each other about the Native American genocide and the origins of the Thanksgiving narrative.

Jamie Stick wrote: Did I say teach children about the re-education camps that they put Native American children in in order to "rehabilitate" them on Thanksgiving? I said none of that and while I would like people to know all the details and ways in which European Americans decimated the Native American population and removed any way for their people to ever rebuild what they had before, that is simply not what I'm calling for by saying we should be honest with ourselves and each other about the Native American genocide and the origins of the Thanksgiving narrative.

I...okay. so,

Not even mentioning the raping of innocent women and children settlers by the natives, as well as the raids pillagings, etc that took place. What about a remembrance day for those? There is more then one side to history you know. Maybe I should start going around talking on thanksgiving about all the atrocities the Indians did to the settlers. Nah, I won't, simply because thanksgiving is again as I said, a day of fellowship, strengthening bonds and forging new ones. Not a day to increase racial tensions and open up new wounds that have been healed.

There legitimately does come a point where sensitivity to racial crimes in the past actually causes more racial strife than it alleviates.

America, for example, still has this issue very often with African-Americans (which is a funny word itself, but still), because we skipped straight from white oppression to white guilt with no period of healing in between. We skipped a step. And that skipped step hasn't "fixed" racism. And in some cases, it's made it much worse.

We need to understand the atrocities of the past. We need to know that Columbus was a serial-murdering genocidal rapist and not a national hero. But we also need to understand them in such a way that we, in the present, are not held responsible for the sins of our fathers. Because that path ties us, personally, to those atrocities, makes us feel personally culpable, even as we actively believe and speak out against them. That leads to confusion at best, and more problems.

Jamie Stick wrote: Would you tell an European American to forget....9/11

Why did this have to come to race? 9/11 cared not for race, multiple races were affected by that incident- MULTIPLE COUNTRIES were affected by that incident, it wasn't -just- Americans on those planes, or in those towers when they went down. This wasn't an attack on "European Americans", it was an attack on Americans, and a number of other people ended up as collateral damage.

/off pedastel

Alethea Thompson wrote: So my question is, does it matter whether or not Thanksgiving is built up on lies? Or any holiday for that matter? Shouldn't it be about the spirit the holiday was based on, rather than the real events and when or where they took place?

As we enter the holiday season, here's something to contemplate- Should I do something to make the holiday more about it's "spirit"? Or is it just another day for me to spend with everyone around me? Why or why not?

I hope that no one minds if I just answer in relation to the OP instead of the current conversation (I got to the party a little late. LOL)

I think many things 1) That it is very important to know the actual history behind every Holiday (I don't celebrate Columbus Day, or Horrible Genocidal Explorer Day as I call it). 2) That we not let history destroy the present. And 3) the most important point I think Althea made was using the word "spirit" rather than "origin" in the actual post.

We should remember what actually happened. Ignorance of the past causes us to make the same mistakes, but focusing on it keeps us from living in the present and then we'll still make mistakes, maybe worse ones.

I love the order that the holidays come in and I don't think it was an accident that they came this way.

1. Halloween - How ever you want to celebrate it we all still like to think of loved ones that are gone.
2. Thanksgiving - Whatever it's history, now we're supposed to use it to take stock of what we have and how lucky we are to have it. (even if to many people it's just another day of corporate greed and people murdering each other over sales. But that's a different topic)
3. Christmas - Whether you're Christian or not it's a day to give to those around us to show them how much we care.
4. New Years - This one is usually not celebrated correctly in my mind. To me it's about looking forward at what you can be or do. A chance for improvement and growth.

I think there's something poetic in that order and that's the way I like to celebrate all of them. It's more in line with the "spirit" than it's "origin."

Alethea Thompson wrote:

Jamie Stick wrote: Would you tell an European American to forget....9/11

Why did this have to come to race? 9/11 cared not for race, multiple races were affected by that incident- MULTIPLE COUNTRIES were affected by that incident, it wasn't -just- Americans on those planes, or in those towers when they went down. This wasn't an attack on "European Americans", it was an attack on Americans, and a number of other people ended up as collateral damage.

/off pedastel

Probably because it was all about the evil white man and their oppression of the natives. Even though everyone forgets what the natives did to the settlers. Go figure. :silly:

In Indian Country we call it "Happy Feed the Stupid White Man Day" as eyes are rolled. (Its a joke so I'm sorry if I have offended anyone)

Being a Native American and a History Prof I would say that origins are always important. If we don't know why then we can't understand how. Thanksgiving and the romance of it is really far removed from what truly happened. Education is valuable and I'm not tossing what happened directly to my family out the window either. I cannot be mad about what happened generations before I was even conceived. However I can understand what happened and know the origins.

So many of us are struggling so hard for so many things now a days that a day that we can share together with family be blood related or not, and be thankful for what we do have I really believe should be celebrated. Healing of the past, present and in the future can be done in such a wonderful day. Its also why I will never support "early Black Friday shopping". Thanksgiving historically should be remembered, however Thanksgiving with family should be honored.