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How I Stopped Hating Thanksgiving and Learned to Be Afraid
I have stopped hating Thanksgiving and learned to be afraid of the holiday.
Over the past few years a growing number of white people have joined the longstanding indigenous people's critique of the holocaust denial that is at the heart of the Thanksgiving holiday. In two recent essays I have examined the disturbing nature of a holiday rooted in a celebration of the European conquest of the Americas, which means the celebration of the Europeans' genocidal campaign against indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States. Many similar pieces have been published in predominantly white left/progressive media, while indigenous people continue to mark the holiday as a "National Day of Mourning" (http://www.uaine.org/).
In recent years I have refused to participate in Thanksgiving Day meals, even with friends and family who share this critical analysis and reject the national mythology around manifest destiny. In bowing out of those gatherings, I would often tell folks that I hated Thanksgiving. I realize now that "hate" is the wrong word to describe my emotional reaction to the holiday. I am afraid of Thanksgiving. More accurately, I am afraid of what Thanksgiving tells us about both the dominant culture and much of the alleged counterculture.
Here's what I think it tells us: As a society, the United States is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt. This is a society in which even progressive people routinely allow national and family traditions to trump fundamental human decency. It's a society in which, in the privileged sectors, getting along and not causing trouble are often valued above honesty and accountability. Though it's painful to consider, it's possible that such a society is beyond redemption. Such a consideration becomes frightening when we recognize that all this goes on in the most affluent and militarily powerful country in the history of the world, but a country that is falling apart -- an empire in decline.
Thanksgiving should teach us all to be afraid.
Although it's well known to anyone who wants to know, let me summarize the argument against Thanksgiving: European invaders exterminated nearly the entire indigenous population to create the United States. Without that holocaust, the United States as we know it would not exist. The United States celebrates a Thanksgiving Day holiday dominated not by atonement for that horrendous crime against humanity but by a falsified account of the "encounter" between Europeans and American Indians. When confronted with this, most people in the United States (outside of indigenous communities) ignore the history or attack those who make the argument. This is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt.
In left/radical circles, even though that basic critique is widely accepted, a relatively small number of people argue that we should renounce the holiday and refuse to celebrate it in any fashion. Most leftists who celebrate Thanksgiving claim that they can individually redefine the holiday in a politically progressive fashion in private, which is an illusory dodge: We don't define holidays individually or privately -- the idea of a holiday is rooted in its collective, shared meaning. When the dominant culture defines a holiday in a certain fashion, one can't pretend to redefine it in private. To pretend we can do that also is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt.
I press these points with no sense of moral superiority. For many years I didn't give these questions a thought, and for some years after that I sat sullenly at Thanksgiving dinners, unwilling to raise my voice. For the past few years I've spent the day alone, which was less stressful for me personally (and, probably, less stressful for people around me) but had no political effect. This year I've avoided the issue by accepting a speaking invitation in Canada, taking myself out of the country on that day. But that feels like a cheap resolution, again with no political effect in the United States.
The next step for me is to seek creative ways to use the tension around this holiday for political purposes, to highlight the white-supremacist and predatory nature of the dominant culture, then and now. Is it possible to find a way to bring people together in public to contest the values of the dominant culture? How can those of us who want to reject that dominant culture meet our intellectual, political, and moral obligations? How can we act righteously without slipping into self-righteousness? What strategies create the most expansive space possible for honest engagement with others?
Along with allies in Austin, I've struggled with the question of how to create an alternative public event that could contribute to a more honest accounting of the American holocausts in the past (not only the indigenous genocide, but African slavery) and present (the murderous U.S. assault on the developing world, especially in the past six decades, in places such as Vietnam and Iraq).
Some have suggested an educational event, bringing in speakers to talk about those holocausts. Others have suggested a gathering focused on atonement. Should the event be more political or more spiritual? Perhaps some combination of methods and goals is possible.
However we decide to proceed, we can't ignore the ugly ideological realities of the holiday. My fear of those realities is appropriate but facing reality need not leave us paralyzed by fear; instead it can help us understand the contours of the multiple crises -- economic and ecological, political and cultural -- that we face. The challenge is to channel our fear into action. I hope that next year I will find a way to take another step toward a more meaningful honoring of our intellectual, political, and moral obligations.
As we approach Thanksgiving Day, I'm eager to hear about the successful strategies of others. For such advice, I would be thankful.
- Posted in
113 Comments so far
Show AllNothing precludes you from using the day as a memorial instead of a celebration. Escape is not always the best path. You would be wise to communicate your ideas directly to your family members and let their children hear your concerns. Thanksgiving dinner could provide that platform.
The right uses fear with great success is this country. There is a reason for this. You being afraid of this reality will not help bring about the required changes we need to make. You need to respect the enemy and realize that actions based on fear are often fitful and ineffective.
These forces of conquest, imperialism, consumption and growth are indeed very dangerous. More so than ever, we must calmly and efficiently combat these forces. Respect this danger, do not fear it. Act accordingly.
It should be a day of mourning. We could call it "mourning in America after the genocide."
AD
I, like you, have dodged the issue. I do shift work and I have always volunteered to work on Thanksgiving Day; thus avoiding the celebrations put on by my family (who think I'm a radical America-hater whenever I mention the European genocide.)
I agree completely with your suggestion of a ceremony of atonement but, since the Thanksgiving myth is based specifically on "look what great friends we were with the Indians" I would make the ceremony specifically about the destruction of the Indians and leave slavery and all the rest of the horrors we're guilty of off the agenda for this particular day. The Native Americans deserve an atonement from us that is for them alone.
"The Native Americans"
it is the height of hubris to refer to these people as Americans.
I prefer the term, "indigenous people of North America".
I can't believe this got a preview.
It should be a day of mourning. We could call it "mourning in America after the genocide."
AD
My understanding is that giving thanks for the harvest is the basis for fall festivals the world over. One can reject the mythology of empire and still give thanks to what/whoever one feels inclined to thank. I also gather that it was the Puritans who learned of the holiday from the Indians. That's the spirit of the true holiday, not the one invented by Congressional or Presidential fiat.
You learned the cosmetic history written by the invaders tenstring. Read on and find the truth.
Sioux Rose
Robert Jensen is a rare writer who looks beyond the veneer of many commonly held conventions to expose "the beast" that dwells beneath their surfaces. His book on porn was very difficult for me to read, but what it exposes segues into the greater obscenity of the make-war state and its penchant for torture and endless investing in torturous weapon systems.
From an astrological perspective, Thanksgiving comes during the season of Sagittarius. This sign, ruled by the benevolent Jupiter, planet of plentitude, is indicative of the harvest and nature's abundant gifts. Its basis in celebration attunes to the heavenly calendar. However, the historical nature (as per the landing of so many white Europeans onto the American continent) is another matter, and one that Jensen exposes honestly. A good deal of recorded history involves the conquest of one people by another, usually through violence.
I finally got to view ZEITGEST as some on this site recommended, and it was fascinating to learn of the reasons why December 25 was chosen for the "birth" of Christ. I didn't realize the entire mythology surrounding Jesus was taken from other earlier traditions, miracle by miracle. Close to the winter solstice, late December-January figure statistically high with respect to levels of depression. Indeed, this season of darkness in many ways mirrors the absence of light, and ruled by Saturn, is a time for penance. Saturn, the planetary symbol for Mammon, is the astrological parallel to the myth of Satan in that it acts on human ambitions, those that "profiteth a man" enticing him "to gain the world and lose his soul" style. True spirituality is lost as material achievement takes precedence. The great masters have generally taught, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and (then) all else will be added unto you." The adage represents developing the inner spiritual aspect, allowing that to act as compass to an ego otherwise utterly drawn to endless acquisition frenzy. Nothing of a material nature can ever feed or nourish the inner soul/spirit. However, the advertising world has blurred these lines. I finally viewed CENTURY OF THE SELF and it was quite an education to witness the degree to which BERNAYS influenced media by using powerful unconscious lures to draw people to bad habits.
On my recent trip to NYC, walking down 42nd street I looked at a sky crowded by giant skyscrapers, each an evident monolith to mercantilism, and noted how these buildings reflect a homage to Saturn/Mammon in the matter that the more primitive ancient stones reflected a more mystical homage, placed in circle at Stonehendge. The analogy left me with a surreal sense of how monuments of metal and steel assert power to the sky god, forgetting entirely the Earth Mother from which their mineral riches were all extracted.
Reading about the precarious state of the US dollar, the nation's economy tied to the virtual kite constituted by and through the derivative market (which has come to replace the market in ACTUAL goods and services), the various climate change tipping points coalescing to produce impacts few can imagine, the prophecies of 2012, "End Times," the astrological count of time via the Age change transitions... and these cues point to our current paradigm in its final hours. To those who see the dots beginning to line up it becomes increasingly difficult to live the same routines, those that once provided a sense of order and balance. We are like the ice skater moving across the surface trying to pretend that the temperature is not hovering at 32 degrees, and already beginning to climb.
I am glad you watched Zietgest. I think I might watch it again today. It has been a while.
If you have not watched "Earthlings", I would highly recommend it. Hopefully it will take you to the next level. Movies like Zietgest and Earthlings prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we represent the nadir of human existence. The time for right action is NOW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E-LxTVENqQ
As for 2012, I would avoid it like the plague. It is already shaping up to be a massive fear based marketing schtick that offers us nothing of real value. I note the History Channel, National Geo, and full length feature movies are stepping up big time. There are very real and urgent problems we face today and if we focus our energies on end of times prophesies, no good will come of it. I would like to also point out that some on the left are using these same fear based strategies to further their global warming agenda. I find it ill-advised and counter productive. It will backfire. We need to stop talking about potential impending disasters and start talking about shutting down the coal plants, stop eating meat, stop driving, start building mass transit.
Also glad you finally watched and liked "Zeitgeist", Sioux. An excellent movie. There is a second one ("Zeitgeist Addendum"), and even a third one, if I am not mistaken. I have seen the second one, and it delves a little more into the money aspect touched on in the first one.
I wasn't even aware of Professor Jensen until this article. I found the list of his books at the end of this article to be most intriguing, and they are now on my reading list.
I first stumbled across Jensen about 8 or 9 years ago.
He'd written an inspired article on the absurdity of blind nationalistic allegiance.
Sad to say, I can't find it again.
This piece is not up to his usual standard.
Instead of leaving the country for the day,
could he not volunteer to serve in a soup kitchen?
VDB
Could you perhaps be referring to an article that Jensen wrote in a book that was entitled, along with a series of other essays, and edited by Joel Westheimer, Pledging Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism In America's Schools? Jensen's piece in that book is in Ch. 6 which is called Patriotism Is a Bad Idea at a Dangerous Time.
Thanks Erroll, that might be the piece.
here's an interesting read:
"Needless to say, alcohol and strippers do not an Islamic fundamentalist make."
http://rense.com/general88/trp.htm
hmmmmm.
I was doing some online research about Jensen to find out more about him. Apparently he also wrote an article in The Houston Chronicle just after 9/11 that decried the attacks but stated (correctly!) that they were "no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism -- the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes -- that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime." People clamored for his resignation, and the president of the university even raked him across the coals for daring to suggest such things. Would this by any chance be the same article? That was certainly a dangerous time to have a bad idea like patriotism rearing its diabolical head, so it sounded like it might be the same article.
It's OK to hate a holiday or any other thing, but not people. Fear is also OK in the context the writer has provided.
AD
..
Yes, in Canada and England, for example, there's always a church service, Harvest Festival, in September in England and in October in Canada. But in this country it is aimed at the relationship between the Indians and the invading Europeans and I think a ceremony of mourning is a good idea here. We can always give thanks for the harvest on another day. Thanksgiving Day, because it is such a day of feasting, would be an appropriate day for us to fast and send the money we would have spent on food that day to the nearest Indian clinic or reservation or other Indian charity.
Americans should be thankful that the rape, destruction, exploitation, wars, disease, human suffering etc. that they have allowed their masters to visit upon the rest of the world have not (9/11 notwithstanding) really come home to roost.....yet...
"may you live in interesting times"
The meaning of holidays is indeed collective, but I don't think most Americans consider the Pilgrim/Native American story at the heart of Thanksgiving once they get past about 3rd grade. I believe the collective meaning is contained in the name, and I think people genuinely celebrate it in that fashion. The holocaust memorial can be moved to Columbus Day, where the fabricated history is contained in the name.
Ignorance, rationalization, denial, hubris!
The past never changes.
Eating Thanksgiving dinner alone sucks... Fasting would be a better gesture if collective redemption or cultural conscious cleansing is the motivation.
To blame the custom or the celebration is hubris self righteous pride.
Acknowledging how Native Americans helped the pilgrims and then how they paid them back by stealing their lands and nearly killing all of them off is a truthful thanksgiving celebration too. If we find that Ironic, Good, because life and reality is like that.
I am thankful that we can ponder past injustice and try to overcome it with truth and love in our lives.
This piece surprised me. I had to search my memory for instances of personally celebrating a Thanksgiving with any inclusion of the early history of the United States and its Native peoples. Now I think I remember coloring paper feathers for head decorations in elementary school - in the 50s.
As far as I know Thanksgiving has always been a holiday that features a spanking good meal, time spent with family and friends, and a shared sense of gratefulness whether religious or secular. Its focus is on the recent harvest (I grew up on a farm) and whatever else we may be thankful for from the year gone by.
The author is correct about all of us needing to know our history and recognizing exactly what America is right now. I do not, however, see the value of boycotting one of the few holidays that encourages gratitude rather than greed. One could make even more cogent arguments against Christmas, and many have done so. But although Xmas does feature greed, it also provides a much-needed winter break which is, of course, where it came from in the first place.
Thanksgiving is still the late-autumn post-harvest celebration of whatever bounty we received, a time to pause and be grateful. I've always been outside of or at least at the edge of the mainstream so perhaps the author is correct in thinking that most Americans are celebrating the conquering of the North American Native peoples. But I doubt it. Why doesn't he rail against Halloween, one of the silliest holidays imaginable.
You and I and our children are taught the Indian connection and how we broke bread with them. They forgot to tell us about the Trail of Tears and the mass genocide. Funny how that is. You seem like you are in denial. No small amount of irony, the biggest shopping holiday of the year, Black Friday, comes the day after Thanksgiving.
Don't forget. Only 40 shopping days until Christmas!
"So tractable, so peaceable are these people" Columbus wrote to the King & Queen of Spain, "that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle and accompanied by a smile; their manners are decorous and praiseworthy".
All of this was taken as a sign of weakness, if not heathenism and Columbus being a righteous European was convinced the people should be "made to work, sow and do all that is necessary to adopt our ways".
Perhaps we could change the name from Thanksgiving to Subjugation Day in celebration of the American brand enjoyed not only at home, but exported 'round the world.
"So tractable, so peaceable are these people" Columbus wrote to the King & Queen of Spain..." Actually, Columbus couldn't have been writing about the inhabitants of what is now the United States, since he never got this far north, but about the peoples of the Caribbean, the Tainos and the Caribs, the first victims of European, that is, Spanish genocide in the Americas. Thanksgiving is a US holiday. If you really want to respect the indigenous peoples of the Americas, maybe you could begin by recognizing the important ethnic and cultural differences among them.
Understood - and I'm well aware of the geographical history of the settling by Europeans in this part of the world. The intent of the post was only to point out the long history of subjugation of indigenous peoples by those who eventually settled here. Thank you for reminding us all that this was widespread and certainly not limited to the contigous United States.
When the early invaders massacred an Indian village they would celebrate with a day of THANKSGIVING. Thanksgiving is a day set aside for the celebration of genocide. I agree that denials and rationalizations are wholly insufficient and merely mark contemporary attitudes of acceptance of the continuing quiet genocide. There is no defense of genocide. If you celebrate Thanksgiving you are perpetuating genocide.
"As far as I know Thanksgiving has always been a holiday that features a spanking good meal, time spent with family and friends, and a shared sense of gratefulness whether religious or secular."
That's how I view it as well.
Unfortunately, the most disgusting day of the year follows it: Black Friday.
Jensen seems to go over the top about a lot of issues. I thought that I was a doctrinaire lefty! He needs to lighten up!
For most people, Thanksgiving is a rare (for the US) opportunity to ask the boss for 4 days off in a row (or just goof off on that orphaned Friday after), and to enjoy a big feast with friends and family. Here in Pennsylvania, it is also the start of gun-season for deer, which, like it or not, is a big tradition of the industrial immigrant working-class.
The idea that it is celebrating conquest and genocide is just silly. The stuff about Pilgrims and Squanto, much less massacres, don't even enter most people's minds.
When Jensen goes to Canada, is he going to renounce Canadian Thanksgiving day?
He might go over the top but haven't you considered the fact that Thanksgiving Day has nothing to do with being thankful according to most people? Sure, whip up a "special" meal on that occasion and forget the fact that the Pilgrims were ungrateful and murdered their own helpers. This holiday was built on genocide much as I would like to use this holiday as another milestone in being grateful for how far I and my loved ones have come so far. If you think that Jenson is being silly about telling the truth about conquest and genocide, see how far this country has really progressed. I'd say it has regressed and GOD is punishing this country in mysterious ways.
Ah,native tongue, how I've missed you and your racism. Let me briefly reply as my heart moves me, thus;
"True, but you and your loved ones have not amassed the numbers or power to make us."
Back to reason-
If "being there first" establishes ownership of land forever, regardless of what (or who) comes after (as I take your comments to suggest), maybe the Zionists are right to demand what later "invaders" now call Palestine back after all. IF you disagree with that, perhaps you should re-examine your stance on the "gringos" in the U.S. as well.
Actually, in my big Catholic family, it was about being thankful. We went around the table as added things in the grace before meal that were were thankful for in the past year. Talk of native Americans or European conquest never came up once as the occasion for celebration.
As Irish immigrants, our ancestors saw a bit of genocidal ethnic cleansing from our native lands ourselves.
pjd412, your response is short sighted. Genocide continues in America today against American Indians. It never ended. Under International law the land you are living on most likely has a clouded title even though it does not show it. America's claim to plenary power over American Indians is just that, a claim. Your good Thanksgiving meal and family gathering still rests upon the continued oppression of America's Indigenous Peoples based not upon legitimate law but on the point of a gun. Benefiting from genocide is no virtue. Denial is not a legitimate defense. Celebrating on the backs of American Indians is damnable and hubris. The days of reckoning are here and America has brought them upon herself.
Ya better hide, If they find you they will force feed you.
Can you explain, using valid logic, how a harvest-season celebration of thankfulness - such as is celebrated in practically every other country in the world, has ANYTHING whatsoever to do with the killing of native Americans???
The native american themselves probably had such a celebration!
Rush Limbaugh hemself couldn't have made as distorted a carricatrue of a post-modernism-mumbo-jumbo spewing, leftist PC elite snob, as Prof. Jensen or yourself.
very good day to stay out of the forest when
these fools are satisfying their combined
fantasy of blood letting and alcohol.
http://www.roncobbdesigns.com/L_A_Free_Press.203.0.html
scroll down to "Thanksgiving in America"
Ah, good old Robert Jenson. I have to agree with him that the holiday was built on genocide to the Native Americans. This isn't the first time I stumbled across his articles. I've seen a couple of his powerful articles on the net every Thanksgiving. For a Texan, he sure stands out unique and could be a good role model for Texans to follow. What is Thanksgiving anyway? It's just another joke day just like Independence Day, Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, you name it. The word "gratitude" in America is a dirty word. Do we actually thank our foreign nations for doing all the slave labor to deliver us "cheap" bs? Hell, no ! We just buy, dispose, buy, dispose, etc ... If Thanksgiving Day is supposed
Here's the past articles on Jenson I'm referring to:
http://www.alternet.org/story/28584/
http://www.alternet.org/story/68170/
http://www.alternet.org/story/108876
While at it, feel free to comment on my past comments there. Sorry if I sounded too nasty in the past. I still call it "Turkey Day" because that's all it is anyway.
One more thing. Any of you Texans out there considered making Robert Jenson the next Governor of Texas? I know it's a long shot but he is a firm progressive.
I don't think fear is "appropriate". (I wish the word "appropriate" would just wither away, btw. It seems prissy to me and used as a smug simplification.)
We need to conquer fear and create significant events that will be celebrated in a new world.
the fall of the Berlin Wall was recently commemorated.
will we ever see the dissolution of ALL borders?
that would be worthy of a holiday.
I think the concept of national borders obscures the real border between the power elites (and their puppets) and the people who are resist being exploited. The victories of the latter should be consciously marked and celebrated.
.................................................................................
The family I grew up in was small and definitely out of the mainstream. We did mark Thanksgiving but only as an immediate family. (We were pretty much black sheep.) It was in the context of learning about indigenous people and true history. I learned about the exploitation and genocide very early, including that of my mother's ancestors. (During the time we lived in southern California, my parents wouldn't even take us kids to Disneyland because, as my father explained, Disneyland was a lie. But we explored the real world, as a family, almost every weekend. I was a lucky kid to have such parents and I never thought otherwise.)
But Thanksgiving has just kind of slipped away, not being very meaningful to me. I think celebrating it unconsciously is not OK but pernicious. What is it we are being thankful for and in what context?
"What is it we are being thankful for and in what context?"
That is an excellent question and the perfect basis for reframing the Thanksgiving holiday. Currently, the holiday is looked at in a materialism frame in terms of food and watching sports on the tellies. Thanksgiving needs to be reframed in a way that more people will look at it in terms of peace and gratitude.
I worked at D'land one summer.
We were not employees, but cast members.
And, yes, also caste members.
There were performers and stagehands.
The elite draw the borders,
so to eliminate the latter,
we must first eradicate -
the concept of the former.
People who assume superiority to the culture in which they are embedded, whether they like it or not, cannot have any influence on that culture. I don't know about anyone else's family but my family treated Thanksgiving as a family holiday; my family don't all live in one place and the chance to get together is genuinely celebrated. I have always watched bemused as people run over each other on Black Friday; and I suspect most Americans are equally bemused. Every culture has good and bad, native American and anglo American alike. We are not exceptionally good; but it is just a mirror image exceptionalism to constantly portray Americans as exceptionally bad. It's way to akin to the survivalist nonsense to assume you stand outside your own cultural heritage with all its good and all its bad. Celebrating diversity includes native Americans, African slaves via Charleston or the Caribbean, eastern European refugees of communism, and the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Well Jensen makes a great point here. One thing we should object to is the fact that we as a people use this and other holidays as ways to teach our children lies about our past so as to indoctrinate them to the myth of our decency when our history and present is anything but decent. I don't think most adults make conversation on Thanksgiving that inspires us or lifts our consciousness. We don't use the occassion--the so-called intimate family gathering--to educate ourselves and our children as to what's really happening in the world or to solidify our commitment to one another by showing respect for truth and intellectual integrity in our common relationship with one another and the rest of the world. All too often we use the occassion to banter on about football, shopping, or other forms of small talk. I too often find myself sitting quietly in the midst of happy talk thinking of topics that I know are taboo and might cause upset if they were opened for discussion. And so I and maybe others too spend the time covering over our most important intimacies, fears, regrets, and sorrows with pretense... and then leave feeling more alone than we did before we came.
We shouldn't have to use holidays to"educate ourselves and our children as to what's really happening". Making small talk with people with whom we may disagree on matters of substance is a way of retaining and celebrating our common humanity; don't sit quietly. Talk already; connect with those people. Some conservatives are remarkably decent and caring folks, really! And somewhere down the road, they may even listen to you when they stop perceiving that you are holding in your criticism of their being.
I wonder if the Harrisburg PA Patriot-News will print the following letter to the editor that I just sent.
"Please remember to say a prayer this Thursday for our military service people overseas defending our freedoms here at home as we celebrate the white European genocide of the indigenous people of North America."
Nicely done!