Thanksgiving

[prodigy]

Let's find some other day and reason to give thanks in the United States.

Comments

[impersona]

I feel like everything that is celebrated on Thanksgiving is also done by 4th of July and Christmas. I hate Thanksgiving too, maybe we should become Grinches of it.

My vote would be for a holiday celebrating awareness for all kinds of civil liberties we are thankful to have, and to raise awareness for those who don't have them. (One that is slightly more universal than MLK Jr Day). But I must be smoking crack cause there is no way that one would fly.

Another alternative is September 23rd, Bruce Springsteen's birthday. Everyone can sit down for dinner in their acid wash jeans, with BORN TO RUN blasting on the TV and fireworks everywhere.

[tatterpixie]

I WOULD CELEBRATE SUCH A HOLIDAY.

[thez]

Disclaimer: Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday next to Halloween. I love it as an excuse to get together with my family (which I actually love doing and deeply miss this year) and to eat the fantastic food my mother makes.

I think the idea of a fall harvest festival dedicated to gathering with those important to you is a fine idea if only there were any way we could stop associating it with historical mythology, and stop feeding kids in school bullshit stories about the pilgrims and Natives being dinner buddies because it's so much nicer then the rest of our history. Even my elementary school back in Arizona - which did a surprisingly good job of teaching us about the local native tribes/traditions and even the Indian Schools and the white settlers' attempts to stamp out their culture - made us do a whitewashed Thanksgiving play as if to say "but here's something European Americans can feel good about!" Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that.

I'm told that Canada's Thanksgiving holiday is pretty chill largely because there's no educational/media association with patriotic founder mythos, but obvs I don't know personally how true that is.

[prodigy]

What do you suggest as an alternative, though? The thing is, it's not my or your holiday to like or redeem, given neither of us is Native/Indian/First Nations. You can come up with what seem to you like "acceptable" alternatives all you like but the fact is there are plenty of actual people insulted and wounded by the holiday to whom a "diet Thanksgiving" with some token solemnity about Native people and a neutered white-America-friendly idea of thankfulness ignoring the holiday's bloody history would be an even bigger insult. It's not yours to forgive. Nor is it mine. You can't set a generic 'holiday festival' on the 25th of December with all the trappings of Christmas and claim it has nothing to do with Christianity and non-Christians shouldn't complain about being excluded. You can't erase the past. You can't divorce Thanksgiving from the Pilgrim myth and the reality of American jingoism and Manifest Destiny and the millions of murders and brutalizations of native people.

White Canadians and First Nations Canadians tend to tell different stories about how "chill" Canada is, I find. But as I'm neither First Nations nor Canadian, I can't speak for them.

There are plenty of harvest festivals left in the world that don't take active or passive pride in the genocide of a continent of people -- why is your own personal enjoyment of holiday food more important than that?

(For the record, I don't particularly celebrate holidays of American patriotism in general, including the Fourth of July. I don't personally subscribe to the concept of nationalism. But I understand Independence Day and national identity mean a lot to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Thanksgiving, however, is just a giant turkey-stuffed dance on Indian graves, and I can't endorse it in good conscience.)

[thez]

I guess I've always just thought that the problem with the holiday isn't people sitting around eating turkey so much as the nationalistic mythos we've attached to it and the way it's used to indoctrinate the young. I'm unfamiliar with calls to abolish the holiday outright; I was responding directly to Sage's comment as opposed to any broader idea about the holiday. It a good idea, but I'll be honest and say that I probably won't be able to let go of my personal nostalgia of the holiday and my desire to be with my family on this day.

[thez]

I missed part of this!

White Canadians and First Nations Canadians tend to tell different stories about how "chill" Canada is, I find. But as I'm neither First Nations nor Canadian, I can't speak for them.

I think the implication here is that I was parroting back the opinion of a white Canadian? My comment was very vague, because I don't think it's fair to say that the opinion of a single First Nations woman is representative of all First Nations people, and I didn't want to present my comment as "well if one First Nations person says it's okay than it must be". I mentioned it because it was, to me, an interesting comment, and I thought there might be a slight chance that someone else would have further insight. It's not exactly a vast readership here on one lone journal on Dreamwidth, but you never know.

There are plenty of harvest festivals left in the world that don't take active or passive pride in the genocide of a continent of people -- why is your own personal enjoyment of holiday food more important than that?

Shit, do I really come across as someone who's trying to say that my enjoyment of holiday food is more important than recognizing the reality of history? I'm trying to verbalize my issues with the holiday while acknowledging my conflicted relationship with it. It's an ongoing process of reflection and reevaluation, and obviously I've got a long way to go.

[prodigy]

I think the implication here is that I was parroting back the opinion of a white Canadian? My comment was very vague, because I don't think it's fair to say that the opinion of a single First Nations woman is representative of all First Nations people, and I didn't want to present my comment as "well if one First Nations person says it's okay than it must be". I mentioned it because it was, to me, an interesting comment, and I thought there might be a slight chance that someone else would have further insight. It's not exactly a vast readership here on one lone journal on Dreamwidth, but you never know.

I definitely don't mean to imply that First Nations people have a monolith opinion either. Or that anyone does, honestly. It's more that I have an attempted policy, "if there's a significant controversy over whether X thing harms other people, and I'm not one of the people harmed by X thing, then it's better if I steer clear of the minefield and leave it for the actual people involved to reclaim or reject as they see fit." I know that I and the rest of European-descended North America have more or less done nothing but profit by European conquest of Native land, so it'd be in poor taste for me to pass positive judgment. If other people with more of a stake in it want to do so, that's their prerogative. Me, I think I'm better off putting in doleful little reminders of history where I can fit them in -- I think the U.S. has enough enthusiastic Turkey Day celebrators as it is, it's not going to miss me from its ranks.

Basically, is it likely that a large number of people might be hurt by my not celebrating Thanksgiving? Probably not. Mainstream U.S. traditions can fend for themselves, I'm pretty sure. I celebrate Christmas, but I don't think it needs defending in the States. I don't know if anyone would be directly harmed by my celebrating the holiday, but the possibility's higher than the other way around.

I'm not much of a fighter and I don't give up a lot of things for the benefit of people in the world, not nearly as much as I should. I still support a lot of exploitative industries with my money. I still shop at places like Wal-Mart and Target if I'm scrimping. But I figure I'd be incredibly remiss if I couldn't at least do this much.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I don't mean to cast aspersions on your priorities or how seriously you take it all, I'm sure you do and it's a complicated issue. I'm merely stating the stakes as I perceive them, and it's a pretty grim subject.

[thez]

I think we essentially agree on most of this, but I always enjoy reading your commentary on social issues because you always have something unique to say or a unique way of saying it. I actually feel like I should comment on more of your "serious business" posts in an attempt to squeeze more words from your brain.

[prodigy]

Thanks! I'm not an expert on anything, but I try to make sense of what I learn from other people and I know a lot of people with much more perspective than myself. It breaks up the monotony between the long wordcount trudge and SyFy Original Movie marathons. :D

[impersona]

My reasons for hating Thanksgiving are predominantly personal - I've had some pretty bad Thanksgivings in my time, in part because I've been a vegetarian since I was 3 and I had family members who took great offense to my choice. So I've come to associate the holiday with a lot of stress (not this year, Kol, Fyre, and I are having a par-tay).

Other than that, it's exactly as you say, if they could take the pilgrims/natives playing nice away as the centerpiece myth, then having a day to spend with your family is awesome.

I am kinda really shocked that your school went with the whitewashed play after teaching you so much about actual Indian history. da fuck.

[prodigy]

Oh God, family vegetarian guilt. Yeah, I don't have a cohesive enough family to have any traditions, but I've had quite a few awkward, cold-silence-filled Thanksgivings with my dad's mostly-estranged family in Portland, whom I don't see more than once every few years. Aside from that, the rest of my family is Korean so Thanksgiving isn't such a big deal, but we observe American holidays now and then. This year we're getting takeout from a restaurant, just the four of us. Not really a clan here.

Holidays are hell of awkward in general for people with families that largely don't get along.

[prodigy]

Thanksgiving, like a lot of the founding myths of "American history," is just a massive spit in the face of actual history, complete with phlegm and tobacco juice. I'd like to see more inclusive holidays too, and ones that celebrate more true history of the country -- some actual recognition for the civil rights movements in general would be great, rather than just a token "oh, MLK was a great guy, he had a dream" melting pot back-patting. But since there's little people hate more than admitting their nation's history is no nobler than any other nation's, you'd probably get shouted down for being unpatriotic for suggesting such a thing. Particularly in today's post-9/11 USA! USA!! climate. I said more to Z below.

Dude, I would celebrate Boss Day. I would wear all my red bandanas to Boss Day.

[impersona]

One of my secret dreams is for something like a wide-spread "Immigration Day", only worded a lot better, which celebrates the hardships of the generations who came here from other countries,. BUT GIVEN HOW PEOPLE ARE FLAYING NEWT GINGRICH FOR HIS STANCE ON IMMIGRATION, I DON'T THINK THAT WILL FLY ANY DAY SOON. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/24/newt-gingrich-immigration_n_1112074.html for real?)

I'll celebrate Boss Day this year and hope it becomes a thing. It's going on my calendar.

[prodigy]

Oish, Newt Gingrich is saying something sane? I wonder what he's playing at this time. Hunh. Good luck with that, anyway, the GOP constituents are out for blood and it's really hard to try and be centrist as a conservative nowadays when they've got such a huge xenophobic reactionary far-right contingent.