AlterNet: Why We Shouldn’t Celebrate Thanksgiving
I am just back from a lovely Thanksgiving Dinner over-fed, stuffed as the bird we all ate. We were surrounded by family and friends. As usual my grandson, 3 plus going on 13, dominated the gathering. Here we had a typical American Thanksgiving. Dozens of calls and emails before we ate and a slew of them afterwards. During Grace, I had to chime in to 'thank the Indians for what they had given'. This caused a mild discussion about the Native American situation from differences in culture to casino's. I returned home to find this article, from AlterNet, "Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving". How appropriate for the day. Notwithstanding the family and friends aspect of the holiday, there exists a pall over this day for those have comprehension of its background. Now many may not ascribe to the authors strong negative solution. I do not totally buy his approach. I feel that this day of Thanksgiving should be one of thanks to the Native Americans for their country. Not given but taken from them. Also Thanks for forgiveness by so many peoples around the world who have felt the economic and military hegemony of America. As it is spoken by Hud, the black lead in HAIR, "The draft is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people." These lines always have an effect pertinent to our war in Vietnam. As to whether that war was defense of our country or more aggression is another question. We should address the inherent racism and inequity of our current attitude towards indigenous peoples. Not only in an act of compassion but do somethings to rectify the past. MBThursday, November 22, 2007 Comments (2) | Permalink
