in defense of turkey day
A good friend of mine (despite her vegetarian-ness) sent me this rather silly article lambasting Thanksgiving:
How I stopped hating Thanksgiving and learned to be afraid
SO I sent this response back to her, and the 30-or-so people that she had included in the mass email:
1) Thanksgiving represents mass genocide
2) Many people celebrate thanksgiving
3) Therefore, many people celebrate mass genocide
The error is in step 1. What DOES Thanksgiving represent?
This man appears to become excited by politics and fear. His assertion in paragraph 6 that people are in reality celebrating the genocide is non-sequitur. He falls victim to dominant culture by accepting generalizations as facts, reinforcing what he attempts to break from. He tells us “that’s how it is,” and “you can’t change it.” His solution is to “find something new,” again, of course, based on fear and politics.
How much historical context is present along with the holiday? In schools the myth is taught, right there along with the 4th of July and Holocaust Remembrance Day myths (I won’t write here about the misconceptions behind those..). But in my family Thanksgiving is simply a private time for enjoying good company and good food, cause for celebration in any place.
If it helps you sleep better at night, call it an Autumn Festival, but why on earth should we refuse it? I refuse to be afraid.
