This should be an easy column to write this week. However, I found it
extremely difficult. I am a firm believer as a journalist and as an
honest person that I not write anything that is not true. I owe it to
you and to me. Perhaps I owe it to the past.
I had decided
to look for fun facts about Thanksgiving, and sometimes research hits you
right between the eyes. You find things that you never knew and those
that cause you to pause and reassess. Did you know that our current
Thanksgiving came into being after WWI? It was promoted through text
books and in elementary schools to nationally inspire. Hm. I certainly
thought that it was Pilgrims and Native Americans. Hm, again.
The
Thanksgiving that we currently celebrate was on a day that defies celebration. It was a day of slaughter of an entire tribe of
Pequot Indians. There was an earlier meal with Squanto and the Puritans.
Squanto was the only Patuxet to survive smallpox left behind by white men when their ships
came in to steal slaves from the tribe. He did teach the Puritans to
raise corn and to fish. He also caused many problems. Problems that lead
to the entire Pequot tribe being wiped out on our Thanksgiving Day. A
day when women, children, the entire tribe died at the hands of people
who took their land. A day when that tribe would have celebrated
their Green Corn Festival.
You can check the
facts. They are there for the reading, the tears, and the sorrow we
should all feel. In reading about this tragedy, I found myself thinking
of the hate we see today. A hate that has brooded for centuries. A hate
against race, a hate against religious belief, a hate against sexual
orientation. Hate that is based in ignorance. The same type of hate and ignorance
that took the lives of a tribe. The same hate that people hold on to so
they can feel justified.
No, we
don't want our Thanksgiving spoiled by remembering its roots. We want it
to be about turkey, family, all the things we feel we deserve to
embrace this one time a year. Things that make us thankful. Perhaps we
are thinking that we are now civilized and have moved on from that place
in 1637. I am wondering if we have learned much.
My
new Thanksgiving creed changes this year. I am thankful for the many
colors of humanity, for the many voices that in different tones that
reach the ear of the same God, for the differences in people that I am asked to
embrace and not condemn. I am thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. It is a time of thanks and of giving.
2 comments:
And this year, Indians and their supporters who are protesting the endangerment of their water sources and sacred lands are being attacked for oil.
Axiesdad, my sister made me tone down this article. After reading the information regarding the massacre, I was so angry. I have a niece who is half Native American. My heart aches. Sometimes I think all the rest of us should be shipped off somewhere and give them back what is rightfully theirs.
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