Should so called “thanksgiving” be a national day of mourning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

Are you a citizen? Then you are a member of the government that has inherited the treaties with the tribes that are being violated today. Sorry!

I'm not a member of any government, and I don't have any responsibility, or sense of guilt, for what some people did decades or centuries ago.

You can keep saying I should care about this, and I'll keep telling you I won't.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

If you are white, you are responsible. Period!

NP. I am a recent white immigrant. I’m not responsible for anything other than supporting modern slavery by owning a smart phone.

[Anonymous]

Me, too. I’m not buying any more fast fashion crap on Shein, either. Spread the word!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Me, too. I’m not buying any more fast fashion crap on Shein, either. Spread the word!

This for sure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

+1000

Plus, if you step foot on this continent you are occupying stolen land.

[Anonymous]

Here is a news article about the protest, as it unfolded last year:

https://news.yahoo.com/national-day-mourning-held-next-214728103.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

Exactly. This is a modern day issue. The US needs to fix this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

+1000

Plus, if you step foot on this continent you are occupying stolen land.

How could it be “stolen” from people who had no private property that they owned to begin with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

Exactly. This is a modern day issue. The US needs to fix this.

Feeling sorry for people on Thanksgiving isn't going to fix this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Indigenous groups and land-back advocates believe so, and they will gather at the rock called Plymouth to demonstrate.

Should we at least change the name?

Let those grifters go live in some remote mountain the way their primitive ancestors did. There's plenty of land in the world -- who's stopping them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot fault the Europeans, who at the time did not understand the germ nature of disease, for the killing of natives who had no immunity to European diseases. The stories of Europeans deliberately bringing smallpox to natives were true, but they were the exception not the rule. In the 14th Century Europeans nearly all went extinct during the Black Death--who you gonna blame for that?

We can certainly fault them for violence and oppression.

Who cares? Everyone who did whatever bad things you want to list is long dead.

My family came to this continent in 1981. I don't have any responsibility or guilt for something that was done by people centuries ago.

One of the great things about the US is that you're not held guilty for the sins of your ancestors.

The atrocities perpetrated on Native Americans are not just historical footnotes from long ago. The effects of centuries of oppression of Native Americans are still felt very keenly today. They continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, alcoholism, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and domestic violence. Native American women and girls are murdered at a far higher rate than women in general. We don’t need to feel guilt over how we got to this place, but we certainly shouldn’t turn a blind eye to suffering and pretend that it’s not relevant to us.

+1000

Plus, if you step foot on this continent you are occupying stolen land.

How could it be “stolen” from people who had no private property that they owned to begin with?

Exactly.

Smarter thiefs came and got the land away from the previous, dumber thiefs.

It is a fact that "native Americans" ancestors came from Asia.

Time to move on. Happy Thanksgiving!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Discussion tangent:

Something I realized after reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" was that, even if the European explorers and setters arrive in the Americas with nothing but kind hearts and friendly intentions, they still would have pretty much wiped out the indigenous population within the same time frame; the diseases they brought with them would still have spread just as much in such a vulnerable population.

Another tangent - I'm teaching 5th grade social studies and we are just discussing European explorers and settlers of the "new world" right now. I never had such an easy time getting student (these are ESOL students) to understand the term "epidemic" before, or why so many Native Americans were susceptible to the diseases the Europeans brought. Talk about "lived experience".

Anyhow,

Thanksgiving is our only truly American holiday, that everyone can celebrate regardless of religion. It doesn't have to have anything to do with Native Americans, though. It can just be a day of thanks for food and family.

I guess our ancestors shouldn’t have pushed the fake pilgrim story then.

The 4th of July is a “truly American holiday”.

The fake pilgrim story was invented in the mid to late 1800s as way to bring the country together. Now we're taking the story apart. But we have nothing to replace it with. Similar to the wider parallel.

We could collectively look at it as a chance to bring ALL of the country together instead of just the white, male colonizers. Day of mourning *and* healing.

We have enough depressing days of mourning and reflection in this country. Can’t we have any damn fun anymore? This country has become so depressing.

+1

Though, honestly, I think most of these people are just deranged liberals so far gone that you rarely encounter them in real life (and if you did they’d bore you to tears with their sanctimony). They say stuff like this on the internet and on college campuses. Otherwise, super irrelevant.

We live a great life in a great neighborhood with people of many races and religions. Broadly liberal, sure, but people celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July in big and festive ways. Lots of joy. (One exception for the weird vegan family that attends every protest under the sun and litters their yard with political signs, but they’re rarely invited anyway.) Normal people don’t traffic in grievance politics.

So you do have fun holidays or you don’t?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Screw off. We don’t care about your pet political causes and the gaping hole in your personality that causes you to promote this kind of stuff. Don’t care about about the claims and fairy wishes of indigenous groups or “land-back advocates”. We tolerate some of this crap in the name of good manners and being charitable. But there’s a limit.

It is a glorious day of national Thanksgiving. I am very grateful that European religious settlers founded the greatest civilization on earth, committed by its founding documents to ideals that were never, not once, within the founding spirit of any prior society.

And not for nothing, but if the North American indigenous peoples had had the ability to cross the Atlantic and the firepower, once there, to seize land and conform the local peoples to their customs, they would have done so without question. Many were very warlike and inclined toward expansion and capture on the continent. (As were most cultures of the era.) We just happen to be much more advanced and way better at war.

To the victor belongs the spoils.

Maybe tangential but what are these "ideals" that you say were never within the "founding spirit" of any society?

I don't think we need to ban Thanksgiving, but maybe we do need to do a WAY better job at education....

Can you name a single society with those ideals at it's core?

I asked you to name the ideals you are talking about. You didn't.

I'm also confused if these are the ideals of the Puritan religious separatists in Massachusetts Bay or the speculative capitalists who settled the Jamestown Colony? Or are we talking about the ideals of the Founding Fathers, who voted to codify the enslavement of human beings into the nation's founding documents (which was, I have to admit, a first among nations)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Indigenous groups and land-back advocates believe so, and they will gather at the rock called Plymouth to demonstrate.

Should we at least change the name?

Let those grifters go live in some remote mountain the way their primitive ancestors did. There's plenty of land in the world -- who's stopping them?

Oh really? Where in the world can a person freely immigrate to that also has an intact ecosystem that happens to align with the generational knowledge of specific plants and animals found in North America?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Indigenous groups and land-back advocates believe so, and they will gather at the rock called Plymouth to demonstrate.

Should we at least change the name?

Let those grifters go live in some remote mountain the way their primitive ancestors did. There's plenty of land in the world -- who's stopping them?

“Grifters”

Are you seriously this depraved?