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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Do you know other cultures have Thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest? They didn’t all conquer North America.

So maybe we shouldn’t have based this holiday on the myth about “pilgrims and Indians”.

Schools are dropping any mention of Indians at all. It's not just turkeys and Pilgrims. Sounds like that ought to make some people happy, everyone will just forget about them.

“Everyone “? No, not “everyone “.

Good luck with making Thanksgiving a "national day of mourning." I'm sure that's a top concern for the vast majority.

How many are indifferent and ignorant? Probably a good number. At least 74 million.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know other cultures have Thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest? They didn’t all conquer North America.

So maybe we shouldn’t have based this holiday on the myth about “pilgrims and Indians”.

Schools are dropping any mention of Indians at all. It's not just turkeys and Pilgrims. Sounds like that ought to make some people happy, everyone will just forget about them.

Yup. They want to pretend like it never happened. Or the people aren’t still suffering today.

Revisionist history to the max.

Not so much revisionist as irrelevant. People are moving forward, why should they dwell on the past when it has nothing to do with them? Obviously the people who were hurt feel differently, but they aren't making much of an impact convincing anyone else to put their needs first. Everyone has their own problems these days.

Why do we bother to learn any history at all? It all happened in the past. Why dwell on any of it?

Maybe if we don’t sugar coat history just to make white people feel comfortable then we can learn from our mistakes and do better in the future.

Why only white people? I know none of my relatives were here way back when we come from other places with their own history. No Mayflower descendants in my family tree. I think you mean anyone that every immigrated here. We're all in the same boat.

No one should learn any history unless it was about their own ancestor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanksgiving is a day during which the typical American stuffs their face with several thousand calories of fat, salt, and sugar before embarking on a three-week spree of buying cheap crap manufactured overseas.

Sounds like a national day of mourning to me!

I can tell you’re well liked.

And what does “Sounds like a national day of morning to me [EXCLAMATION POINT]” even mean? None of the shit you said had anything to do with mourning. And why exclaim it? Did you think that was clever?

You’re a twerp and a loser. You’re gonna read this and feel embarrassed. You’ll probably quickly shut your browser and go do something else, but deep down you’ll know: nobody liked your post, it was really stupid and banal, no one laughed or agreed with it. It’ll exist forever in the bowels of the internet, just hanging there like a moist gym sock sling over a shower rod. A smelly and utterly forgettable eternal testament to you being a tedious and boring person.

You're a joke. Go touch grass.I'm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know other cultures have Thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest? They didn’t all conquer North America.

So maybe we shouldn’t have based this holiday on the myth about “pilgrims and Indians”.

Schools are dropping any mention of Indians at all. It's not just turkeys and Pilgrims. Sounds like that ought to make some people happy, everyone will just forget about them.

Yup. They want to pretend like it never happened. Or the people aren’t still suffering today.

Revisionist history to the max.

Not so much revisionist as irrelevant. People are moving forward, why should they dwell on the past when it has nothing to do with them? Obviously the people who were hurt feel differently, but they aren't making much of an impact convincing anyone else to put their needs first. Everyone has their own problems these days.

Why do we bother to learn any history at all? It all happened in the past. Why dwell on any of it?

Maybe if we don’t sugar coat history just to make white people feel comfortable then we can learn from our mistakes and do better in the future.

Why only white people? I know none of my relatives were here way back when we come from other places with their own history. No Mayflower descendants in my family tree. I think you mean anyone that every immigrated here. We're all in the same boat.

No one should learn any history unless it was about their own ancestor?

You don’t want people to just learn the history. And by the way, people know it, and still don’t care or feel responsible. They have other concerns. I thought the beef was with the government, not the people anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know other cultures have Thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest? They didn’t all conquer North America.

So maybe we shouldn’t have based this holiday on the myth about “pilgrims and Indians”.

Schools are dropping any mention of Indians at all. It's not just turkeys and Pilgrims. Sounds like that ought to make some people happy, everyone will just forget about them.

“Everyone “? No, not “everyone “.

People already have forgotten about them. Think they all died off or that it’s just an affirmative action thing that white people claim. Most on this board have had zero exposure to any tribes, including OP. Who wants to speak for all Native American tribes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Assimilation is not a bad thing. Wave after wave of immigrants have been assimilated and now are just Americans.

And for better or worse, American Indians have chosen not to assimilate, or to both assimilate and not assimilate. Not sure that some of these posters know this or are willing to acknowledge this.

They were here first. Europeans chose not to assimilate.

I'm genuinely struck by how good a point this is. No snark.

Ok.

Should the Latinos coming to MoCo assimilate? English only?

Or should mcps cancel Halloween parties because the holiday rubs the newcomers the wrong way due to their religious beliefs?

That’s just one example. But I’m curious what you think. Should everyone assimilate, or should we be a melting pot and evolve?

I wasn't really taking a stance on assimilation itself. But I was thinking that as a general rule when people enter an established culture they do not destroy it. They may completely assimilate. They may create communities of people from their prior culture and interact with the greater population on a limited basis or they may even work to get aspects of their culture into the main stream.

The European settlers took a very different approach.

You would be wrong. Human history up through present day is one story of warring cultures killing each other after another. Thousands of lost cultures. I mean what is Russia doing to Ukraine? But especially 400 years ago that was the worldwide norm.

This is the same logic that judges and juries use to let men off of sexual assault and rape charges. It’s just the way of the world, it’s to be expected, you should have fought back, etc.

Racism and sexism and all the “isms” are related, it’s about entitlement to power because of a belief in inherent superiority. This has been explicitly expressed in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surely there must be more pressing modern days issues for Native Americans to focus on than the history of Thanksgiving.

Having the US acknowledge their loss is certainly a small step forward. There is certainly much more needed.

\

The people who "lost" are dead. This is what we spend directly on their descendants...

https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/20-billion-total-us-support-for-american-indians

https://www.indian.senate.gov/news/press-release/senate-passes-largest-investment-native-programs-history-more-31-billion-heading

plus, of course, normal benefits for low income people... Much more is not needed.

Maybe it’s not enough to fix what we broke.

Maybe just throwing money at the problem won’t help.

What "problem" are you trying to solve?

None of the people alive today live like their nomadic ancestors. NONE of us. The world has moved on, and the descendants of "Native" Americans would be better off joining American society by leaving the reservation system and moving on. We don't owe anyone anything. Their ancestors lost, just like lots of other ancestors.

[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.

It’s not about personal guilt or responsibility. It’s doing what we can to acknowledge the massive wrongs committed by our government and to fix what we can. Being part of this country’s future means dealing with this country’s past.

What does this have to do with Thanksgiving?

Americans manufactured Thanksgiving from a fable about pilgrims and Indians.

Actually, THIS is a fable based on Howard Zinn. The only primary sources that we have from the period discuss Thanksgiving.

[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.

It’s not about personal guilt or responsibility. It’s doing what we can to acknowledge the massive wrongs committed by our government and to fix what we can. Being part of this country’s future means dealing with this country’s past.

What does this have to do with Thanksgiving?

Americans manufactured Thanksgiving from a fable about pilgrims and Indians.

Nope...

Edward Winslow, Mourt's Relation:
"our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."

There is a lot of ignorance in this thread, and in American society in general, about the difference between the "Pilgrims" and later groups of Puritans, AND about the relationship between the Pilgrims and Wampanoags, which remained peaceful for years. So no, it wasn't a fable.

[Anonymous]

According to my iPhone calendar, tomorrow is Native American Heritage Day already.

[Anonymous]

Nope.

Not going to let progressive loons ruin Thanksgiving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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)?

The whole fact that you had the opportunity to attend some liberal university (or to read the work of Howard Zinn) to develop your ridiculous ideas is due to the willingness of those Founding Fathers to risk their lives to establish a nation based on Enlightenment ideals. You would not have freedom of speech, freedom to stand at Plymouth Rock and protest, or anything that feeds your liberty to be annoying, without them. It is so childlike for people alive now to project their values on people who lived centuries before, if the discussions that led to your values had not begun then.

And frankly, I also celebrate the willingness to leave home, utopian ideals, Mayflower Compact, freedom of religion, and the establishment of free-market capitalism in America (involved in the above settlements) that give you the freedom and prosperity to waste your time on Marxist theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know other cultures have Thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest? They didn’t all conquer North America.

So maybe we shouldn’t have based this holiday on the myth about “pilgrims and Indians”.

Schools are dropping any mention of Indians at all. It's not just turkeys and Pilgrims. Sounds like that ought to make some people happy, everyone will just forget about them.

Yup. They want to pretend like it never happened. Or the people aren’t still suffering today.

Revisionist history to the max.

Not so much revisionist as irrelevant. People are moving forward, why should they dwell on the past when it has nothing to do with them? Obviously the people who were hurt feel differently, but they aren't making much of an impact convincing anyone else to put their needs first. Everyone has their own problems these days.

Why do we bother to learn any history at all? It all happened in the past. Why dwell on any of it?

Maybe if we don’t sugar coat history just to make white people feel comfortable then we can learn from our mistakes and do better in the future.

Ha, as if white people are only bad. So do the Plymouth protestors also cover the section in history where native Americans own African slaves? Yes, it really existed:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-native-american-slaveholders-complicate-trail-tears-narrative-180968339/

Let's also not even get into the entire violent and oppressive histories all across Asia, the Arab slave trade, etc. It's almost as if everyone's history is filled with oppression.

Go crawl under a rock and cry about it, because it will never end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Huh? Because they didn’t have written land deeds recorded at the county courthouse it didn’t belong to them?

A tribe can only hold onto land until a stronger tribe comes along and takes it from them. That's the way of the world.

No, we're not giving our land back to tribes that couldn't hold onto it in the first place.

Question here, would you support more modern day colonization? If the US is a "stronger tribe" why do we not just go overtake a lot more land mass than we already have? We are getting crowded and low on natural resources....why not go take them?

Good idea... if we have to end up paying for all the poor peasantry of Mexico and Central America and dealing with their gangs, we might as well take over the natural resources, eliminate the governments that are even more corrupt than ours and use the money to pay for all of their WIC benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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)?

The whole fact that you had the opportunity to attend some liberal university (or to read the work of Howard Zinn) to develop your ridiculous ideas is due to the willingness of those Founding Fathers to risk their lives to establish a nation based on Enlightenment ideals. You would not have freedom of speech, freedom to stand at Plymouth Rock and protest, or anything that feeds your liberty to be annoying, without them. It is so childlike for people alive now to project their values on people who lived centuries before, if the discussions that led to your values had not begun then.

And frankly, I also celebrate the willingness to leave home, utopian ideals, Mayflower Compact, freedom of religion, and the establishment of free-market capitalism in America (involved in the above settlements) that give you the freedom and prosperity to waste your time on Marxist theory.

It is interesting to me that you respond to someone wanting to engage on founding ideals by referencing liberal universities, assuming the poster has "ridiculous ideas" and is into Marxism. Why so angry? What is the problem with seriously probing the origins of this country, the good and the bad?