Should so called “thanksgiving” be a national day of mourning?
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Anonymous
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There were other “thanksgivings” in that era. I wonder why we don’t include others in our history books.
Here was another one days after the 1637 massacre: “A day of thanksgiving. Thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” - John Winthrop, governor of Bay Colony |
Anonymous
How exactly can I make millions of Americans less indifferent or ignorant? That’s a tough one. |
Anonymous
The what? Really? |
Anonymous
You’re a hypocrite. As expected. All bark and no bite. |
Anonymous
OMG.... this post takes the cake. The insanity cake. It's LITERALLY laughable. Like, I am actually laughing at this lunacy. Wow. DP |
Anonymous
Show me a country whose government hasn't. I just ordered The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag. It's about a Tuvan boy dealing with his culture being extinguished by the newly formed Mongolian government in the 1920s. The tuvans are migrant herders. They were no longer allowed to speak their own language or even admit there was such a thing as Tuvans -- they were all to be considered simply Mongolians. They were sent to special schools to assimilate and their way of life was practically wiped out. Sound familiar? People are all basically the same everywhere. If you haven't figured that out by now, then I don't know how you can understand why racism is fundamentally wrong. This is not about the U.S. Government. It's about the dark side of our humanity. |
Anonymous
Assuming that everyone arrived in a single wave across the Bering Sea land bridge and that those people never fought over who owned area of land. |
Anonymous
Amen. |
Anonymous
Of course that PP is a dull MAGA who thinks he or she is clever, making fun of liberals in the most tedious way. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP. Not a MAGA or a liberal, just an ordinary moderate who would like to see optimism taught in elementary school. Bringing people together, as a foundation, is where I think we should start. |
Anonymous
We're worried about you, son. I know the internet is an addictive place, but we wish you would start using your skills in a more useful way instead of squandering them on DCUM. |
Anonymous
History isn’t meant to be “optimistic”. The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history, but honest and inclusive history.” —James W. Loewen, Plagues & Pilgrims: The Truth about the First Thanksgiving |
Anonymous
Yup. And terminally, terminally smug and boring. No one’s going to give her and her attitude the time of day. Such a turnoff. |
Anonymous
While I was totally open to this interpretation, Snopes rates as "false" the claim that the Pequot massacre was the basis for our modern Thanksgiving. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thanksgiving-massacre-pequot-tribe/ We spoke to David Silverman, professor at George Washington University, and author of the book “This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.” When asked about the connection between the 1637 day of thanksgiving and the holiday we know today, he said: “There is no question that Connecticut and Massachusetts had a thanksgiving after [those events], a lot of people did it [...] but to draw the connection between that and the modern holiday is untenable. Thanksgivings were a tradition amongst English people often to mark a gift from god [...] [The quote’s usage] is taking that particular thanksgiving out of context. There were hundreds, if not thousands of thanksgivings, some of them were related to military conquests of Indian people and most were not.” This viewpoint was echoed by Chris Newell, director of education of Akomawt Educational Initiative, and the former education supervisor at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. “When it comes to the 17th century English 'days of thanksgiving,' they have no resemblance to the holiday we celebrate today,” he told us. “That holiday was not created until the 19th century. The English day of thanksgiving would have been a day of prayer. If they won a victory in battle that would have been a day of thanksgiving, which was normally a day of fasting, totally different from a feast.” Instead, Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a gesture of reconciliation. "In October 1863, Lincoln issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation, after the victory of the Union over the Confederacy: 'I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, …to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving….' Thanksgiving day owes its origins in part to Sarah Josepha Hale (a woman also known for penning the nursery rhyme 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'), who lobbied through a letter-writing campaign to members of Congress and other government officials for such a holiday." And yes, the Wampanoag participated in the feast, but it wasn't a simple gathering of friends. "The so-called first Thanksgiving was the fruit of a political decision on Ousamequin’s [the Chief of the Wampanoag] part. Violent power politics played a much more important role in shaping the Wampanoag-English alliance than the famous feast. At least in the short term, Ousamequin’s league with the newcomers was the right gamble, insofar as the English helped to fend off the rival Narragansetts and uphold Ousamequin’s authority. In the long term, however, it was a grave miscalculation. Plymouth and the other New England colonies would soon go on to conquer Ousamequin’s people, just as the Frenchman’s curse had augured and just as the Wampanoags who opposed the Pilgrims feared that they would." |
Anonymous
DP. Meh, the previous post was equally if not more childish. At least this post shows an attempt at creative writing. |