sikoholickkouboi

REGARDLESS of what you here may think of me on a personal level, I was wondering what you think of this. I thought about it more after seeing Carlos Mencia joking about it, and actually got called an idiot for saying this on another forum, and noone agreed. But basically, the pilgrims were thanking their gods for animals that weren't their's, for the trees they chopped for shelter that weren't theirs, and the crops that grew plentiful on land that they stole. I realize that today, the holiday is seen as being thankful for what you have and a time to be with family and all (though I thought that was Xmas and that should be year-round without the excuse of some corny holiday anyways, but whatever), but the historical part is still considered a large part of it and can't be just ignored. Our decorations and such even celebrate these people, who really don't deserve it. I'll quote from elsewhere:

"While many Americans enjoy turkey dinners with their families today, a
group of local American Indians, some of whom clashed with police during a
protest two years ago, were slated to speak out against what they say is a
racist holiday. "The stories of the first Thanksgiving are total lies,"
said Wampanoag tribe member Moonanum James of Chatham. "Everyone didn't sit
down at the table, have dinner and then live happily ever after. It was the
beginning of the theft of our land and the beginning of a massive genocide."
James and hundreds of other American Indians and supporters were slated to
descend upon the statue of Massasoit on Cole's Hill near Plymouth's
waterfront at noon today to observe the 30th annual National Day of
Mourning."

Am I really blowing this out of proportion, by saying this holiday is racist? Just looking for opinions.

IamAlejo

Yes you are.

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DontRunMeOver

To start off with, I'm not from the US, so my knowledge of this will be pretty patchy.

The whole genocide issue is both sensitive and terrible, so I certainly wouldn't argue with people who have problems with celebrations relating to such an event. As far as I know, the genocides took place a long time after the first settlers (whose success Thanksgiving celebrates) arrived and set up camp - so you should be able to make quite a clear historical separation between the two events. Were any of the original settlers personally involved in the genocides? As far as I know, they weren't.

Also, I disagree that using the trees, animals and crops which they encountered constituted stealing on the part of the settlers. The natives believed that you couldn't own land or animals, while the settlers believed that you could. Use of the natural resources may have been some kind of insult to the culture of the natives, yet not using them would have been just as much of an insult to the culture of the settlers.

Maybe the celebration is racist, I would expect that the same label could be applied to a lot of celebrations all over the world. That would depend on how you interpret the word 'racist'. Its certainly a good word to use if you want to get people's attention and make them think a bit...

sleepy jack

*Agrees with alejo on this*

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DontRunMeOver

This question's for the US contingent. How much did the history of Native Americans feature in your history curriculum at school. I studied it for maybe 2 weeks, do they go into more detail in the US and what aspects did they cover?

IamAlejo

Yes we cover it for quite some time. Also, Thanksgiving isn't about the success of the pilgrims, but mainly about the cooperation of the Indians and the pilgrims at that time. The "genocide" (if you want to call it that, I guess you could) started at a later time, mainly the trail of tears, etc, which happened during Johnson's presidency (I'm pretty sure). During colonial times, while some areas didn't get along with the Indians, specifically the south, areas like Pennsylvania fared quite well with the Indians, even buying land from them instead of just taking it as most did.

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TheBig3

Well first of all, race is a social construct. Theres nothing inherent about a race. So racist itself is a social term and therefore could blow in the wind depending on who says it.

Much like christmas, I don't think anyone gives a fat **** about the actual tradition of the holiday, for most people its a day we're forced to eat with people we share genetic codes with, and wear that stupid sewater we got last christmas to make them think we liked it.

I've never heard of anyone sitting around their thanksgiving table saying "Jesus, thank you for killing all the indians." No one is thankful there was a genocide. And I don't think the holiday is a celebration of it.

Do I think Native Americans are out of line, no. I mean, a genocide was committed, and I think that if they are going to remind people of it (which they should because otherwise people would forget) this is the time since we vaugely recollect that this is when the pilgrams broke bread with the indians. But I don't think we should call for a removeale of the holiday, or blame current white people for it.

When the settlers came, they didn't allow women to vote or own land, kids were owned like property, and they burned people because they thought they were witches. We are clearly not the same people.

I live in Ma, and have my whole life, Im here in the middle of it, we learned a great multitude about the instances. Now they don't teach second graders about it because its kind of hard to explain "genocide" to an eight year old, but by the time you hit high school you know the real dirt that went on.

Is it racist? No. Can people see it that way? Yes. Ill gladly tolerate Native Americans observing a national day of morning, but I've had quite enough of hippy white teens telling me for each bite of turkey I relish in the blood of an indigenous people. Shave your legs and take a bath you ****ing fruit loop. I've killed no one.

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IamAlejo

I just shortened it to all you needed to say.

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Laces Out Dan!

well...im in grade 10 in canada.....between the last 2 years of social studies....60% of what ive learned is about the Natives.....but thats Canada..........and it all changes next year becaus tehn we learn about WW1 and WW2

Starladear*~

Thanksgiving!?!racist!?!What the.....?i think the american peoples tend to be racists themselves (although not all are).You may as well say that Halloween is Satan's holiday if youre gonna go that far,i mean damn i'am cherokee descendant and i'm not offended by white people eating turkey.EAT YER DAMN TURKEY!!The thing that i get offended by is whats known as The Trail of Tears(relocating of the tribes to reservations in the midwest that so many died from exposure or got ****en gangreen)not many care about that and that's what offends me.Stop trivializing the Holiday and quit yer bitchin.You seem to want to bitch about something-how bout something important.If you dont like the Holiday-dont celebrate it,or boycott it.im sure people could really give a rats ass,and go about eating stuffing while youre outside picketting.

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