Thanksgiving
I have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. Yes, we ought to be thankful for the good things and people in our lives - but not just on one day out of the year. Then I think about the history. It wasn't too long after the very first Thanksgiving that white folks began exterminating the very Native Americans who made that first Thanksgiving possible.
I don't want to be a bummer on this "holiday." I want you to be happy - and I'm thankful in various ways for everyone who'll read this message. Let us not take for granted the blessings in our lives. But as we remember these blessings, let us also take time to remember the indigenous people of America, and many others across our country and world, who've suffered, who've been slaughtered, and who in many ways still suffer while we "eat drink and be merry."
On a lighter note, while trying to think of the perfect Thanksgiving song, I couldn't get this one out of my head. Perhaps that means it is the perfect Thanksgiving song. I was about 4 years old when this came out, and it's always been one of my favorites.
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" by Sly and the Family Stone:
I don't want to be a bummer on this "holiday." I want you to be happy - and I'm thankful in various ways for everyone who'll read this message. Let us not take for granted the blessings in our lives. But as we remember these blessings, let us also take time to remember the indigenous people of America, and many others across our country and world, who've suffered, who've been slaughtered, and who in many ways still suffer while we "eat drink and be merry."
On a lighter note, while trying to think of the perfect Thanksgiving song, I couldn't get this one out of my head. Perhaps that means it is the perfect Thanksgiving song. I was about 4 years old when this came out, and it's always been one of my favorites.
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" by Sly and the Family Stone:
That dichotomy of the first Thanksgiving has always bothered me, too. We haven't treated the Native Americans all that great in even the more modern times. We have debates at work all the time, over the "Chief Wahoo" icon. (I'm against it; they're for it.)
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, JC, from James and me. Hope your day is filled with all good things!
Reply to this
i stopped celebrating ANY mandatory holiday several decades ago. i celebrate and give gifts WHEN i feel like it, not when my society or government says to.
as for thnxgvn, i like you just think about all the american indians we've slaughtered along the way.
Reply to this
For some reason, your post made me think of Derek Walcott's "Love After Love":
"The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome.
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you.
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life."
Reply to this
Thank You for remembering, John! My Great-Great Grandfather (A proud full-blooded Cherokee Indian) would thank you as well! ♥
Hope you have a wonderful day with family & give your Mom extra hugs and kisses...hope she is feeling better!
Reply to this
Regardless of the past.... or how we choose to celebrate this day... with food and drink, or football or family... I think it is good to have one day where we can stop and take the time to remember all we are grateful for. We have so much here in this country that we take for granted: rights and privileges, an abundance of food, a government that though not perfect is stable, and though human rights are not yet what they should be we have the right here to speak our voices to effect change... for all these things and more. I am grateful.
And I thank you for your blogs John, and the forum they afford for people to be able to come here and share your world, your contributions... and their voices and views..
Happy Thanksgiving..
Reply to this
I love the Sly and the Family Stone--my brother loved all that stuff. Thanks John, and all of you for your comments. Yes, it is not just on this day we should be thankful for our blessings. I too remember those who have been shafted--our Native Americans...I remember reading of the more than 200 treaties made with the "Indians" not a single one was upheld by the "white men"
I will not forget
Peace--Anne
Reply to this
I agree because all the holidays have become so commercialized they begin to gear up for Halloween in September and for Christmas way before Thanksgiving. The Costco near me had their Christmas display out beginning at Halloween. Isn't that overdoing it & doesn't it take away from the pure joy of what the holidays should represent, like you said here the thankfulness. But oops what about all those slaughtered native armericans?
Reply to this
Happy Turkey Weekend. We spent the day at another expats - people who are a kind of de facto makeshift family for us here in Oaxaca. I was thankful to have friends. Homesick a little for Cleveland as always.
Reply to this
Thanks for the song. It really is appropriate for the occasion.
Reply to this
This was an excellent observance of Thanksgiving. I hope that people are aware of the history of how white people have persecuted the American Indians. My family enjoys Thanksgiving as a time to be together, to eat and drink and enjoy each other's company. While doing these things it is only right to remember that we took this land in a brutal and unnecessary fashion. According to my husband the American Indians had a mutually convenient relationship with the French.
Reply to this