Many lament that the true meaning of Thanksgiving has been lost-that it's just become an excuse to binge eat, go shopping, and watch twelve-hour marathons of "Rock of Love" on VH1. We're often encouraged to remember the importance of gratitude, of giving thanks, maybe even helping others, during this holiday. Charming as that may be, the latter view of Thanksgiving is still lacking any sense of historical reality.
Isn't that what we learned, though? Didn't we learn about friendly pilgrims and Indians sitting down to turkey dinner in elementary school? Didn't we make dioramas of Cherokee villages, and Indian vests made out of paper grocery bags while we sat indian style on the floor? Didn't we make headdresses out of paper feathers? Yes, we did those things, while our parents cheered on the Washington Redskins and we watched movies like Pocahontas and Peter Pan-what's not to like about a movie featuring songs like "What Makes the Red Man Red"? We love the noble savage crying about littering, and we love the myth of the meal at the core of Thanksgiving.
Since 1970, the United American Indians of New England (UAINE) have observed a National Day of Mourning on the fourth Thursday of November. This 'holiday' holds more truth than any of the commercial, socially constructed holidays (Columbus Day, anyone?) observed in the U.S. today. As the UAINE website points out, the only true thing about the romanticized myth of Thanksgiving is that the European settlers would not have survived were it not for the Wampanoag. The Indigenous people of this country were driven out of their homes by Europeans. This is a basic indisputable part of our history, and given that, the fact that Thanksgiving is still observed in a traditional way is astounding. Any kind of friendly relations between the two groups were anomalies or else blatant lies created to assuage our collective white guilt.
These sentiments are expressed beautifully in the oft overlooked but brilliant 1993 film, Addams Family Values. Wednesday Addams, played by a young Christina Ricci, is performing in a summer camp musical about Thanksgiving. Being one of the few brunettes, she is given the role of Pocahontas. In the middle of the performance, she starts ad-libbing. "Wait! We cannot break bread with you," she tells the perky, blond pilgrims. "You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the Pilgrims." Well said, Wednesday.
This is the same sort of national amnesia that lets us buy Uncle Ben's rice bowls and Aunt Jemima's maple syrup. It's convenient and painless for those with privilege and insulting and damaging to those without. Now, I'm not saying we should do away with the general idea of Thanksgiving. (You've got to love a country where just one specific day is chosen to express feelings of gratitude.) Of course we should be thankful. And maybe we should be grateful for the racist, violent and intrusive actions of the earliest European invaders-after all, without them, we wouldn't be here today. Our country is built on a foundation of oppression. Happy Thanksgiving!
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