What “Not” To Be Thankful For On A Day For Giving Thanks
Posted by Michelle Moquin on November 25th, 2010
So…Today is Thanksgiving. But what does it really mean to those that it gives great meaning to? The definition of Thanksgiving is a far different description depending on who is telling the story: The whites or the Indians.
To the whites, Thanksgiving was a day that the Pilgrims sat with the indians and agreed to be peaceful. A day of celebration.
To the Wampanoags, Thanksgiving was literally about gratitude for genocide. A day of sorrow.
While we celebrate, sitting around watching football, eating turkey, corn, and all the fixins, toasting and giving thanks, Native Americans remember the massacre. They are not celebrating; they are feeling hurt and disrespected to say the very least, and rightly so.
As Darryl Lorenzo Wellington wrote:
“Spare me the school-assembly version of Thanksgiving. Since I was in grammar school, I’ve seen these misleading re-enactments. The Thanksgiving plays and celebrations glamorize the relationship between the Pilgrims and American Indians. They falsely portray the Pilgrims as the ones who allowed the indians to sup with them, rather than vice versa.”
“And they erase the genocide against Indians that followed.”
-Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a writer for Progressive Media Project
To read more click here.
Yes, there is a lot to be thankful for, but Thanksgiving is not the day to be thankful when the definition of the traditional Thanksgiving is more fiction than fact; when we ignorantly celebrate peace honoring a day of devastation.
I can tell you what I am not thankful for on this day:
- I am not thankful that people feast on turkey and stuffing in celebration, and many probably don’t really know the devastating truth about Thanksgiving, the massacre of indigenous people. And if they do, it is even more disgusting that they are still celebrating.
- I am not thankful that a supposed day of giving thanks is really gratitude for genocide.
- I am not thankful that Pilgrims didn’t invite the Indians to feast with them peacefully, but instead Pilgrims perceived Indians in relation to the Devil and the only reason why they were invited to that feast was for the purpose of negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands for the Pilgrims.
- I am not thankful that 700 Pequot men, women and children were massacred on this day known for giving thanks.
- I am not thankful that the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.”
- I am not thankful that “Thanksgiving dinner” was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.
- I am not thankful that when the Pilgrims arrived, the Pequot tribe numbered 8,000 but disease had brought their numbers down to 1,500 by 1637. The Pequot “War” killed all but a handful of remaining members of the tribe. FYI: The disease was smallpox, brought to the indians through infected blankets, and flu-filled flannel gifts, that were giving to them by the Pilgrims.
- I am not thankful that the first Official Thanksgiving was gratitude for genocide in 1637, and in 1676 – 1677 “a day was set apart for public Thanksgiving,” because nearly all of the indians were exterminated by then.
- I am not thankful that America was basically founded on MASS genocide…a genocide of up to as many as 3 million plus indians.
- I am not thankful that when taking into consideration that the slaughter of indians started in 1492 with Christopher Columbus, “and has continued to a certain degree to this day, the number of our Peoples who died, and in many cases who are still dying, because of the European invasion Columbus initiated, is incalculable.” One can estimate the closest number is several hundred millions.
To read ”The Real Thanksgiving” by Dr. Daniel Paul, click here.
Readers: Celebrating Thanksgiving is no different than honoring the Confederate flag, or honoring the Germans for the putting Jews in the oven.
How easy it is for us to build a holocaust museum that condemns Germans; there are several. And yet it is another issue to build a museum that confronts our own genocide. Can you imagine a museum that confronts the genocide that was perpetrated by our own ancestors towards Native Americans or towards African-Americans? It just isn’t going to happen, probably ever.
Even in Washington, the Native American museum doesn’t address the genocide; a sort of a “historical amnesia”. We have no problem pointing the fingers at others who have done such atrocities, but when it comes to ourselves, when we can’t even examine, not to mention document, who we are and what we have done in our own country, it is truly sickening.
Noam Chomsky’s response to the Native American genocide:
” It is not that the people involved didn’t know about it. John Quincy Adams, a great grand strategist, who had a major role in these atrocities, in his later years when he reflected on them, referred to that hapless race of North Americans, which we are exterminating with such insidious cruelty. They knew exactly what they were doing. But it doesn’t matter. It’s us.”
“It’s us.” Us = whites. That kind of says it all doesn’t it?
So…if you are celebrating Thanksgiving today with family and friends, ponder why you are giving thanks. Are you grateful for the genocide, or are you just ignorant when it comes to the facts about Thanksgiving? I HOPE that you are the latter, and if you are…well…now you know.
And perhaps as well, like myself, you will decide that from now on Thanksgiving is not a day for celebrating and giving thanks in the traditional way, but for being grateful for all that you have today.
And today I am grateful for Doug and Lucy, and my entire family, and my dear friends…for all that I have discovered and learned this year – my lessons have brought me joy and sorrow, and I am grateful for both…and for all of you, my readers, who participate in this blog life with me. And a special thank you to you, Zen Lill for continuing to take the time to be a presence here when no one else is able.
I am grateful for so many more things too large to list here. But I do want to say that I am supremely grateful for Obama, for I can only imagine what this world would be like without his leadership.
And lastly, got to throw in some HOPE… :) …Hopefully, some day we will chose to rid ourselves of this “historical amnesia”, and face this atrocity that our ancestors committed, and we as a society accept, by doing nothing to examine and document what we have done. We can not undo what has happened but the Peoples deserve the recognition that this did happen. Until then…
Happy Thanksgiving in a very untraditional way!
To chat with me and share your gratitude or whatever else is on your mind…blog me.
…with gratitude & xoxo…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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November 25th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Nicely done, Michelle…
November 25th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Hi Misch,
This is from Jon Stewart:
… I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way … I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land …
Yep, we did that…I wonder what this place would be like and look like if a bunch of white folks did not do that, hmmmmm, maybe we can get a parellel universe perspective on that via the TAO group? Please?
My other fave comedian, Jim Gafigan, states …leave it to Americans to come up with another excuse to overeat, as if we don’t do that everyday.
Oh and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is always my pleasure to be here and I’m thankful and grateful to know you and Doug : ) and all of you blogging types as well ; )
Luv, Zen Lill
Too true, that is…!
So remember – you all may be taking in about 3,500 calories all in 1 meal, nit to throw guilt out there about it but maybe try not munching that much.
November 25th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
iPhone weirdness above sorry
November 25th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I tried to read this to my wife. She shut me up before I had read a quarter of it. She said it was too much to keep up with.
That is why evil flourishes. Those that could do something about it are too easily distracted.
The pain of others doesn’t seem to matter.
November 25th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Unlock Your Full Potential
Robert Kegan, PhD
Harvard University Graduate School of Education
If you have ever made a resolution to change, you know how difficult it can be to successfully make that change.
Our natural tendency is to keep doing things the way that we have always done them, even after we learn that there’s a better way.
This inability to adjust can have devastating consequences — for example, many people with major heart problems do not alter their diet and lifestyle, even when their doctors tell them that they must change or die.
When our attempts to change fail, we too often assume that we’re just too old, too stubborn, too undisciplined or too lazy to change.
In truth, our attempts to change usually fail because we are succeeding so brilliantly at a different, conflicting goal. Often this is a goal that we don’t even realize we are pursuing.
Example #1: A manager consistently fails at his goal of delegating responsibilities to his staff, even though he knows his department cannot function smoothly if he cannot share his responsibilities.
When he was young, his blue-collar father instilled in him a belief that people who do things themselves are better than those who hand off responsibilities to others.
Now grown, the manager unwittingly continues to pursue this goal of being a “real man” by doing everything himself at the expense of his goal to delegate.
Example #2: A woman regularly loses 20 pounds and then quickly regains them. She is aware that she is discouraged each time she puts the weight back on.
What she is not aware of is the way she also is managing — each time she regains the weight — to extricate herself from her angry and overwhelming feelings at being treated as a sex object whenever she is thinner.
Overeating allows her to achieve her hidden goal at the expense of her outward goal to be fit and healthy.
Example #3: A married man knows that he must stop lecturing his wife about minor financial missteps for the good of their relationship, but he finds himself doing so again and again.
These lectures are a way for him to pursue his hidden goal of feeling as though he is in control of his financial life — but they come at the expense of his goal of a happy relationship with his wife.
Seven steps to achieving change…
IDENTIFY CONFLICTING GOALS
Before we can achieve goals that have proved elusive for us, we must identify the hidden, conflicting goals that stand in the way…
1. List the things you do — and the things you don’t do — that inhibit your progress toward your stated goal.
Example: Your goal is to spend more time with your family.
Your list might include, “I work late many days, even when the office isn’t very busy”… or, “I accept every request for my time, even tasks that I don’t enjoy or that really aren’t my responsibility.” Be honest with yourself — list as many inhibiting behaviors as possible.
2. For each inhibiting behavior that you listed in step #1, ask yourself, “What fear or fears are raised in my mind when I imagine myself doing exactly the opposite?”
Example: If your goal-blocking behavior is working late, you might write, “When I picture myself walking out of the office at 5:00 pm, I worry that my boss and coworkers will consider me lazy.”
Or, “I worry that tasks will be mishandled if I’m not in the office.” Or, “I worry that people who report to me will goof off if I’m not around.”
3. Rewrite the fears you listed in step #2 in a way that expresses your commitment to your hidden conflicting goals. These are the hidden goals that prevent you from achieving your stated goal.
Example: If you wrote in step #2 that you were worried about being seen as lazy for leaving work early, you might now write, “I am committed to being seen as hardworking.”
If you wrote that you feared that tasks would be mishandled in your absence, you might now write, “I am committed to not trusting anyone else with responsibilities.”
OVERCOMING A CONFLICTING GOAL
Once you have identified a conflicting goal and recognized that it stands in your way, you might find that you simply can leave this goal behind — but don’t count on it.
Our hidden, conflicting goals often are deeply rooted in our “core beliefs,” the ideas and philosophies that shape our sense of who we are.
Our minds will strongly resist any attempt at change that challenges these beliefs. It is more practical to move forward in small, incremental steps that give your mind time to adjust to your intended changes. To do this…
4. Go back to the fears you described in step #2, and list the assumptions that are built into them.
The idea is to explore the worst things that can happen if you no longer pursue your no-longer-hidden conflicting goals — and to consider whether these results actually are likely. In many cases, they aren’t — they just are irrational fears.
Even very intelligent people can hold on to very significant erroneous ideas when those ideas are related to their core beliefs.
Example: If your fear is that you will be considered lazy if you occasionally leave work at 5:00, you are assuming that leaving at 5:00 even occasionally is automatically equated with laziness… that arriving early counts for nothing… that effort level during the day counts for nothing… and that staying late on other days counts for nothing. Are these assumptions true?
Do your colleagues and bosses really think this way or just you? Don’t other hardworking employees occasionally leave at 5:00?
5. Imagine what would happen if you pursued your stated goal and things did not go perfectly. What would the negative consequences actually be? Would there be positive, liberating consequences as well?
Example: Would your job or performance bonus really be at risk if you left at 5:00 a few times a week… or just your reputation as the employee who puts in the longest hours?
Would spending more time with your family be worth losing this reputation? Would it be liberating to shed the title of the “guy who always works late”?
6. Discuss your desire to alter your behavior with those who will be affected by your changes.
These prechange chats reduce the odds that those around you will misinterpret your altered behavior… increase the odds that they will offer support… and make it more difficult to chicken out, because others now know your stated goal.
Example: Ask your boss if he/she would have any objection to your leaving at 5:00 on slow days to spend time with your family.
Explain that your commitment to the company is as great as ever and that leaving at 5:00 when there is not a lot to do will make it easier for you to stay later when there is work that needs to be done.
7. Adjust your behavior in small ways that challenge the importance of your conflicting goal without forsaking it entirely. If the results of this experiment are positive, adjust your behavior a little more.
Example: Head home at 5:00, but bring your laptop and cell phone and instruct colleagues to call or e-mail you if they need you for any reason. If they do fine without you, head home at 5:00 on the next slow day without the instructions to call. If that works, try leaving the cell phone and laptop at home and joining your family on an outing after work.
If making a small change doesn’t seem to work, ask yourself if you may have “rigged” the experiment to fail. This is a common, unwitting practice.
One manager we worked with discovered that he had done a poor job briefing his employees before he left so that they would fail and “prove” his indispensability.
Personal interviewed Robert Kegan, PhD, William and Miriam Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
He is cofounder and principal of Minds at Work, a consultancy that helps individuals, organizations and coaches handle change, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He is coauthor, with Lisa Laskow Lahey, of Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Harvard Business). http://www.mindsatwork.com
November 25th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
My great grand mother said that she believes that white males make up the majority of serial killers because for them it is born out of their no longer being able to kill the minorities at will.
She said her three of her four boys were serial killers because they were not troubled by the niggers they killed. When they moved from Georgia where killing naggers, and the like was on a misdemeanor in the late 60′s and took up work here in California, they could no longer do what they liked to do hunt niggers when they needed to let some steam off.
So they turned to killing whatever was available, they figured why not because good decent white people had made it a crime to kill a nigger. If they were going to get the same sentence for killing a nigger as a white person, then why should they not just take the first available target.
And since white people were readily available, it made sense to just grab a few of them.
She laughed when she explained the logic of her three boys who were men. She said that the other boy of hers was a traitor because he threatened to turn in his brothers. He didn’t because she begged him not to. But she said hat she never could love him as much again after he made that threat.
November 25th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
MS Zen Lill we can’t all dissolve our marriages just like that. Some of us aren’t as talented as you. So we must get our revenge the best way we can.
Me I’ve been fucking his disgusting father. I do mean disgusting. I have to take two baths after I let him pant all over me. I’m just waiting until he impregnates me then I can give that cheating bastard of a husband of mine the child he has wanted for so long.
My skin crawls everytime that sleaze gets near me, but I tell myself it is for a good cause.
Sarah
November 25th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Anonymous, your great grandmother missed the point. White people kill OTWS because it makes them feel so good. They kill each other because it makes them feel superior.
Theo
November 26th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Zen Lill
Here’s what’s up with that.
I agree with you. Women shouldn’t take it out on the other woman, if she was only the object of her man’s lust or appreciation.
A real woman would take it up with the man.
Women should stop giving men a pass. If a man disrespects a woman in her presence, he is telling her that when she isn’t around he has no restraints on his behavior.
This black woman would have gotten up and left him at the table.
Janet
November 26th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Zen Lill
Sometimes you express yourself in the same manner as you slam others for.
Example “when someone says ‘no offense’ hmmm, yeah right, you were fully intending to say your piece offense notwithstanding.”
How is that different when you say something that could possibly be offensive and end it with a :)?
I would give people the benefit of the doubt because it is difficult not to offend anyone when speaking in generalities. So the polite person may preference his/her statement with “no offense meant.”
On could also use that if one is not sure about the sensitivity on a subject of the person his/her comment is directed to.
I.E. Your apparent sensitivity to being criticized. I could end with no offense intended because I am not making this comment to offend you. Rather it is an observation that I feel that I notice in your dialogue on occasion.
If you and it is my take that you will be offended by this observation, but I did not intend to offend. Like with the creep you described earlier, why should I allow one’s sensitivity to a negative trait they possess censor me from pointing it out.
Just because I perceive the trait to be negative doesn’t mean it is negative or that the person that I am calling it on perceives it as one (many racist right wringers, see nothing wrong with their bigotry?)
All I’m saying is that I should have the right to voice my opinion without fear of hurting the person’s feelings. So in that case, I might say, “no offense meant,” because none was.
Mildred
November 26th, 2010 at 5:03 am
Zen Lill
This female does not forget! I will not take it out on a female who did not know my man was married. But she is as guilty as he is if she knew and proceeded to have an affair with him.
I know there are exceptions to this as in your man’s situation. He is married but the two of you have an understanding. Sans that, a woman is as guilty as the man in my eyes.
As for the man, he deserves whatever the woman decides is punishment for the crime, provided she enters the fray with “clean hands,” and as you “what upped” a notice to him that she would not tolerate disrespect when she noticed it.
If a woman allows a man to disrespect her in public, she is telling him that she will accept his behavior to keep him. She has left it up to him to decide how much.
Women who do that don’t have the right to expect that he will draw the line at having a sexual liaision, with or without a condom. A dog will behave as a dog.
Your scenario was an example of a man behaving as dogs do, sniffing any ass that passes regardless of the presence of their owner.
Allowing her man to do that does not leave a woman with “clean hands.” Hence, her behavior to the discovery of greater infractions by him of the principles of the union of two who entered that union of their free wills should be judged accordingly.
My man knows that if I catch him cheating on me, my “revenge, anger, will be tempered only by the degree of respect I feel he observed when he committed the offense.
For instance if he used a condom, I might not resort to violence. But if he exposed me to the sexual risks of the partner(s) he exposed himself to, what I decide to do in the form of pay-back is strictly up to me.
Whatever I feel I will legally be able to get away with is on the table.
As far as the women he had the relationships with I would consider that on a case by case basis.
Just another black woman’s opinion.
Ellie
November 26th, 2010 at 5:05 am
Holding on to a man at all cost is self abuse. Usually this is done by women who define themselves by the presence of a man in their company.
November 26th, 2010 at 6:52 am
I am an american indian. My family suffer everyday because of the insensitivity of the white man. He murdered my people and got away with it.
But that is not enough for him. He has to rub it in at every opportunity. If not with his incessantly aired westerns portraying my people as savages, his big to do about the meaning of his greatest holiday “thanksgiving.”
The hypocrisy of the white man is matched only by his insensitivity to the feelings of OTWs.
I have aged to the point that I no longer believe in a god who will set things right. I leave it to others to make the white man as uncomfortable as possible.
As in the Vietnam War, if the OTWS were to stick together and tell the white boy that he is through fighting his enemies, this thing with the arabs would end.
9/11 like their thanksgiving is a lie. If the white boy wants to make it mean anything he should have it represent the the ineptitude of an administration that failed to protect the american people from a few idiots that were planning to hurt them by taking flying instructions in their country without taking lessons to take off in the planes or lessons on how to land them.
The only idiots dumber than they were were the ones running the government, the Republicans.
So what do white people do. They put the dumb bastards back into office. Why? Because it is not about 9/11 that is the nationalism bullshit they feed the OTWS to get them to follow blindly whatever they want them to do.
Like help kill and murder innocent Iraqis. Bush turned his guns and ginded up OTWS on Iraq. If any other country did what he did, we would be calling him one of the worst mass murders in history.
But the white boy re-elects the party that did it and puts in even dumber representatives, if that is possible.
Wake up OTWS. You got morons running the country. If not for Obama you wouldn’t even have health care, or the minimum control of the corporation behavior that you do.
Face it. The white boy will not conduct a war without the blind willingness of America’s OTWS to die for their ignorance.
Like in Vietnam, if you sit down they will tuck their tiny balls between their legs and RUN!
They raped and murdered our women and children, scalped and put bounties on the hair of our women and children poisoned us with the first use of germ warfare, killed our buffalo and still only won because they had binoculars and cannons.
After more than 100 years of allowing their oil companies to steal our oil and the oil stipend that was promised us, when we find a way to make money via casinos, they force us to share with them our earnings.
Something the hypocrites put Republicans into power to prevent Obama from forcing corporations to do. Why because it is “private enterprise.”
As in the rest of their hypocritical bullshit, their axioms only apply to their desires. So our private enterprises have to share while theirs don’t.
Fuck’em I say. OTWS sit down and force the hypocrites to fight for the bullshit they dump on us daily. They will never send their children to die for it.
Look at what their Senators are doing at the airports. While we are being forced to be groped or accept being radiated to travel via plane, they are exempting themselves from the same treatment.
The white boy at his truest. And what does the majority of white america say to that. Of course, nothing, they are the tiny balled bunch that cower and do anything in the name of personal safety.
The arabs are laughing hardily at the results. They spent about hundred bucks to make the stupid white boy to spend hundreds of millions on x-ray machines.
Of course this wouldn’t have worked if the greed of the white boy wasn’t ever present. I.E. the only reason american are being forced into being exposed to all that radiation is because a man on the Board the proposed it under the Bush administration did it to get rich selling them after he quit.
What does the white boy do? He puts the scoundrel party back into office.
OTWS sit down and let the bastards ruin what’s left of the country. Then drive the inept sons of bitches into the sea.
Roy
November 26th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Zen Lill, Ellie, and Nancy, this white girl agrees with you. Men who can not or rather refuse to check their lustful ways while in the presence of their significant others will act like dogs in heat just out of their presence.
Connie
November 26th, 2010 at 7:06 am
Michelle:
I’m still trying to figure out why Zen Lill can publish anytime she sees fit and the rest of us must fend for ourselves.
We may not be one of your girls, but we are loyal fans. Here in South Korea, you are widely read. My girlfriends call and discuss your articles and comments only in English.
We gain a greater master of the language that way and we honor the person who offers up to the world such uncensored dialogue.
So why are we denied equal access as Ms Zen Lill, one of your pards or as she would say one of your dogs?
Li