LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — Oxford Dictionary defines the noun Thanksgiving as an expression of gratitude. Thanksgiving is an annual national holiday in the United States that celebrates being thankful for the past year’s blessings. It is a day to connect with family, friends and community by expressing gratitude and eating a feast with loved ones.
Though maybe not as conventional or popular as Halloween or Christmas, Thanksgiving’s traditions are essential to American culture and values.
Thanksgiving, which will be held this year on Thursday, Nov. 28, encourages values of thankfulness, community and love. However, while I appreciate Thanksgiving’s promotion of community and gratitude, this disgusting display of American ignorance and greed should be stopped.
One cannot ignore the blatant unawareness of the Thanksgiving mythology this holiday encourages. Thanksgiving’s whitewashed history reinforces the idea that Native Americans and white settlers were friendly, which is grossly exaggerated.
“The origin of the Thanksgiving holiday dates back to a harvest feast held in 1621 between the Wampanoag, a native tribe who occupied the land long before, and the newly settled English colonists in America. The gathering is widely seen as a celebration of the alliance between the two groups but leaves out the ways in which those ties were broken,” states the BBC article “Thanksgiving: Why some push back against the holiday’s ‘mythology.‘”
In the years before that harvest feast, foreign-born diseases arriving from Europe killed many Native Americans. Meanwhile, others died in conflict with English settlers seeking to gain control of their land. After the feast, Native Americans experienced the same brutality, land theft and genocide as before. This one friendly moment did nothing to change the history of violence the Native Americans received from English settlers.
Besides, calling the Thanksgiving feast “friendly” is not entirely correct.
“The Wampanoag likely participated more for political reasons of keeping the peace with the English, not because of friendship,” says Rebekah Gienapp in the blog article “The ‘first Thanksgiving’: Unpacking myths and stereotypes with kids.”
However, sugarcoated Thanksgiving mythology asserts that the feast caused a deep friendship between the English settlers and Native Americans, which is insulting and uneducated.
In addition to facilitating disrespect, Thanksgiving perpetuates racist stereotypes. Rather than educating Americans about the different values and traditions of Native American culture, Thanksgiving paints Native Americans as “Indians,” suffering people in need of a white savior to give them corn and teach them how to fish.
Furthermore, Americans are encouraged to dress up as “Indians” or “Pilgrims,” wearing inaccurate “cultural costumes” of colorful feathers and Mohawks, perpetuating biased and intolerant stereotypes. Feigning false support through cultural appropriation is not right and should not be considered American, as the article “My culture is not your costume,” by Harvard Crimson journalist Gabrielle T. Langkilde, articulates.
By promoting a false narrative about Native American culture, Thanksgiving has now evolved into a symbol of American greed and disrespect for other cultures. It is disgustingly hypocritical that many Americans would pretend to support other cultures by eating different foods or dressing up as Pilgrims without realizing the error of their ways in celebrating a holiday based on bloodshed and racism.
Thanksgiving is now more a day about food and fake stories than celebrating gratitude or community. It is a laughable representation of American greed and discrimination, where people celebrate their blessings and gratitude by stuffing their faces with food, then washing their hands with ignorance. By choosing to participate in a holiday based on disrespect and lies, we continue to further widespread discrimination.
Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving, we should celebrate Friendsgiving, a potluck celebrating community instead of promoting shallow perspectives. A blend of the words “friend” and “Thanksgiving,” Friendsgiving encourages beneficial values like community and gratitude that Thanksgiving should be about while discouraging Thanksgiving’s harmful stereotypes and greed.
Unlike Thanksgiving’s fake gratitude, Friendsgiving promotes an understanding and love for your community that should continue to be celebrated.
