I'm just gonna post this because I think holidays are complicated. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I wrote this yesterday, but chose to post it today, so as not to rain on everyone's parade.
I don't eat meat, so having an animal carcass in my refrigerator is honestly hard for me. It feels yucky and I feel like I need to be praying for that bird, who lived a tortured, short life, and is now shrink-wrapped and beheaded, waiting to be unceremoniously (or ceremoniously, but without much respect for the life of the bird) devoured by my family as we commemorate a lie that perpetuates a white supremacist imagining of American history and continues to ignore white complacency in racist genocide and the ongoing suffering of America's indigenous peoples.
Recognizing and celebrating gratitude is important, especially in a nation as privileged as the U.S. However, the premises of the holiday fly at odds with an honest telling of history and the spirit of the holiday itself. To celebrate gratitude for the abundance in our lives without acknowledging the lives slaughtered so we could call that abundance ours (speaking as a white American) is indicative of some of our greatest flaws as a nation.
In many ways, this holidays speaks to who we are, but I would argue that the lessons of gratitude are outweighed by a kind of scotosis that seems to dominate our national narratives. That may be the truest part of this celebration.
The Thanksgiving holiday is representative of our national scotosis more than it is representative of a nation that is truly grateful for its blessings or honest about how we come to those "blessings."
Am I grateful that I am well-fed and surrounded by family? Every effing day. Do I think holidays that bring us together and ask us to be grateful in a culture that values consumerism and expansion are good ideas? Of course. Do I think consumerism and expansion are problematically wound into the narrative of the holiday? Yes. Do I think it's harmful to re-tell an historical lie? Yes.
I think we need to find a better way to root ourselves in gratitude and family than to tell ourselves lies at the expense of the integrity and value of a massacred and continuously oppressed population.
And eating animals is gross and barbaric, IMHO. A holiday centered around eating an animal in a culture that eats far too many animals, to the detriment of our own health and the health of the planet, not to mention the integrity of animal life, is pretty nasty.
I don't want to go into my arguments for vegetarianism (you can search my tags to find them).
While this holiday is well-intentioned, I think it highlights some of our biggest problems as a nation. That we glorify these things and continue to celebrate a holiday that most of us know is built upon a damaging lie, says a lot about where we are in the unfolding of our nation and our moment in history.
I continue to believe in change. We can do better.
