[Peace-discuss] Thanksgiving???

[Morton K. Brussel]

This will make many uncomfortable. It has analogies to the "Chief"  
issue.
What do you think?

From:  http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm? 
SectionID=30&ItemID=14302

Raining on the Thanksgiving Day parade: “Redefining” the holiday is a  
failed project
by Robert Jensen; November 16, 2007

     After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about  
the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an  
essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with  
fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the  
genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the  
United States.

     I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given  
their common commitment to this country’s distorted self-image that  
supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States  
so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such  
critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals -- even  
some on the left, including a considerable number of my friends.
     The most common argument went something like this: OK, it’s true  
that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story  
-- about the European invaders coming in peace to the “New World,”  
eager to cooperate with indigenous people -- which conveniently  
ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the  
continent. But we can reject the culture’s self-congratulatory  
attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on  
Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and  
friends.
     The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural  
definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has  
always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these  
left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the  
central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism -- that  
individual behavior in private is more important than collective  
action in public. The claim that through private action we can create  
our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate  
capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall  
project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to  
retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption.
     So this November, rather than mount another attack on the  
national mythology around Thanksgiving -- a mythology that amounts to  
a kind of holocaust denial, and which has been critiqued for many  
years by many people -- I want to explore why so many who understand  
and accept this critique still celebrate Thanksgiving, and why  
rejecting such celebrations sparks such controversy.

     Once we know, what do we do?
     At this point in history, anyone who wants to know this reality  
of U.S. history -- that the extermination of indigenous peoples was,  
both in a technical legal sense and in common usage, genocide -- can  
easily find the resources to know. If this idea is new, I would  
recommend two books, David E. Stannard’s American Holocaust: Columbus  
and the Conquest of the New World and Ward Churchill’s A Little  
Matter of Genocide. While the concept of genocide, which is defined  
as the deliberate attempt “to destroy, in whole or in part, a  
national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” came into existence  
after World War II, it accurately describes the program that  
Europeans and their descendants pursued to acquire the territory that  
would become the United States of America.
     Once we know that, what do we do? The moral response -- that is,  
the response that would be consistent with the moral values around  
justice and equality that most of us claim to hold -- would be a  
truth-and-reconciliation process that would not only correct the  
historical record but also redistribute land and wealth. In the white- 
supremacist and patriarchal society in which we live, operating  
within the parameters set by a greed-based capitalist system, such a  
process is hard to imagine in the short term. So, the question for  
left/radical people is: What political activity can we engage in to  
keep alive this kind of critique until a time when social conditions  
might make a truly progressive politics possible?

     In short: Once we know, what do we do in a world that is not yet  
ready to know, or knows but will not deal with the consequences of  
that knowledge?
     The general answer to that question is simple, though often  
difficult to put into practice: We must keep speaking honestly, as  
often as possible, in as many venues as possible. We must resist the  
conventional wisdom. We must reject the cultural amnesia. We must  
refuse to be polite when politeness means capitulation to lies.
     I have not always been strong enough to meet even these basic  
moral obligations. Most of us in positions of unearned privilege and  
power would be wise to avoid pontificating about our moral  
superiority and political courage, given our routine failures. Can  
any of us not point to moments when we went along to get along? Have  
any of us done enough to bring our lives in line with the values we  
claim to hold?
     Still, we need to help each other tell the truth, even when the  
truth is not welcome.
     The illusion of redefining Thanksgiving
     Imagine that Germany won World War II and that a Nazi regime  
endured for some decades, eventually giving way to a more liberal  
state with a softer version of German-supremacist ideology. Imagine  
that a century later, Germans celebrated a holiday offering a  
whitewashed version of German/Jewish history that ignored that  
holocaust and the deep anti-Semitism of the culture. Imagine that the  
holiday provided a welcomed time for families and friends to gather  
and enjoy food and conversation. Imagine that businesses, schools and  
government offices closed on this day.
     What would we say about such a holiday? Would we not question  
the distortions woven into such a celebration? Would we not demand a  
more accurate historical account? Would we not, in fact, denounce  
such a holiday as grotesque?
     Now, imagine that left/liberal Germans -- those who were  
critical of the power structure that created that distorted history  
and who in other settings would challenge the political uses of those  
distortions -- put aside their critique and celebrated the holiday  
with their fellow citizens, claiming to ignore the meaning of the  
holiday created by the dominant culture.

     What would we say about such people? Would we not question their  
commitment to the principles they claim to hold? Would we not demand  
a more courageous politics?

     Comparisons to the Nazis are routinely overused and typically  
hyperbolic, but this is directly analogous. These are fair, albeit  
painful, questions for all of us.

     Left/liberals who want to claim they are rejecting that European- 
supremacist and racist use of Thanksgiving and “redefining” the  
holiday in private clearly avoid the obvious: We don’t define  
holidays individually -- the idea of a holiday is rooted in its  
collective, shared meaning. When the dominant culture defines a  
holiday in a certain fashion, one can’t pretend to redefine it in  
private. One either accepts the dominant definition or resists it,  
publicly and privately.

     Of course people often struggle for control over the meaning of  
symbols and holidays, but typically we engage in such battles when we  
believe there is some positive aspect of the symbol or holiday worth  
fighting for. For example, Christians -- some of whom believe that  
Christmas should focus on the values of universal love and world  
peace rather than on orgiastic consumption -- may resist that  
commercialization and argue in public and private for a different  
approach to the holiday. Those people typically continue to celebrate  
Christmas, but in ways consistent with those values. In that case,  
people are trying to recover and/or reinforce something that they  
believe is positive because of values rooted in a historical  
tradition. Those folks struggle over the meaning of Christmas because  
they believe the core of Christianity is experienced through the  
people we touch, not the products we purchase. In that endeavor,  
Christians are arguing the culture has gone astray and lost the  
positive historical grounding of the holiday.

     But what is positive in the historical events that define  
Thanksgiving? What tradition are we trying to return to? I have no  
quarrel with designating a day (or days) that would allow people to  
take a break from our often manic work routines and appreciate the  
importance of community, encouraging all of us to be grateful for  
what we have. But if that is the goal, why yoke it to Thanksgiving  
Day and a history of celebrating European/white dominance and  
conquest? Trying to transform Thanksgiving Day into a true day of  
thanksgiving, it seems to me, is possible only by letting go of this  
holiday, not by remaining rooted in it. If there were a major shift  
in the culture and a majority of people could confront these  
historical realities, perhaps the last Thursday in November could be  
so transformed. But that shift and transformation are, to say the  
least, not yet here.

     For too long, I ignored these troubling questions. To get along,  
I went along. I buried my concerns to avoid making trouble. But in  
recent years that has become more difficult. So, this year I want to  
acknowledge my past failures to raise these issues and commit not  
only to renouncing Thanksgiving publicly but also to refusing to  
participate in any celebration of it privately.

     The choices: Make people comfortable by engaging or by disengaging
     Obviously there are people in the United States -- indigenous  
and otherwise -- who do not celebrate Thanksgiving or who mark it, in  
private and/or in public, as a day of mourning.

     http://www.pilgrimhall.org/daymourn.htm

     Also obvious is that there are people who may not have a family  
or community with which they celebrate such holidays; it’s important  
to remember that there are people on such holidays who are alone and/ 
or lonely, and to them these political questions may seem irrelevant.
     But for those of us who do get invited to traditional  
Thanksgiving Day dinners, how do we remain true to our stated  
political and moral principles? I think we have two choices.
     We can go to the Thanksgiving gatherings put on by friends and  
family, determined to raise these issues and willing to take the risk  
of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. Or,  
we can refuse to go to such a gathering and make it known why we’re  
not attending, which means taking the risk of alienating those who  
want to enjoy the day without politics.
     This year, I’ve decided to disengage and explain why to the  
people who invited me. These are people I love, yet who have made a  
different decision. My love for them has not diminished, and I trust  
the conversation with them about this and other political/moral  
questions will continue.
     Once I make that decision, of course I also have the option of  
participating in a public event that resists Thanksgiving. I’m not  
aware of one happening in my community, and because of commitments to  
other political projects I didn’t feel I could organize an effective  
event in time for this Thanksgiving Day. But on the assumption that  
others may feel this way, I have started thinking about what kind of  
public gathering could make such a political statement effectively,  
and in the future I hope to find others who are interested in such an  
event locally.
     So, what will I do on Thanksgiving Day this year? I’ll probably  
spend part of the day alone. Maybe I’ll take a long walk and think  
about all this. I’ll try to be kind and decent to the people I bump  
into during the day. I’ll miss the company of friends and family who  
are gathering, and I’ll try to reflect on why I’ve made this choice  
and why this question matters to me. I’ll think about why others made  
the choices they made.


     But this year, whatever I do, I won’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  
I’m going to let that parade pass me by.
     --------------------------------
     Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of  
Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource  
Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org. His latest book is Getting Off:  
Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007).  
Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism,  
and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim  
Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent:  
Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang).  
He can be reached at rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can  
be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.





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