meow85 said:

Aha, fair enough! I was misled by the apparent Canadian non-participation in the theme...

missfee said:

Isn't Thanksgiving about the Puritans giving thanks to the Americans who showed them how to survive the winter. The same Puritans who then turned around and killed these same Americans to lay claim to their country?

Fuck thanksgiving, it's the most hypocritical holiday I've ever come across.

I thankful every day of my life, for my blessings, for my faults, for everything as they are all learning experiences. Don't need any special day to give thanks for anything.

wave if you are feeling me.
[Edited 11/22/06 4:47am]

meow85 said:

Sure! But we decide to all do it on the same day. That's what makes it a holiday. I'm an atheist, but I celebrate Xmas. I like the stories and I like the traditions and I like singing carols and I like mistletoe and giving presents to my family and friends. But I don't believe in anything it was supposed to be based on. And I'd hazard a guess most aren't thinking about jesus on Xmas day either. Heck, the christians stole most of their holidays and rituals from pagans and changed the meaning there too.

I think it's important people know all sides to history, don't get me wrong. But I think you can also make your own traditions and celebrate for your own reasons.

CarrieMpls said:

Agreed. I'm a Buddhist but I celebrate Christmas (in a secular sense) becuase it's an agreed upon day.

It's proven that Children love tradition. Even establishing that Sunday Mornings is "big breakfast" morning, gives them a routine to follow, and they need that. Holidays to me, are the same thing. Perfectly healthy expression of love. Yeah, in America we go overboard with the materialistic aspect of it, but we don't *have* to.

CarrieMpls said:

The difference for Thanksgiving is that the history is offensive to us Not the harvest festival aspect, not the day for families to get together, that's all fine. But the systematic murder of our families and decimating our culture should not be ignored so people can feel warm and fuzzy one day a year. It IS equivalent to a Happy Holocaust Day. Our ancestors lives had the same worth as any other human being despite being treated like animals that were just in the way of the Europeans.
I celebrate many things but not this one, my conscience won't allow it.

shellyevon said:

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. And that's your choice, then. All I can say is that's not what I'm celebrating.
As I noted earlier in this thread (or on another thread on this same subject maybe?) I celebrate thanksgiving with native american friends of mine. They have celebrated the same holiday with their families for years. I don't think we're hiding, glossing over or negating what was done. Just choosing to redefine what 'thanksgiving' means to us.

Yeah, theres nothing wrong with sitting down to a meal with people you love and giving thanks for whatever your thankful for. Some people don't even do the giving thanks thing anyways. I know every year after we say grace, I say, okay I'm thanksful "blah blah" and then I say fell free to go around the table and say what your thankful for and everyone just looks at me like I'm an idiot.

I think they just come for the food.

luv4all7 said:

I made a game out of saying what we were thankful for at my friend thanksgiving this year. It was super fun! We always say what we're thankful for, in one way or another. And it always makes someone cry. I love my friends.

CarrieMpls said:

I have no problem with your reasons for celebrating , I just can speak for myself. I would change the holiday if I could, something more in line with the harvest celebration they have in Canada. It's just another day for my family, but we celebrate other days that are significant for NDNs.

luv4all7 said:

I've got no no problem with any of that.This is what I have a problem with:

http://www.iwchildren.org/plymouth.htm

That was in 1997, not ancient history. And it's family to me.

Change the day, change the reason to just being Thankful and I'm with you.
But the day has to change to one that's not linked to all of this Pilgrim crap.

CarrieMpls said:

My friends and family all think I'm a sappy idiot. They make fun of me cuz I cook and have kids.

I like your friends better.

shellyevon said:

working in retail really makes u start to dread the holidays

heyduckie said:

oh yeah, i really feel for you customer service people.

susannah said:

Canada's got it's own issues with Native/White race relations and the history involved, but our Thanksgiving was originally meant as a harvest festival. So, it's earlier in the fall (October) and it shifts based on the lunar cycle. This year it was on the 9th.

I think the reason the two Thanksgivings are so similar is becase over time the U.S. and Canada have shifted more towards each other culturally than we used to be.

CarrieMpls said:

I don't see participating in traditions that celebrate the birth of a religious figure you don't believe in as anywhere near the same thing as participating in celebrating murder and theft. Sorry.

heyduckie said:

They've been playing Christmas music at my job since The 1st of this month. Even songs I used to love I can't stand now.

U.S. tradition associates the holiday with a meal held in 1621 by the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This element continues in modern times with the Thanksgiving dinner, often featuring turkey, playing a large role in the celebration of Thanksgiving. Some of the details of the American Thanksgiving story are myths that developed in the 1890s and early 1900s as part of the effort to forge a common national identity in the aftermath of the Civil War and in the melting pot of new immigrants.

In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.

On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner. This results in Thanksgiving holiday weekend being one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

A celebration of being thankful for what one has and the bounty of the previous year.

Celebrations, Parades, Spending Time with Family, Eating Large Dinners, Football.

PurpleJedi said:

Co-sign. Halloween is the only one I like. But after that from November through May I hate 'em all: Thanksgiving, xmas, NYE, V-Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter... ugh, they're all over-rated. May gets a slight reprieve b/c my birthday is in May (but it always coincides with Memorial day... ).

I got in a huge fight with my mother Wednesday about going to my parents house for xmas. After I spent an inordinate amount of $$ on a non-refundable plane ticket she gives me the "You don't have to come home if you don't want to" line. Which is bullshit, b/c I'm already the odd ball of my family (not married, no kids, liberal, post-grad degree) & I usually only make it back once a year at xmas so for me to skip I would be given the ultimate guilt-trip from all of them. B/c of where they live it will take me about 12 hours of travel (I have a five hour lay over at O'Hare!!) and then once I get there it's so stressful--I have nothing in common with my relatives so I mostly just sit around by myself thinking how much I hate the fucking holidays.

Today was great--I literally slept all day! It was shitty weather in New York so I didn't waste a nice day.

(I'm really not as mean as I sound in my post, I just really hate the fucking holidays! )

july said:

Again:

http://www.iwchildren.org/plymouth.htm

"It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God"
-Gov. William Bradford, Plymouth,

Stannard, p114
(Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, p. 296)




"Great and doleful was the bloudy sight to the view of young soldiers that never had been in war, to see so many souls lie gasping on the ground, so thick, in some places, that you could hardly pass along."
Justifying a massacre of Indians conducted by goodly Christians he continues

"sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents."



Read the whole thing, We are totally , painfully aware of the meaning of the holiday. Not all NDNs assimilate, nor should we be forced to paticipate just because it's what "everyone" does.
[Edited 11/24/06 4:28am]

Speech by Moonanum James, Co-Leader of United
American Indians of New England

at the 29th National Day of Mourning, November 26, 1998


Many times over the past year we have been asked what is the true history of thanksgiving. This
comes as no surprise. The truth has been buried for over 375 years. The first Thanksgiving did not
occur in 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of the first winter sat down to dinner with their Indian
friends. The first official day of thanksgiving and feasting in Massachusetts was proclaimed by Gov.
Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. He did this to give thanks for the safe return of
men from the colony who had gone to what is now Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the
massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children.

What happened in October of 1621 may have been a harvest home, but the Indians who attended
were not even invited by the Pilgrims, who considered our people to be devils. No turkey, cranberry
sauce, or pumpkin pie was served. Just days before this alleged thanksgiving communion, a
company of pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. The pilgrims
deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one against the other in the classic
European method of divide and conquer. An 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire
Plymouth settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.

Native people do not give thanks just one day a year. Every day, we thank the Creator for this
beautiful earth and for our survival. But we will not give thanks for the European invasion of our
country. We will not celebrate the theft of our lands and the genocide of our people. We will not sing
and dance to please the tourists who come here seeking a Disneyland version of history. Attention all
tourists: If you are expecting us to put on a show, you would be better advised to go down to
Plymouth Rock and watch the tide wash over it.

That first Day of Mourning back in 1970 was a powerful demonstration of Native unity. Today is a
powerful demonstration of not only Native unity, but of the unity of all people from the Four
Directions who want the truth to be told and want to see an end to the oppressive system brought to
these shores by the Pilgrim invaders

Some ask us: Will you ever stop protesting? Some day we will stop protesting: We will stop
protesting when the merchants of Plymouth are no longer making millions of dollars off the blood of
our slaughtered ancestors. We will stop protesting when we can act as sovereign nations on our own
land without the interference of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and what Sitting Bull called the "favorite
ration chiefs." When corporations stop polluting our mother, the earth. When racism has been
eradicated. When the oppression of Two-Spirited people is a thing of the past. We will stop
protesting when homeless people have homes and no child goes to bed hungry. When police
brutality no longer exists in communities of color. We will stop protesting when Leonard Peltier and
Mumia Abu Jamal and the Puerto Rican independentistas and all the political prisoners are free.

Until then, the struggle will continue.

Today, we will correct some history and do so in a country that continues to glorify butchers such as
Christopher Columbus, glorifies slave-owning presidents such as Washington and Jefferson and even
carves their faces into the sacred Black Hills of the Lakota.

But we have a lot more to talk about than the pilgrims or what happened in the 1600s. We will also
be speaking today, as we have every year since 1970, about conditions in Indian country today,
about the racism which we face on a daily basis. We are here, as we have been for 28 years, to
unite people and to speak the truth. On our program will be only Native speakers. This is one day
when we speak for ourselves, without non-Native people, so-called "experts," intervening to
interpret and speak for us. We are more than capable of speaking for ourselves.

We are not vanishing. We are not conquered. We are as strong as ever.



[/b]

DevotedPuppy said:

shellyevon said:

july said:

:Yeah, I know, not too many people are told the truth about it all. It's horrible. Thanksgiving should be changed to another day, with just the harvest thankfulness aspects, family time. and of course the football . But definitely change the day and ditch the pilgrims. An official apology for the massacre and all the years of lies would be nice also, but I doubt that'll happen. The White House turkey gets a pardon but our ancestors will probably never get justice.

PurpleJedi said:

Thanks. I was just in a really bad mood when I posted that...I'm calmer now...but I still hate the holidays!



(ps. it's me, jone70...we met at the NYC org invasion. How are ya?)
[Edited 11/25/06 16:56pm]

DevotedPuppy said:

Getting ready for X'mas?!?!!?

shellyevon said:

I miss Thanksgiving. It just passed, but I love the food and the time of year.