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Below is my reply to a post over on Tumblr. I thought it might be of interest.
On Tumblr, junglejustine wrote:
If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I honestly think you are in no position to say anything about the holiday. Simply because people are announcing they are thankful for something today, doesn’t mean they’re not thankful for it everyday. It doesn’t mean someone is ungrateful though it may seem that way to people that haven’t celebrated the holiday of Thanksgiving from childhood.
Everything isn’t a debate, especially a holiday. Thanksgiving holds a different type of significance for everyone. It’s not just “some” holiday.
And I replied:
I respect your opinion, but have to disagree. I think people can and should celebrate if they want to, but they should also be informed of the reality behind the cultural mythology of Thanksgiving — just like Columbus Day, slave-owner Washington’s birthday — even, dare I say it, Christmas (*cough* pagan solstice).
Everying in society is a debate, because our cultural instutions are shaped by one class to hold down another — even holidays.
I have been having really interesting and intense discussions with my 5-year-old daughter about this for the past couple of weeks. She is a bi-racial African American child (her mother is Black, and I’m white). Most of the children in her Brooklyn public school are kids of color. I was sort of shocked to see how they make these children act out the Pilgrim myth, just as they did in my 99-percent white Midwestern school 30 years ago.
Ripley is very excited about school, about performing and being a good student, and I don’t want to interfere with that. But the kind of awful stuff they are teaching kids this time of year can’t go without some response.
When we had to do a family “thanksgiving” project, I listened to her ideas about turkeys and then suggested something different, to make something to honor people who fight for a better world and use pictures of her attending demonstrations and meetings. Since she’s been raised in an activist atmosphere, she got the idea immediately, and ran with it. She was very proud to bring it to her school to be hung in the hall and to talk about what it meant.
At the same time she was very excited to perform her lines as a pilgrim in her class’s play. We talked about what I thought were the problems with the skit, how it didn’t really represent the Native American’s point of view. And Ripley very correctly observed the lack of any women or girls in the skit.
Next year we are going to make the trip to Plymouth for the annual National Day of Mourning event held by the United American Indians of New England. Since she is already a critical thinker, I believe she’ll get a lot out of it.
A lot of people know better, but they are afraid to speak up — the teachers, the parents, the kids. The more of us stand up and make noise, the more others will feel able to take a stand.
On Tumblr, junglejustine wrote:
If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I honestly think you are in no position to say anything about the holiday. Simply because people are announcing they are thankful for something today, doesn’t mean they’re not thankful for it everyday. It doesn’t mean someone is ungrateful though it may seem that way to people that haven’t celebrated the holiday of Thanksgiving from childhood.
Everything isn’t a debate, especially a holiday. Thanksgiving holds a different type of significance for everyone. It’s not just “some” holiday.
And I replied:
I respect your opinion, but have to disagree. I think people can and should celebrate if they want to, but they should also be informed of the reality behind the cultural mythology of Thanksgiving — just like Columbus Day, slave-owner Washington’s birthday — even, dare I say it, Christmas (*cough* pagan solstice).
Everying in society is a debate, because our cultural instutions are shaped by one class to hold down another — even holidays.
I have been having really interesting and intense discussions with my 5-year-old daughter about this for the past couple of weeks. She is a bi-racial African American child (her mother is Black, and I’m white). Most of the children in her Brooklyn public school are kids of color. I was sort of shocked to see how they make these children act out the Pilgrim myth, just as they did in my 99-percent white Midwestern school 30 years ago.
Ripley is very excited about school, about performing and being a good student, and I don’t want to interfere with that. But the kind of awful stuff they are teaching kids this time of year can’t go without some response.
When we had to do a family “thanksgiving” project, I listened to her ideas about turkeys and then suggested something different, to make something to honor people who fight for a better world and use pictures of her attending demonstrations and meetings. Since she’s been raised in an activist atmosphere, she got the idea immediately, and ran with it. She was very proud to bring it to her school to be hung in the hall and to talk about what it meant.
At the same time she was very excited to perform her lines as a pilgrim in her class’s play. We talked about what I thought were the problems with the skit, how it didn’t really represent the Native American’s point of view. And Ripley very correctly observed the lack of any women or girls in the skit.
Next year we are going to make the trip to Plymouth for the annual National Day of Mourning event held by the United American Indians of New England. Since she is already a critical thinker, I believe she’ll get a lot out of it.
A lot of people know better, but they are afraid to speak up — the teachers, the parents, the kids. The more of us stand up and make noise, the more others will feel able to take a stand.
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