Thanksgiving stumps me every year. First I think about the history of the holiday and what and how we are currently celebrating. Then I drown in bliss as I consider how to pen the many things that bring me love and gratitude.
Then I blog about hypocrisy.
I have never seriously resisted the celebration of Thanksgiving. I have never expressed my conflictual feelings about Thanksgiving, not even to my family. I have never responded to a well-wisher with, "Do you know the origin of this holiday?" As such, I have remained far from one of my main political aims: to question and resist colonial practices in everyday life.
In a recent Ms. Magazine post, Natalie Wilson, an avid feminist blogger with a Ph.D. in women's studies, writes "No Thanks to Thanksgiving - Part 2," following up on Robert Jensen's original 2005 post. In the "Part 1" version, Jensen opens boldy: "One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting."
Zing. That ought to get the grannies with turkeys up in arms.
"Moral progress" aside, I think Jensen and Wilson are totally on. They both point out the hugely problematic myths of benevolent empire that circulate through this weekend. My internal contradictions are highlighted, however, by my pang of defensiveness while reading their enlightening posts, even though I agreed with and felt refreshed by the joint argument entirely.
Truthfully, I love Thanksgiving. It's my favourite holiday. You don't give gifts, Jesus isn't risen or born, an angel didn't not kill us, and it's not the birthday of a dead monarch. Unfortunately (note sarcastic triteness), it is the anniversary of the start of the genocide of indigenous people and the celebration of an ever-destructive empire... via gluttony. Somehow we are okay with this?
Beyond the moralizing ideologies about the family and state that so proliferate this feast day, Thanksgiving is a veritable host of ethical frack-ups, not the least of which is our slaughtering of turkeys by the million (for not-so-fun [but not too viscerally jarring] turkey facts, check the Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing). A severe injustice, as discussed in Wilsons' post, is the Thanksgiving LIE presented to children in school curriculum. I remember gleefully tracing my hands onto orange and brown paper, cutting the drawings out and gluing them as "feathers" onto a turkey-coloured paper plate thinking "Oh, the savages in the forest got to eat the well-cooked turkey with the boatmen and priests and everyone was so happy."
...
This Thanksgiving, I spent a truly rewarding evening with an Indian-Canadian family in Montreal. Over turkey and wine, we thought on gratitude. Tears came to my eyes on several occasions. I thought - if only there were more focused dinner gatherings like this, the world would be a better place. It didn't need to be meat and alcohol, and we didn't need to overeat, but we needed to be sitting around a table in a warm home with the sole purpose of celebrating food and gratitude, for it and our company. It can't be about colonialism, but we need spaces like this.
Today I am thankful for the kindness in my life. My parents, cousins, landlord, grocery bagger, bank teller, stranger on craigslist, you name it. Kind to me. I'm privileged. I'm thankful. When I paused to think about it last night, I literally felt my life slow down to a healthier pace.
I look forward to next year when I may move with more confidence toward Jensen's socially just Thanksgiving - helping tell the truth (even when I don't want it to be true as I risk losing the pleasures of this weekend) - "even when it is not welcome." I also hope to take more time for daily reflection on gratitude.
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