The Native Americans who survived were herded onto reservations, where they faced their own set of challenges. This form of apartheid separated Native Americans physically, socially, and economically from the world outside the reservation.
The Thanksgiving holiday is just around the corner, but this year I am tempted to skip the festivities. While some Americans mark this holiday as an occasion to give thanks and gratitude for their perceived blessings, that benign and admirable purpose too often takes a back seat to what Thanksgiving has become in recent decades: a celebration of gluttony and excess.
In conversations about the upcoming holiday, I hear Americans talk excitedly about their plans to overeat — to eat so much that they’ve built a post-meal nap into their annual Thanksgiving routine. It’s all about the feast. It’s all about stuffing themselves fuller than Grandma stuffed the turkey. More mashed potatoes. Extra gravy. A second slice of pie. Then sleep it off. And they’re proud of it.
Meanwhile, also here in the United States, millions of people are going to sleep hungry. According to a report from the Department of Agriculture for 2008, 49 million Americans lacked dependable access to adequate food last year, including nearly 17 million children — more than one in five across the U.S. It can’t be any better this year, given the economic crisis. How then can gluttony be celebrated like a sport on November 26th?
There is a rationalization, if you want to call it that. People justify the annual gorging by citing the story of a harvest feast that the Pilgrims shared with Native Americans at Plymouth in 1621. That’s all very quaint and sweet, but also naive. And this leads to another reason why I’m uncomfortable with the Thanksgiving holiday: That Pilgrim feast was a prelude to genocide.
As African Americans remained enslaved in this country’s early years, Native Americans didn’t have it much better. The European “settlers” wasted no time in stealing the land out from under the indigenous peoples — almost as fast as they spread the smallpox and other epidemic diseases that they brought with them to the new world. In 1830, as the “settlers” pushed westward, the 23rd Congress of the United States passed the “Indian Removal Act”, legitimizing the land greed of the white “settlers” and resulting in the death or displacement of countless Native Americans. This legislation was signed into law by none other than all-American action hero President Andrew Jackson himself. (Think of that when you pull out your twenty-dollar bill to pay for your Thanksgiving turkey.)
The Native Americans who survived were herded onto reservations, where they faced their own set of challenges. This form of apartheid separated Native Americans physically, socially, and economically from the world outside the reservation. Traditionally nomadic hunter societies were forced to learn to farm for their subsistence. Disenfranchised and disillusioned, the Native American population came to face the highest rates of poverty, suicide, alcoholism, and teen pregnancy amongst ethnic groups in the U.S. — a trend that continues to this day. All because of the selfish, imperialistic dreams of the white man.
Happy Thanksgiving, white America. Enjoy your feast. And be thankful that you were not born on a Native American reservation or in captivity on a slave owner’s plantation.
Might does not make right. And so may the laws of karma ultimately even the score.
Meantime, may those with a conscience celebrate the holiday as it was intended — to join with friends and family in appreciation of what really matters in life: love, health, sharing, and caring.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com
Source: The Peoples Voice
dprogram.wordpress.com 
I am so sick of hearing how the white man is the scourge of the earth. If you bother to
look through history, every nation on the planet is guilty of atrocities against other
nations, and even their own people. Every nation has been conquered several times over
by someone, and it still goes on today. Who ever rags on about the hideous and barbaric
acts committed in the name of Islam, Communism and other forms of tyranny, still alive
today. Including slavery. Noooo. It’s always all the white man’s fault.
The truth is, the collective tribes in America were continually warring on one another,
committing unspeakable acts against each other. What else is new. Such is the lot of
humanity throughout the globe. Not one people is innocent of this. Every ethnicity has
good people and bad. It was only Europeans who’ve had the concept of liberty and
prosperity, and were willing to lay down their lives to insure it for posterity. What
other culture has done this? Why do you think the elites really want to destroy the
caucasion race? They are the ones who are the most threat to their plans to enslave the
planet. When a people are divided (as the native tribes were also, as we are now)they
cannot stand. It has always been that those holding the wealth and power seek to enslave
humanity. No one race has an edge on this. It’s just a matter of how much power a group
is able to garner. That is certainly not a reflection on a race at large.
It’s time we stop fostering guilt and hatred toward our ancestors. Most of them were
fine people who only wanted to live in freedom. The same folks who are busy herding us
into tyranny now were also busy then, but it’s time we clear the fog and stop playing
their game. We need to move forward. No good comes from lamenting the past forever.
We are different people now, and can create a new Earth by being a new people.
Thanksgiving is a state of mind (and heart). Blow it off if it makes you feel somehow
better, but it’s meaning is up to you. An attitude of gratitude begets healing, and I
feel that it is something worth practicing EVERY day. If we continue down the path we
are on in America, we will soon long for the days when we could put food on our table.
If your heart is for those who are hungry now, then find a way to help feed them. The
poor have always been among us everywhere. Find a way to share what you have. Become
the change you wish to see in the world (Ghandi). Pluck the log out of your own eye.
It is a very good thing that as families and nations, we pause together for a day to give thanks and praise to our most gracious God whose mercey is everlasting. Whatever and however it is celebrated in American homes, Thanksgiving is an important milestone in each year where we can look back on the providences and blessings of God to us, despite hardships that the “evil one” has thrown into our paths. This is a time when even scoffers of God and those that do not know our God’s great goodness still take time to express thanks for blessings they have received from an Unknown Hand. As the world’s problems increase, people need to know more than ever that there is someone that knows the end from the beginning……”No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.” Abraham Lincoln
I agree wholeheartedldy with this article. While I don’t, like Kate, enjoy being characterized as the “scourge” of mankind, I think that is beside the point. It IS hypocritical to have fantasies about Pilgrims and Indians, and it damn sure is hypocritical to show thanks for bounty by being greedy and wasteful of that bounty. Of course, the gluttony on Thanksgiving Day is nothing compared to the disgusting after-Thanksgiving free-for-all shopping spree that the corporations now claim is a “tradtion.” Can anyone explain to me how knocking other people over at Wal-Mart to get cheap crappy goods can possibly spell thankfulness? What do you suppose that man who was killed working at Wal-Mart last year had to be thankful for? What about his family and friends? I bet THEY felt like victims of an American scourge. Yes, Friend, it IS a good thing to pause and give thanks, but that pause needs to have a real effect on our attitude and behavior–at least for twenty-four hours, don’t you think? I am happy to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I refuse to do it the Corporate America way. It is hypocritical and obscene, period. Anyone who doesn’t want to be considered a “scourge” should refrain from acting like one–and that includes getting your head out of the sand!
Gluttony has always been;drunkeness has always been.As a soceity get wealthier ,so the increase in debaunchery.Human nature was supposed to be replaced by Jesus nature;the new man created by the new plan of The Biblical God;an amnesty from beastial behavior .Hypochrites will always feast to clebrate thier evil deeds and evil hopes for the future;but the good hearted people will always try to celebrate in moderation any good thing that has come there way solely by the grace of God;not the god of happenstance.For the wicked and base;’EAT DRINK AND BE BURIED’.For the rightious;’EAT AND DRINK BEFORE God;and make merry over the good blessings that have come ;including the wisdom to trouble-shoot without paranoia concerning the future immediate.All meals should be with thanksgiving….thanks be to GOD for our good food and drink,and good sense while consuming it.
My point was, we had no control over the past, we were not there, we cannot change
it. Guilt over the acts of others serves no purpose except to incite hatred toward
certain groups (the whole idea). Mankind’s history is riddled with shame. Not ALL of
our ancestors were genocidal maniacs.
We like to sit back and criticize the behavior of others, using our judgment of them
as a reason to ruin it for all. We cannot control the behavior of others, although our
liberal comrades never stop trying. We change the world by changing ourselves. No one
is forcing us to over-eat or over-drink. Thanksgiving is a day set aside from work to
consider our blessings and gather with our families and friends in love. It is what we
make of it. I am blessed with a loving and devout family, and these times are cherished.