Thanksgiving Day History | what is thanksgiving day
with the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow many
Americans are celebrating with annual
traditions of course including eating
turkey watching football Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade but it is
important for us also to acknowledge the
harsh history of the holiday and some of
the myths that surrounded and we'd like
to bring in the author of this land is
their land David Silverman for more on
this is David thanks for being with us look
every country tells itself stories
about itself some of them truer than
others some of them less true so talk
about some of the myths behind
Thanksgiving as you see it and the story
that we traditionally tell ourselves
about this holiday
well very good um so
Americans attach this Mythic story of
pilgrims and Indians to the Thanksgiving
holiday
and we're all familiar with the story
Friendly Indians welcome the Mayflower
passengers to America hand off their
land and then disappear
suffice it to say this is a rather Rosy
View of the history of colonialism
which when you get right down to it was
an invariably bloody process
uh absolutely uh the hundreds of years
to this continuing to this day of
the oppression of the native peoples of
this continent there was however a
a moment in the early going when the
English people came off the Mayflower
were starving and the Native
Americans did take pity on them
tried to help them out a
a little bit of Thanksgiving build-out of
that uh Happy upbeat holiday but you
bring up these important issues why is
it important to have these conversations
and talk about these more serious issues
like the history of American politics
concerning the native peoples here and
how they shaped this country
I think there's there are two reasons one
is that this country is built on a
the foundation of the violent conquest of
indigenous people and that's a history
that our history curricula in primary
secondary even to a certain degree at
the Collegiate level does not address
and it's understandable why many
Americans are so loath to address that
history it's painful it's difficult and
it makes many of us feel ashamed and yet
confronting that history does two things
that I think are productive for our
the society I think first and foremost it
signals to indigenous people are
countrymen and women that we value them
as us even though it was a
the colonial process that made them part of
as they are part of us now though and
they have the right to see themselves in
our nation's history and to see that
history depicted accurately the second
the thing that confronting this history does
is it allows all of the rest of us to
think critically about where our country
comes from and how we want to reform our
a country so that it can move forward in a
a better way than perhaps our
forebearers performed
uh absolutely can I ask you do you do
you celebrate the Thanksgiving Day
holiday and how and what yeah what
do you bring to it yeah let me be
clear about what I'm calling
for here I am not calling for us to
cancel Thanksgiving I'm not calling for
war on Thanksgiving nothing of the
sort I I am a voracious pie eater and
thus uh Thanksgiving is among my
favorite holidays what I am suggesting
is this
um that we do not need to attach the
the false myth of Friendly Indians welcoming
colonists to take their land to this
ritual of getting together with family
and friends and offer thanks for
what's good in our lives we don't need
to separate those two things and indeed
I think it's worth noting that white
Americans for most of the 1600s 1700s
and early 1800s did not attach that
Mythic Thanksgiving story to the holiday
that's an invention of the 19th
century so I get together with family
and friends we binge on turkey and
all of the fixings and then of course on
pie and let me note here 2. among the
many Native people that I know a sizable
a portion of them also celebrate a
traditional Thanksgiving
however almost every person also
also, take a moment on that holiday to
reflect on what their people have lost
and why
let me conclude do you
see progress in the way Americans
understand these issues I've got kids in
school and it does seem to me like these
issues are being raised maybe it's just
in this part of the country where where
my kids go to school or maybe there
is a greater degree of understanding
that the American story is properly
revised is always revised and that
it is happening in our schools do you
sense that
good degree
um I think there's a push and pull going
on right now one of which we're we're all
aware and on the one hand if I ask most
Americans do you think that a shared
the meal is an appropriate symbol of
colonial Native American relations to a
the person they will say no I mean they
know it was a Bloody Business the
problem is they don't know the degree to
which was a Blood
the reason is this though schools
increasingly avoid trying to
um propagate this sugar-coated version
of the Thanksgiving holiday what they
don't do is confront the messy reality
of Native American history and the United
States Native American relations we have
come light years as a society when it
comes to addressing African-American
history but we've barely taken baby
steps when it comes to addressing this
country's history with indigenous people
a lot of work to be done and David
Silverman, we want to thank you for
being with us and Happy Thanksgiving
and don't forget to follow the Kid's Time For New Information
And thanks
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