On a related note, do any other countries actively celebrate their historic genocides? My understanding is Canada and Australia try to pretend it didn’t happen, and most of the others killed theirs indigenous people long before anyone cared
We still have Australia day on invasion day, there’s a decent push to change it, but the general concensus is problems of the past belong to people of the past and you can’t rectify permanent history by creating new inequalities when there’s a percentage of the entire population that still struggle with necessities.
Canada has actually been doing quite a lot of awareness in the past few years. There was the truth and reconciliation commission and there’s a nationally recognized day. Indigenous education has also been integrated into school curriculums in some provinces.
It’s not a ton and can never make up for what happened, but it’s far ahead of Australia who has done nothing from what I can tell.
I’m my childhood the entire family would meet at a designated house, with each person bringing their designated dish. My family is Catholic and very religious. Thanksgiving was about thanking God for what we had, and about over eating and drinking too much. Pilgrims, Native Americans, colonization, or genocide was never part of the conversation. Just God and being thankful for each other.
I think the history of Thanksgiving, like that of Halloween and to some extent Christmas, is lost on most everyone.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not defending the genocide of Native Americans. I’m just saying that many people are in ignorant bliss.
It’s especially funny to me when some people start screaming to “put Christ back into Christmas” then proceeded with using nothing but pagan symbols. Then they sing about the twelve days of Christmas and only celebrate the first day.
All cultures do this, and I think this is part of that persons point.
In mainstream culture now, Christmas is not about Jesus, or the pagan solstice the Christians took it from.
Now it’s just about giving presents and being with family and other modern traditions driven mostly by commercialism.
Just like thanksgiving isn’t about pilgrims or native Americans, Halloween isn’t about all saint or all souls or whatever it was. Easter isn’t about Jesus rising (or whatever pagan holiday that was probably originally based on) it’s just about a bunny and colored eggs.
And I am politely refraining from explaining why converting “we dicked over the indigenous people but tell ourselves they liked it” to “we are truly blessed by God” is somehow even worse.
Mostly because the subject of this protest does that for me
As an American, yea we kinda don’t know or care about the historical context anymore. We just get taught, and have reiterated, the whole “native Americans and colonists sat down together in peace to share a feast” aspect of it and forget the genocide and colonial violence that befell the Wampanoags.
I don’t really celebrate it anymore because celebrating it kinda feels like celebrating the massacre and enslavement of natives by a colonial European power.
We’ve just started celebrating Truth and Reconciliation Day on Sept 30 in Canada but I don’t think anyone but the First Nations and the try hard use the day for any kind of truth or reconciliation. I played video games all day myself. Not sure if the day itself had any historical significance, we still celebrate Thanksgiving in October.
Fuck yeah.
On a related note, do any other countries actively celebrate their historic genocides? My understanding is Canada and Australia try to pretend it didn’t happen, and most of the others killed theirs indigenous people long before anyone cared
We still have Australia day on invasion day, there’s a decent push to change it, but the general concensus is problems of the past belong to people of the past and you can’t rectify permanent history by creating new inequalities when there’s a percentage of the entire population that still struggle with necessities.
As long as the government is doing something to help those who are still suffering the consequences of that pasttime, we’re good, right?
Right?
Their position is no different to any destitute citizen, raise them all together.
…or is that raze them all together…
I can’t remember, is Authoritarianism heads? Or tails?
Oh.
The US also has multiple holidays where we just changed the name and the focus, and quietly pretend the South doesn’t still celebrate them
Canada has actually been doing quite a lot of awareness in the past few years. There was the truth and reconciliation commission and there’s a nationally recognized day. Indigenous education has also been integrated into school curriculums in some provinces.
It’s not a ton and can never make up for what happened, but it’s far ahead of Australia who has done nothing from what I can tell.
I’m my childhood the entire family would meet at a designated house, with each person bringing their designated dish. My family is Catholic and very religious. Thanksgiving was about thanking God for what we had, and about over eating and drinking too much. Pilgrims, Native Americans, colonization, or genocide was never part of the conversation. Just God and being thankful for each other.
I think the history of Thanksgiving, like that of Halloween and to some extent Christmas, is lost on most everyone.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not defending the genocide of Native Americans. I’m just saying that many people are in ignorant bliss.
Yes. Christianity has a long history of repurposing festivals of other cultures into the core mythos.
It’s especially funny to me when some people start screaming to “put Christ back into Christmas” then proceeded with using nothing but pagan symbols. Then they sing about the twelve days of Christmas and only celebrate the first day.
All cultures do this, and I think this is part of that persons point.
In mainstream culture now, Christmas is not about Jesus, or the pagan solstice the Christians took it from.
Now it’s just about giving presents and being with family and other modern traditions driven mostly by commercialism.
Just like thanksgiving isn’t about pilgrims or native Americans, Halloween isn’t about all saint or all souls or whatever it was. Easter isn’t about Jesus rising (or whatever pagan holiday that was probably originally based on) it’s just about a bunny and colored eggs.
And I am politely refraining from explaining why converting “we dicked over the indigenous people but tell ourselves they liked it” to “we are truly blessed by God” is somehow even worse.
Mostly because the subject of this protest does that for me
Many people were not educated about the true history. So they weren’t celebrating “we dicked over the indigenous people” day.
Yes. Propaganda is strong and critical thinking is low. That changes nothing and is just a blatant attempt to absolve oneself of any guilt
As an American, yea we kinda don’t know or care about the historical context anymore. We just get taught, and have reiterated, the whole “native Americans and colonists sat down together in peace to share a feast” aspect of it and forget the genocide and colonial violence that befell the Wampanoags.
I don’t really celebrate it anymore because celebrating it kinda feels like celebrating the massacre and enslavement of natives by a colonial European power.
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We’ve just started celebrating Truth and Reconciliation Day on Sept 30 in Canada but I don’t think anyone but the First Nations and the try hard use the day for any kind of truth or reconciliation. I played video games all day myself. Not sure if the day itself had any historical significance, we still celebrate Thanksgiving in October.