Thanksgiving

I struggle with Thanksgiving. It's a holiday with more emotional baggage for me than any other, in part because it encourages genuine reflection, and in part because of its origins. I'll talk about the latter first, because it's more straight forward.

Thanksgiving started as a celebration of genocide. That sounds harsh, but I don't know a truthful way to articulate it that doesn't sound that way. A piece by Robert Jensen published annually at alternet explains this well (though it's written for people who don't need to read it, and if it does sway somebody, it just infuses them with the self-righteous anger so typical of white males that we need so much less of in movements for peace and social justice). The sanitized version of the holiday we celebrate makes us (myself included) complicit with the genocide and continued oppression of the native peoples of what is now the United States. And as much as I talk about celebrating the National Day of Mourning instead, I can never bring myself to do it whole heartedly and have all of the really tough conversations it requires.

The reason I still attend traditional Thanksgiving celebrations, normally with my family, but this year with a motley crew of US ex-pats in Managua, is because I believe that the holiday encourages true reflection. I find that this reflection is (as it really should be) troubling, this year as with many others. I hope that many people take the day seriously and really think about not only what they are thankful for, but why they can be thankful. At times, especially for folks in similar social positions to my own, this can be an excercise that oscillates between a sort of mental gluttony and spiritual masochism. I have a lot to be thankful for, and though I've worked very hard for it (though really I know very few people, no matter what their economic or social position, who haven't worked equally as hard if not harder for what they have) much of what I am thankful for is do to, in part or in whole, unearned privilege.

I found out today that my application to become a 2009 Young People For Fellow with the People for the American Way was accepted. I was hired a few weeks ago as a Grassroots Organizing Trainer with the United States Students Association. I am currently studying abroad in Nicaragua. I have an amazing schedule of courses next semester at an elite, private liberal arts college where I have created my own major and area of directed study. I more people in my life that I love and who love me than I would have thought possible. I am never in serious physical danger, I always have more than enough to eat (and can choose what, when, and where I eat almost without exception), I have shelter, and I live in a country where I have nearly unlimited freedom of expression and organization. Maybe most importantly, I enjoy my life. I have hobbies that I love, including film, literature, and music, and that I enjoy with loved ones. I love my studies and my work, and find it satisfying at a deeply spiritual level. My life is truely one to be thankful for.

There are many, many people who do not or can not feel this way. Literally billions of people do not have enough to eat, millions of whom are in the country in which I currently reside, as I go off to gorge myself. In fact, going through the list of things I've just made and talking about the exclusivity of each item would not only be a depressing excercise, it would be a pointless one. We know how difficult and malformed our material world is.

This was all just to give a sketch as to why I find Thanksgiving so problematic. But I still think it's a good opportunity. It's an opportunity to share with loved ones, both a sense of community and kinship and some of the issues we have on our minds.

Have a happy and reflective Thanksgiving.