1. It's a lie that we are taught.
History class doesn't teach us what really happened. It teaches us what they want us to think happened. Much of our American history is truly terrible, but is taught in ways that make us look like heroes instead of the monsters that we were and, many of us, still are.
Click this link for all the gory details.
http://links.org.au/node/753
2. We should be giving thanks for everything EVERYDAY. Not just once a year. It's seems to have become the same principle as catholic confession or the Protestant "church on Easter and Christmas." This is a practice we should cultivate in our lives everyday, not just in November and not just on thanksgiving.
3. Consumerism.
Now days it's not even Halloween and we are already hearing Christmas music. Nobody can just be.
Nobody is in the moment.
We are all distracted.
Whether it is us distracting ourselves because we don't want to deal with the shambles that our lives and societies have become or if it is some blue glove corporation distracting us for political motives, it doesn't matter. The result is the same. The majority of people are failing to think for themselves. We leap from one distraction to the next and this time of year everyone has to "get Christmas done."
I worked in retail for a number of years and the fake holiday cheerful attitude that companies want you to put on (while they are completely mucking up your holiday) is awful. I had quite a few holidays that were spent at FedEx or Eckerds. At that point I was using it as a way to avoid family so it was fine but the general attitude towards holidays for underpaid workers is not fine.
And that leads us to number
4. Black Friday. Really? I'm sorry but any shopping event that contributes to bodily injury or death, should be banned. The rage and hate that is exhibited on the news from these events is the exact antithesis of what we are supposed to be celebrating just the day previous. But in a way, if you want to get technical, this is the true American spirit of thanksgiving.
Just ask the Indians.
And this year the sales are "starting early."
AWESOME.
5. That big ordeal of the president "pardoning" a turkey. Is that supposed to be funny, or what? I find it to be disgusting and even more humiliating for the poor animal. Except for when that turkey bit George Bush. I did enjoy that.
6. The holidays are hard for people who have lost their loved ones or who don't have family. Or those who don't particularly enjoy their families. I'm sad for the people who have lost people and I am one of the people who doesn't really enjoy their families. That brings us to
7. The guilt. Lol I have never fit in with my extended family. Even when I was a kid, I felt weird with them. Now in adult life, I have found some explanation as to why but that can be another Blog at some point. Lol
I stopped enjoying family gatherings when I was a young teen because I realized I was gay. I could never be myself. Not that I wanted to wear a dress or anything but I hate keeping secrets. Always have. Then you layer on my spiritual beliefs and the Nazarene fundies would probably have tried to exorcise or exile me. ( they did exile my cousin for marrying a black man- for five years.) Now I could care less but back then in my sheltered little world, it was a horrifying and terrible prospect.
So now, the last thing I want to do on my holidays is hang out with the people who remind me of all that fear and hate. The problem is, on some level I still love them, so each year when I don't go submit myself to the family thing, I feel guilty.
And that's nothing to be thankful for.
(Disclaimer- this does not include my immediate family. My mother, stepfather and brother are quite open minded and I love spending time with them. I have just never been close to the rest of my mothers family. And I only vaguely ever knew my dad's side. That was a good thing.)
So that is why thanksgiving makes me sad. I feel it's a needless holiday, founded on blood and put into action to give us an excuse to not do what we should be doing throughout the year. Capitalism has even taken it beyond what it started out as and uses it as a means to turn regular housewives into biting, snarling, bargain driven animals who will run you over with their shopping cart if you get in their way.
Me?
I'll pass, thanks.
Let me know when there is an Indigenous Peoples Day. I will get on that bandwagon.
-ArthurGraye
