Uh-oh! Seems like some Seattle Public Schools official hates America!
With so many holidays approaching we want to again remind you that Thanksgiving can be a particularly difficult time for many of our Native students. … Eleven myths are identified about Thanksgiving, take a look at #11 and begin your own deconstruction.
Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time
Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.
Look, I’m all for truthful, historically accurate lessons about Thanksgiving. But the “diversity”-peddlers’ agenda is not about historical accuracy. It’s about guilt-mongering and institutional racism indoctrination. […]
Tear up your kids’ construction-paper headdresses pronto and prepare for an Unhappy Un-Thanksgiving.
Heaven forbid that these seditious teachers actually tell students things that are, you know, historically accurate! Shorter Malkin: “I’m for historical accuracy, except when it reflects poorly on our ancestors. Inter these traitors!”
Added: Do you think Michelle Malkin, along with the other residents of metropolitan Wackistan, have a series of fill-in-the-blank templates for all these “War on X” posts?
Ugh
“institutional racism indoctrination”
What the hell is that? Does she explain?
Michael D.
Yeah, I didn’t understand it either.
Robert Johnston
Gibberish. It’s Malkin’s native tongue.
As for what it means, that would be no more or less than the meaning of any words in any language emanating from Malkin: “Help me. Medicate me. Pretty please with puppies on top.” Something to that effect.
jenniebee
I thought it was done best in Adams Family Values, but whatever.
I can’t find a single non-partisan news source for this story, and the Seattle Public Schools website doesn’t have any press releases about it. I did go to the web page that seems to be the source for the list of myths, and all I can say is that those authors have done their homework. I especially liked it that they spelled the settlement “Plimouth” which the righties assume is a st00pid spelling mistake, but I’m guessing, based on the depth of knowledge those women are displaying of original source materials, that it’s the spelling the actual settlers used.
Are they saying that our founding colonists were st00pid spellers? Why do they hate America?
horatius
I think Michelle Malkin is a chinese spy, who should be sent to an internment camp.
demimondian
Plimouth is, indeed, the original spelling.
PaulW
Can’t wait for them to realize there’s a War on Mithras! NOOOOoooo…
Sour Kraut
I think she’s complaining about schoolchildren being taught that institutional racism exists–or ever existed.
Jake
Yep. SA2SQ, Vol. Eleventynine.
And I’m stealing “Metropolitan Wackistan.”
John Cole
You know what war pisses me off?
Warlocks. Total bullshit class.
John S.
This is totally outrageous!
How dare the Seattle public schools try to teach their kids anything other than that the native Americans were squatting on European lands and that they were gracious enough to allow them to continue living here on reservations.
Bombadil
I doubt Malkin and her merry band of loonies has ever read “Mayflower” by Nathaniel Philbrick. The politics of the time was amazingly complex, and not just between the Natives and the new arrivals — the various tribes throughout what was to be New England were in various and shifting alliances.
Malkin wouldn’t know historical accuracy if it bit her on the ass.
[“Mayflower” is an excellent read, by the way, highly recommended. The author also wrote “In the Heart of the Sea”, about the whaling ship Essex, which was sunk by a rogue whale and was the inspiration for Moby Dick.]
gypsy howell
Fits in rather nicely with their view that all those damn mooooslims are squatting on our precious oil.
Mike
Speaking of racism, why does a Filipina who likes locking up Japanese get a pass on that?
Pb
Hey, you can’t trust these diversity-peddlers to give you the straight dope–don’t forget our real history, like The First Thanksgiving Proclamation, from 1676:
Er, yeah, never mind…
Michael D.
You’re playing Warcrap again, aren’t you?
John Cole
I wish. Reading some truly boring stuff atm.
Dreggas
Damn, and here I thought I was original in calling it “Happy feast of the rape and pillage of my ancestors day”.
Of course if people really knew about the history of thanksgiving, they’d know that if it wasn’t for the natives, the pilgrims would have died that winter.
cleek
but this was just a letter from three people in a couple of departments offering suggestions to the greater school board; it isn’t a policy or a directive of anything of the kind, right ?
for fuck’s sake Malkin, lay off the rage.
Joshua
Honestly, I get the grievance of the Un-Thanksgiving types, and certainly they do have historical accuracy on their side…
But Thanksgiving is about colonisation to the same extent Christmas is about the baby Jesus any more. It’s a holiday about engorging ourselves with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce and awkward conversations with relatives you don’t talk to for the rest of the year. And I think that’s something we all, as Americans, should be able to get behind.
Punchy
I think a vast majority of them are simply pissed that Pakistan got nukes, and that Led Zep ruined the rep of Kashmir with that damn song of theirs….
Zifnab
Ouch. John Cole 1, Micheal D. 0
But, just for the record, taking potshots are your own blog is kinda cruel.
Nonsense. The original settlers were real Americans and didn’t take handouts from anybody. They pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, and carried the White Man’s Burden without a flinch or a second thought. These were real Americans in the mold of Ronald Reagen. Anyone who says differently has obviously been listening to too much Ward Chruchill.
Bombadil
And football. You forgot football.
Wilfred
Those fucking Puritans, waiting to be bailed out because they just could. not. hack. it. Why a real conservative would have sucked on frozen baleen all winter before accepting a free lunch. What kind of a lesson is Thanksgiving for American kids, anyway?
Dreggas
UH-OH There’s been a Larry Craig Spotting!
Sour Kraut
Malkin gets a pass because a)many Young Republicans find her easy on the eyes and b)there is no bucket of tepid, filthy water which she is unwilling to carry for the cause of Far-Right Wingnuttia. What she fails to realize is that said pass will be revoked the instant she stops toeing the party line to their liking.
cleek
i saw a little interstitial bit on a local TV station last weekend that showed a bunch of high school girls waving little flags and shouting, in unison, “Happy Veteran’s Day!”
“Happy” ?
there’s nothing happy about V.Day.
Yay!!! let’s go buy some new furniture!
Dreggas
Fixed.
Jay
Or maybe Chattanooga and Atlanta could team up and have a “It’s Nice In Oklahoma This Time Of Year, So Take A Hike” Day. Iniottoystah Day. Sounds Native.
Fecapult
Dude, we got nerfed this patch.
Ned Raggett
Let me quickly cosign on that — fantastic book, read it a couple of years back.
Jake
I hope that was posted next to the “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work,” sign.
capelza
Bombadil..got to stick up for Moby Dick, the whale. Why was he “rogue”?
Because he took offensive action against the thing that was trying to kill him?
Bombadil
Fair question — it was the term Philbrick used, so I used it too.
Substitute “pissed”, if you prefer.
demimondian
A “rogue” whale is a whale which is not associated with a moving pod.
Zifnab
People keep saying that, and I keep seeing Warlocks be broken.
Dreggas
No idea but that it was posted at all is absolutely hilarious.
Bombadil
Yeah, that’s how I remembered it, too, but then I wondered if males actually travelled with the pod or just hooked up at mating season.
Zifnab
OT, John Cole got linked at Big Orange Satan again. Hey John, I think you’ve got a fan.
Zifnab
Oh wait, that was Tim’s post. *sigh* Well, whatever.
The Other Steve
I agree a bit with Malkin.
There’s nothing we can do to change the past, and the way it is presented is intended to create guilt. Why? I understand it, and it is truthful, but why the emphasis? Why is it presented this way?
Also… only America seems to do this. When I was in england and scotland, nations with a far more bloodied past, these types of events were not presented in this way. Instead it appeared to either not be mentioned, or mentioned in a joking manner. Perhaps Guy Fawkes day is insensitive, I don’t know, but today it has no anti-Catholic meaning.
I think it has to do with the Puritans believing in Original Sin. That’s what differentiates the American psyche from other nations.
Discuss…
The Other Steve
I guess I should have added… Or mentioned in reverance. But not harped on for guilt purposes.
The burial pit underneath the chapel at the White Tower, for instance, where the “traitors” were buried so that nobody could come visit the grave of a martyr. (you have to visit to understand entirely. The princes buried under the stairs, traitors gate, the hill upon which they beheaded people…)
cleek
the letter in question was co-signed by two people from the Huchoosedah Office of Native American Education.
Original Lee
How many people know that the Plimouth colony was originally intended to be a commune? Would that change our perception of the original Thanksgiving at all?
D-Chance.
The guy at orbusmax?
—
HOTLINKING TO ORBUSMAX.COM IS NOT ALLOWED.
SORRY, BUT I’M NOT HERE TO PAY FOR YOUR BANDWIDTH PROBLEMS.
—
Way to go, there…
laneman
Bararian
The Easter Bunny
This is truly a day that will live in infamy. Our forces are exhausted from the long battle to save Christmas, and now our implacable Canuckistani foes have opened a new front in the War on Holidays. Matters are grim, but make no mistake: our resolve must not falter. If we don’t stand and fight now, the consequences will be unspeakably dire. No American holiday would be safe from the depravity of the Northern Menace.
Imagine receiving a May Day basket, but instead of delicious treats and beautiful flowers, it contains a lethal cocktail of maple syrup and high-grade explosives. That’s the future we face if we bow to the Canuckofascists and their flannel-wearing, holiday-hating hippie allies in Seattle.
No, we must stand firm, my friends. We must beat back the maple tide so that in years to come, little Johnny can still plant a tree on Arbor Day and little Susie can still whittle a pair of wooden dentures on Washington’s Birthday.
They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our holidays!
Katie
My SO is native american. I’ve never ever ever heard him, or any of his family, or any of our friends express anything like this over Thanksgiving Day. They *do* joke about Columbus Day being a black day indeed, but it’s just that–a joke. I think most of them look at comments like the above as being said mostly by “professional indians” looking for something to complain about, not real people that go to work and do real jobs every day. He fails to see why something my ancestors did to his ancestors some 400 years ago as having any bearing on anything happening today.
Jake
Many moons ago I helped House-matey write a notice to tactfully convey the fact that: 1. Some of his employees reeked. 2. They were making customers and other employees ill. 3. They needed to bathe regularly. 4. A double helping of Patchouli is not a substitute for hot water and soap.
That was very difficult, so I can’t imagine how the unknown author of that masterpiece must have struggled.
Of course, this is the Age of the Internons. For all I know there’s an entire website dedicated to bathroom notices.
“Let’s see…Drug use in bathroom, Goat sacrifice in bathroom … Ah! Here it is, Masturbation in bathroom.” [add to shopping cart]
The mind, he boggles.
Alex
If anyone ever finds themselves at Foxwoods (the big-ass casino in south-western Connecticut), it’s definitely worth a detour to visit the Pequot Museum that the tribe built with their profits. They cover this inter-tribe rivalry quite well, and talk about how it usually wasn’t really colonists vs. natives, but more often different colonial powers forming pacts with already-rival native groups and using them as proxies to gain influence over bits of territory. Part of why New England is New England and not New Holland is that the Brits were luckier in their choice of native allies than the Dutch were.
T. Scheisskopf
Malkin: Borderline Personality Disorder as a career choice.
Zifnab
Old New York was once New Amsterdam.
Why they changed it, I can’t say.
People just liked it better that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Bombadil
As long as the history is covered up by the likes of Malkin and Cohorts, to whitewash what actually happened with a coating of “the happy Indians came and sat down with the the benevolent Pilgrims for a big meal of turkey and cranberry sauce”, it will be incumbent on those who know the truth to speak the truth.
The Pilgrims were an ill-equipped, ill-led and ill-prepared band of people who found themselves totally unprepared for what they found when they landed on Cape Cod. They dug up corn and other food supplies the natives had buried for their own use, raided native burial sites and camp sites, and would not have survived if they hadn’t received help from some natives in exchange for help in warding off other native groups.
Within several years, the new arrivals had put themselves into the middle of various Native American squabbles, and eventually found themselves in the midst of (and actually causing) King Phillip’s War, which devastated several tribes and cost several settlers’ towns.
And TOS — the British and Scots (and Welsh) have come to terms with their history in large part, and acknowledge what happened on both sides. There’s less whitewashing of history, so there’s no need to be confrontational about it. That’s not the case as much with the Irish, which is why they still have the confrontations (e.g., the Orangemen’s parades).
Jake
Iraqi citizens, take note:
capelza
Yeah rogue is the term used, but it always cracks me up. Like rogue wave…a big ass wave that comes out of nowhere (and is a very nasty thing to experience).
I just associate the word rogue with scoundrel and liar and the like. Maybe Moby Dick had a criminal record and lied on his income taxes. Maybe that wave was wearing a pirate hat and treated women like dirt.
I kno that it has other meanings, it just always strikes me as an odd thing to say.
I do think that in the case of Sperm Whales, the adult males do live solitary lives.
As for Thanksgiving…I can see both sides. And I do have a problem celebrating such grim bastards as the Pilgrims. It’s not as bad as Columbus Day (national celebrating mass extermination and slavery day as I like to think of it). Making it a holiday for thanksgiving, like a real harvest festival…that would be great.
Krista
Heh. Flood was a great album.
The Other Steve
The problem is that instead of educating past white-washing, some are doing exactly the opposite and black-washing history.
Is black-washing a word? I don’t know, maybe I just created it… But I refer to the fact that some people don’t teach history from a historic perspective. They instead focus only on all the bad things that happened.
I don’t see the point in that. That’s not history, that’s just spewing bullshit.
Punchy
then how the fuck does he/she listen to music while it’s swimming?
The Other Steve
Does Canada have this problem of Original Sin?
Do you sit around all day lamenting how mean your great great great grandparents were, and how you should redeem them by paying reparations?
Just curious. Cause the United States has a dreadfully low self-esteem.
jcricket
Yeah, ignoring what Michelle “Anchor-baby” Malkin says gets easier every day. Especially with (as someone pointed out) the mad-lib-esque posts as of late within the right-wing circle-jerks of outrage.
Look, we all know metropolitan areas are hotbeds of treason, sedition, addition, subtraction and multiplication (in other words, liberalism). A better question to ask is what the great citizens of Outer Wingnuttia and Lower Wingnutistan have to say about their erstwhile allies in the UGWR (union of great wingnuts republic) have to say.
The Other Steve
iPod
jcricket
BTW, this article comes from my neck of the woods, the Great Socialist Republic of Seattle. Home of the many communistic companies like amazon, boeing, microsoft, expedia & Immunex.
Dreggas
While I can empathize and do know the reality of thanksgiving, I think the reason why America does this is because of the fact that we are supposed to feel perpetually guilty for anything and everything our ancestors did.
For some, no apology, no reparations, no recognition of the ill done by our country or the founders of our country will ever be enough. In truth if you look at it, it was the british who fucked over the original Native Americans, along with the French, the Dutch and just about every other white skinned country. The spanish were even worse in South America.
But the bottom line is we will always be reminded of the bad we did because no matter what someone, somewhere will always want us to feel guilty for being “Americans”.
demimondian
Yeah, but…jcricket…we just made it *easier to raise taxes*!!11eleven!
That is, if 4240 keeps its lead…and 960 is overturned.
Signed,
demi “washington schizophrenic? we certainly don’t agree” mondian
Mark S.
I wish I could strap Malkin to a lie detector machine while she types that.
jenniebee
It helps that the last Plantagenet descendants to hold the English throne were six Stuarts.
And what’s the deal with the idea that Americans can’t love the whole America? I don’t get why wingers have to have this whitewashed history to be overproud of. I mean, what do they have to be proud of anyway – it’s not like they traveled from England on tiny wind-powered boats or survived the first winter or ever cut new sod or read Locke and made margin notes like “good plan, think it would work here?” They don’t have any more justification for pride than I have cause for guilt because neither of us had anything to do with events that happened 400 years before we were born.
Her reasoning for not teaching kids that white people in the past made a habit of taking whatever they wanted from the browner peoples of the world is that there’s time enough to teach them that our history isn’t made up entirely of awesomely perfect people when they’re no longer in school. Until then, the fiction should be maintained because it’s happier. Brilliant!
jcricket
I do love (no, no I don’t) the schizophrenia of WA voters.
You want to know why we’re “nickled and dimed” to death? No progressive income tax and various sub-inflation level tax rate locks you fuckwads.
The only thing left is either spending cuts (please, tell me which programs of yours you’d like cut) or raising taxes through various add-ons to property tax, sales tax, “sin” items, gas tax, car tabs, etc.
In other words: People are stupid. Film at 11.
jenniebee
Or they might want to just, you know, have an accurate historical record, and that accurate historical record unfortunately has some Americans making perfect asses of themselves.
Srsly, do the, just for instance, Italians put themselves through this? Do they refuse to study the history of Ancient Rome because of all that conquering and slavery and bloody coups and stuff? Do Caesar scholars get accused of guilt-mongering every time they publish a paper on the casualty counts in the Gaulish campaigns?
jcricket
Fixed.
chopper
i dunno. while i think there are those who just wish america to feel as guilty as possible, their numbers are fewer than you think. my beef is, the US has this problem of pride that we refuse to admit cocking something up (see iraq). it seems the more someone refuses to admit their past mistakes, the more others will hound them over them. if america had fully dealt with the horrible way we as a people and a nation treated american indians over our history and really come to grips with it, i don’t think what you’re complaining about would be as big as it is. not that it wouldn’t exist, there are always going to be loudmouths who want you to apologize harder. i call them “the althouses of the world”.
bago
Hah! I can say I’ve worked at more than half of the companies on that list. It sure is terrible to live in these little liberal enclaves building the future of technology.
jcricket
The Germans spend a lot of time (some say too much) studying their recent historical record. And it’s a good thing
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Of course Malkin actually likes killing the darkies (must be a self-loathing thing), so I don’t know why she wouldn’t go all Ann Coulter on the situation and suggest we look at our historical treatment of the natives as a “primer” for what to do with recent immigrants as well.
libarbarian
1.
She might mean shit like this:
Of course, this has NOTHING to do with the Thanksgiving issue, but Malkins problem is that she conflates these things into an over-arching phenomena of “Political Correctness” and has lost her ability to discriminate between facts that APPEAR “PC” and real, actual, “PC Bullshit”. She is unable to understand that recognizing that European settlement of America often involved giving NA’s the royal shaft does NOT automatically mean subscribing to the kind of ignorant & pathetic drivel I quoted above.
2. Look at the description of Thanksgiving as “bitter reminder of betrayed friendship” – itself a reminder of how White People still view NAs as a monolith and ignore the differences each culture, and each tribe within a culture, had in its reaction to the arrival of Europeans. Some offered friendship but many reacted in the same way that people often react to the presence of new immigrants – with violence. They’re human and it would be nice to treat them as such.
In sum in my experience white people do tend to stereotype the hell out of NA’s one way or another. Because of my demographic background the most common stereotype I’ve seen expressed is the “positive” stereotype of the idyllic Noble Savage. I remember a High School assembly where a speaker explicitly said that Native Americans are more in touch with nature than whites and that European culture is based on “raping nature” (who knew the tree-worshiping Druids hated nature so much…).
Malkin is a blowhard but this kind of schlock annoys anyone who cares about historical accuracy too.
Zifnab
We would feel a little less guilt-burdened if we weren’t constantly committing the sins of our grandparents. Do you honestly believe the Tony Snow-esque line about racism being dead in America? Have we done away with segregation? Lynchings? Race-baiting for political gain? Slavery? Sadly, no. If you know where to look, you can find all the sins of the 17th century alive and well in the 21st.
If you tell people that our ancestors stole and raped and killed from Native Americans (or, for that matter, that the Natives stole and raped and killed from the Europeans), you break down the illusion that America was founded as this perfect City On A Hill that never suffers or commits fault or loses a moral dilemma.
Likewise, if you blot out the idea that a bunch of white people could roll into someone else’s country and nose-dive into a bunch of endless wars simply to acquire natural resources – instead claiming that the English arrived to invent and spread Liberty and Freedom and Ponies across the North American Continent – then don’t those silly liberal claims about Iraq look silly?
We must have been pure and innocent back then. And we must be pure and innocent right now. Because history lays down human motivation and sets a precedent for human interaction. A history built on fairy-tales of pure intentions and good v. evil confrontations lends itself to a modern foreign policy built on the exact same delusions. Conservatives are smart enough to know that once that veil starts to slip and the horrible truth comes crashing home, people just don’t act the same way.
Dreggas
And seriously I spent most of my History classes in middle and High School learning about what we did to the native Americans and what the Pilgrims did to them as well, same for the South American Indians. Then again I am from NY, State history included the mistreatment of the Iroquois, Algonquin and other tribes. I know my history, I did learn it in school and elsewhere. To me this is nothing more than trying to cast a pall over anything and everything to make me feel guilty for something I had nothing to do with.
pseudonymous in nc
I think the reason why America does this is because of the fact that we are supposed to feel perpetually guilty for anything and everything our ancestors did.
You’re confusing ‘guilt’ for ‘awareness’. Now, Americans are in a fairly distinct position, given that the US is a young country with a myth of origin that, by necessity, is indoctrinated to some degree, bound up with the Whig model of history’s inexorable march of progress.
In a way, the facts of the early colonial experience aren’t really the point here, because the Thanksgiving holiday exists in the domain of national myth, just as the July 14th celebrations in Paris tend not to dwell upon the fact that the Bastille was more a porn stash than a prison.
So once you separate the myth from the history, or see the myth-making as a separate part of the history, things get less contentious.
chopper
exactly. contrast that with the japanese, for example.
Cinderella Ferret
If only we had another interment camp at Subic Bay … I wonder how she feels about that Surrendermonkey Douglas MacArthur? Just asking … she has such a “unique” take on things, eh?
Xanthippas
Well, that’s true to some extent. But for every group-whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics-there are people who are political and there are people who are non-political. My native relatives are pretty non-political so yeah, they don’t spend a whole lot of time sitting around blaming the “white man” and refusing to go to Columbus Day sales or eat Turkey on Thanksgiving. If you ask them, some will say “yeah, that was pretty bad” and others will say “Well, that was a long time ago” but usually they may not say anything at all until you ask them. But then are the political ones, the urban or younger Natives, who do make a pretty big deal out of this stuff. That’s me. And yeah, I think schools would do well to teach kids that Thanksgiving is a lot more nuanced and complicated than the old myth says, at least when they’re old enough. And people like Malkin are the REASON that schools should have to do that, because otherwise they’d have kids learning that it was the white man’s “right” to take the land because Natives didn’t use it productively. But you know it doesn’t stop me from knocking back the turkey either that I feel that way.
Zifnab
That’s still a good reason to celebrate.
capelza
Sadly, many American’s equate awareness with guilt.
Svensker
OT – re another war, this time on Iran,Eric Alterman has some not very reassuring news
capelza
Svensker…maybe those are just contingency plans..and besides I am reassured by wingnuts I know that we won’t invade Iran with actual troops we don’t have anyway, just “surgically strike the nuclaer plants” or “turn Iran into one big sheet of glass” depending on their mood.
Bubblegum Tate
I’ll take a stab at it: “Institutional indocrination” is Wingnutese for “public school education” (public schools = liberal indocrination camps, what with their science classes and lack of deification of St. Ronnie and supply-side economics and whatnot). The “racism” modifier means the kids are being indoctrinated to be racist against white people (who, in Wingnutland, are the most persecuted people in America). So, putting it all together, it means “indoctrinating the kiddies to be racist against white people.”
demimondian
What Xanthippas said. Sure, the story is nuanced, and — if you want to salve the white folks pride — there are very few, if any, wholly good guys in it. That said, the Europeans annihilated the natives, in the end, and that first Thanksgiving is a good place to start understanding that was the plan from the get-go.
Because don’t lie to yourselves. The Plimouth Brethren were on a mission from God to civilize this continent by either converting, subduing, or, perferably, eliminating the “savages” and they were, by God!, going to do that, come hellfire or high water. It’s far too easy to think of the Salem Witch Trials and they’re ilk as passing anomalies, when, in fact, the concepts which gave rise to those convulsions were core to the Brethren’s beliefs.
Dreggas
many of those spreading “awareness” tend to do so with the language of guilt. Reading the blockquote in the original post, tell me that isn’t language intended to make someone feel guilty, especially kids.
Perry Como
Let me guess, 3 minute mage?
jcricket
You know right now I have that Hulk Hogan theme song stuck in my head… although I don’t think wingnuts hear the same thing when the line “fight for the rights of every man” is sung.
Zifnab
She should stick with “State’s Rights”. That’s a code phrase you don’t need a PhD to decipher.
Tsulagi
So do we. But some palefaces really do suck. See Bush, George The Decider.
No big deal about the school letter. Just a school official likely trying to be sensitive in accommodating some students whose families may not view Thanksgiving quite as joyous as others. Of course that then picked up by the hyper-sensitive Malkin and her ettes as another joyous occasion to hyper ventilate. Never pass up an opportunity.
For me, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. Family and friends get together, pig out, watch some football, make fun of each other, drink too much, watch kids break things while playing, and more. Good stuff.
capelza
Dreggas….I read it, no guilt, just nodding my head in agreement. What wasn’t true about it?
HyperIon
i think it has something to do with the fact that americans have spent way too much time telling other folks how America is the bestest nation EVAH. and everybody needs to be like us (the bestest nation EVAH). and we can do no wrong because we are the bestest nation EVAH.
some people find that annoying and then put energy into illustrating the problems with that POV.
Punchy
OT–
Hey, when you’ve lost the will to maintain Blogs for Bush, you’ve really lost the battle.
Seriously, “Blogs for Victory”?? Are you shittin me?
demimondian
Punchy, you should send that in directly to JC and TF. That’s too priceless for words.
Blogs for Victory. Um…yeah. Just like Blogs for Brownback, except nobody even considers the possibility that they might not be serious.
Face
I heard Hugh Heffner bought the name from them…
Jake
You know what I find odd? Or odder than usual since we’re talking about The Queen of Counter Checking. I had a fairly good grip on the history of Europeans in the New World by the time I was … say 10 years old. I didn’t know all of the details and nuance but I knew that there had once been a lot of NAs and there were now very few NAs and it wasn’t because they went on vacation.
And you know what? It meant just a little bit more than dick to me. I was a kid, and like most things adults said the fate of the NAs didn’t penetrate far into my tiny, far-too-busy-to-listen-to-adults brain. Kids don’t don’t absorb things the way adults do. Huh. Something bad happened a long time ago (more than five years). OK, fine, when’s recess?
So while Michelle and her cronies are (once again) shrieking “Waaaaah! We must protect the children! (unless they’re SCHIP recipients)” She’s really (once again) shrieking “Waaaaaah! Protect ME!”
Otherwise she’s suggesting that the kiddies shouldn’t learn any history, watch the news or be allowed outside until they’re 18.
Of course, this would make an ideal voting base for the type of leaders she favors…
Dreggas
maybe you don’t see it but to a kid that would be language that would make them feel guilty.
I am not saying that I disagree, as I have said I do agree that not everything came up roses. Hell I could go even further back into the Roman/Christian subjugation of the Celts, Gauls and pretty much every other people in Europe. I am just saying that while awareness is good, the language sucks.
Dreggas
Care to name exactly which Americans aside from wingnuts and (back pre-bush) some on the left who would harangue others on their human rights records.
libarbarian
Accurate history exists, but its a lot less popular than the kind of selectively accurate apologias usually found in this area.
Many depictions of the interaction between “whites” and “natives” only care about accuracy insofar as it conveys the intended message.
Take one classic example – Dances with Wolves. The next time you watch DWW look at the hygiene and grooming of the characters. White people are depicted realistically – dirty, sweaty, dressed in worn/tattered clothes, and with tangled hair and rotten teeth. Native Americans are shown as clean, well groomed, dressed in clothes without patches or worn spots, with shiny well-combed hair and beautiful white teeth.
The differences are intentional and meant to advance the message of the film by further contrasting the two peoples. It was not enough that the white people acted ugly but they had to be made to look ugly so that there is no aspect of them – behavior or appearance – causes anything less than revulsion in the audience. Furthermore it wasn’t enough to just show the lifestyle of the natives as “pure” and “unspoiled” but the Indians themselves had to look pure and unspoilt as well.
capelza
Dreggas…we could go back further in time, however, unless the Italians (the Roman) still celebrate a specific holiday that commemorates the first harvest of a continental invasion then your point is a bit moot.
How DO you teach kids that their country was recently (in the big picture) created at the expense of untold numbers of aboriginal inhabitants (ones not involved in European politics or wars, but minding their own business a hemisphere away?). Is there a nice way to say that?
Bubblegum Tate
Yeah, I posted about that on Monday…it’s just entirely too funny. Especially the way the R in “Victory” is in red and surrounded by red parentheses. Wingnuts ripping off Gap marketing campaigns…terrific.
But hey, at least they’re around to inform us about the Democrats’ unrelenting war on science. Uh-huh.
grumpy realist
What does Australia do about its history?
And John? Can you put up another post on Ron Paul soon? We’re running out of cat toys to bat around….
Darkrose
You’re just interrogating the holiday from the wrong perspective. It’s like Easter:
“He is Risen! Let’s go shopping!”
Darkrose
An even better one, if you ask me. Figures the French would have a National Porn Liberation Day.
jcricket
Until recently, deny it. They just started admitting that taking mixed-race Aboriginal children from their homes and “adopting” them to white familes was a colossal, immoral mistake – and now have started compensating the victims.
South Africa had the whole peace/reconciliation thing they did as a way of national healing at the end of the apartheid era.
I’m not arguing that all countries are perfect, but the idea that because there are some (Turkey) that enjoy wallowing in ignorance, that we should too, is just silly.
It’s much like the argument that because China pollutes like crazy no one in the US should give a shit about recycling.
jcricket
BTW – I think Republicans found their latest “cat toy” – kid activists.
The only good kid is, apparently, a snowflake baby portrayed in a poster decrying stem cell research.
JWW
Anyone,
What command is used too copy a previous comment into your comment, and create the shaded outline?
pseudonymous in nc
Well, Australia’s history runs pretty close to the present, and the issue of the Stolen Generation still stings.
But I’m reminded of what Robert Hughes once said: ‘I think the biggest single difference between Australians and Americans is that you were founded as a religious experiment, and we were founded as a jail.’ The national myth of origins is quite different.
Rudi
LMAO Where’s the Photoshop crew when we need them. they’re scrubbing W from his own blog.
John S.
That would be B-Quote on the toolbar.
HyperIon
I’m not understanding your question/point.
I’m trying to explain folks who draw attention to the difference between what American says and what America does. I think American Exceptionalism is bullshit. And this BS goes all the way back to, you guessed it, the Puritans.
From Wiki
One of my mom’s greatest pearls of wisdom was “Now don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.”
I wish Americans spent less time congratulating themselves on their (national) virtue and more time being virtuous.
In other words: Be secret and exult. But these days the drill is to go around talking big and doing little.
Jeff
Jeff
Close your tags!!!
Dreggas
Hyperlon,
You use the term “Americans” (which I am an American) and say that we all sit here and talk about how great we are and how everyone should emulate us. Funny I haven’t said that nor have the majority of “Americans” which is why I asked you to point out an example.
Dreggas
Not really moot if you want to sit and talk about one people subjugating another people. Now the ORIGINAL Thanksgiving was held once, by the Pilgrims. The first declarations of an American Thanksgiving came from George Washington and had nothing to do with the Pilgrims, further Thanksgivings (American ones) came courtesy of other presidents and the actual Holiday came about under Lincoln. Despite the association with the “first thanksgiving” of the puritans (aka Pilgrims) the National Holiday had little to do with marking the beginning of the rampant subjugation of NA’s. The holiday for that could rightly be called Columbus day.
The same way we have been in classrooms (or at least were doing when I was in school) pointing out, again and again that history is not rosy and we didn’t always do the right thing but doing so as follows:
Is not even close to how it was taught in school. Perhaps we should just teach the real history of the national Holiday instead.
Xanthippas
My response is…so what? First of all, what some Hollywood director wants you to think about the heros and villains in his movie, is not the same as what a school educator wants kids to know about an historical event. Secondly, it’s a pretty old trick for the bad guys in the film to look shady and ratty and the good guys to look strong, healthy and pure; the only twist on it is that in this case, the “bad guys” are the ones who traditional history has taught were conquering heroes of the West. Judging by the wild popularity of the film, this twist on the old history was not hugely offensive to a large number of Americans. (As an aside, the idea that hunter-gatherers were relatively healthy compared to farming peoples is not that new or controversial.)
More importantly though, I have no problem with “pushback” against traditional historical memes, even if accuracy is lost in the result. Only thirty to forty years before that movie, Natives were still being portrayed as murderers, bandits, thieves, rapists and drunkards; if it takes a few “noble savage” movies to undo the damage those movies caused, then so be it. Actually, my greatest problem with “Dances” is the fact that in a movie ostensibly about Natives, a white guy is (yet again) the hero, a cultural critique of the movie that I wonder if you’ve ever considered. As for the portrayal of Natives in movies in general…well, that’s another topic entirely.
The Other Steve
I need to invoke my inner wingnut here.
I find it interesting that when people took some food from indian storage back in the 17th century, this was considered looting.
When people did it in New Orleans in 2005 it was called survival.
The Other Steve
In other countries they call it thinks like oktoberfest, or harvest festival, etc.
Dreggas
On a lighter Note:
Oh Snap!
CruzBustamove
Reminds me of a “King of the Hill” episode where Bobby realizes that the Native Americans got screwed over and starts calling the holiday “Thankstaking”.
Dreggas
TOS,
Everyone had a harvest festival, not necessarily one that celebrated subjugating others (as some would say thanksgiving is).
capelza
Good post. To push this idea further, look at “Cry Freedom” or “The Last Samurai”….etc. It;s like the white people have to pull a mega “Mary Sue” in order for the story to have resonance with the majority of the audience.
Dreggas I do understand what you are saying. I guess I just don’t take Thanksgiving that seriously. As for a “War on Thanksgiving?” The Xmas Retail Army already won that battle, Thanksgiving is now nothing more than the day before The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year.
Dreggas
Honestly, to me it’s just a day to gorge myself and pass out, and a nice 4 day weekend. I just get irritated by both the Malkins and their hysterics as well as those who want to make it into something to be ashamed of.
Don’t even get me started on Christmas. We pagans could definitely bitch about how THAT one turned out.
JWW
Dreggas,
I am also a native NY guy, Lake George. I also learned many of my history lessons on the subject matter in school. As a matter of fact, in upstate NY from Plattsburg to Albany you can’t drive more than a few miles before you see a blue sign w/ yellow raised letters identifying historical sites. There is no reason for any guilt if you read the history. The Five Indian Nations, did well too protect themselves, they traded in furs, goods, food, and also slaves of other tribes. Read of Isaac Jogues, Blind Rock, Jane McCrae. Read, Body, Boots and Britches, or volumes of Fox Fire. We were not the total evil.
Andy K
mg_65-
Why’d ya haveta do that? Now the whole class is gonna be in big trouble!
dbrown
If memory serves, and I have no doubt that if I am wrong, many will correct, but didn’t Lincoln declare ‘Thanksgiving Day’ and wasn’t he was using this new holiday as a propaganda idea relative to the Civil War? What do Pilgrims have to do with that?
capelza
Sol Invictus!
Thanksgiving isn’t even a holiday for us. Most years it’s just another frantic day of either getting the crab pots on (not me..I’m doing the wife thing now..Ha!) the boat (which means jockeying for position under the hoist several times as the boats returns to get all 500 pots out so they can soak) or literally taking them out because “dump day” is 72 hours before the start of crab season…
Used to make a turkey for the guys to take out, but they mush prefer sandwiches and cupcakes, it’s quicker. Though this year it’s early…not sure what to do with ourselves…I might have to actually cook Thanksgiving Dinner, but with the awesome Elk roast my husband provided for us this past week. :)
Dreggas
I’m from the Sacandaga Lake area myself. I know all about those signs and know the History all too well :) . Nice to meet a fellow Upstater.
JWW
Dreggas,
Times have changed, but history has been written. We were given the right side of this whole story, that being “both sides”. It was not hidden in the closet. It was just the regions history, like it or not it happened. My family has been in the lower valley region for 300+ yrs. I feel no shame, I pride take pride in the history. A nation was built on it.
Dreggas
Mine’s been around forever it seems, I can still see the graves of relatives who died in the revolution and the road I lived on was carved by Sir William Johnson on the way to the battle of Lake George. Sad that it seems there are a lot of people who don’t learn about this stuff.
HyperIon
I did not say we all sit here. I didn’t say all and I didn’t mean all. And there is nothing in what I wrote that indicates that I was directing my remarks at a poster here.
There’s this idea called American Exceptionalism. I’m pretty sure it’s a position held mostly by Americans. Not all Americans. Not you, perhaps. So…try reading before getting your knickers in twist over an imagined insult.
JWW
Dreggas,
I am in agreement. Long before, “The American War”, you as I see the graves of those who died in the 1600’s and 1700’s. What was the “The French and Indian War”? You, as most will never see, live in one of the grandest areas in America.
The Other Steve
Thanksgiving is not a celebration of the subjugation of others. Why on earth would you think that?
The Other Steve
Isn’t that true of every country?
Certainly the Russians and British and French, and Germans.
D. Mason
There is one thing here that keeps popping up and annoys me a little bit. I want to point out, as a white person, that some of us historically took whatever we wanted from other white people too. It is a simple fact that there are more brown people in the world and therefore it is statistically guaranteed that there will be more opportunities to take shit from brown people than other white people. Some clearly had a preference for brown peoples stuff, that doesn’t mean some didn’t rob, rape and pillage other honkies too. They did. Plenty still do.
Dreggas
Yeah I loved growing up there, I moved out west when I turned 18, one thing I do lament out here is the lack of “history”. Not to say that the west has none but not history the way I know it.
CalD
I think it’s very fitting that Michelle Malkin has given us this turkey of a story in honor of Thanksgiving. That’s why this Thanksgiving, I plan to dedicate our turkey to Michelle Malkin, then declare war on it.
Dreggas
The idea that thanksgiving is a Holiday commemorating the Pilgrim’s first harvest which was the start of the conquering of North America and the killing of the NA’s.
Dreggas
well she definitely has the turkey legs…oh wait dedicate the turkey to her, not compare it’s looks..
dslak
I started primary school in ’85, and I remember learning how Thanksgiving was about how the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims, and then we colored cute little pictures of Pilgrims, Indians, and turkeys.
Once the holiday has been cast in that light, it’s just begging for some Native Americans to get offended.
Dreggas
Primary school I vaguely remember and yeah there was the whole pilgrim/Indian thing but once we got to 6th grade the gloves came off and we learned that by all rights the indians shoulda let the pilgrims starve.
The Other Steve
And I had nothing to do with that.
I’ve got a great idea. We should just stop talking about Native Americans. Maybe then they’ll just go away and be completely forgotten.
That seems to be what some people want.
Pb
Dreggas, etc.;
Also note my previous post referencing the Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1676…
Dreggas
Again having to do with the “Thanksgiving” as held by the pilgrims, not the national Holiday we have today.
rachel
My problem with Dances with Wolves it that Kevin Costner has all the acting skills of a wooden post, and only one or two more besides.
Dreggas
If that was directed at me, nothing could be further from the truth. As I have stated again and again I agree that the Native Americans were persecuted at the hands of the French, Dutch, Germans, English, Spanish, Portuguese and pretty much every colonial power that came here. What I disagree with is the methods by which some groups go about raising “awareness” with regard to this fact. Further last I looked it was spelled out REALLY clear in most of the text books, at least those I had when I was in school.
alphie
I thought Malkin was an anchor baby.
What would they have had to do with the first “Thanksgiving?”
Wonder which side her ancestors were on during the Phillipine American war?
JohnTh
Dreggas,
The reason why modern-day Americans should be more interested in what happened to the Native Americans than French etc is that they are the ones who benefit from it to this day. The US is strong and rich partly because it has lots of land and many natural resources, and it has these because the ancestors of a large proportion of the current inhabitants went to a great deal of trouble to shove the original owners into small, inhospitable reservations and/or exterminate them. People should know the cost of building the Puritans’ ‘City on the Hill’, and it might be the honorable thing to remember those who bore the worst of that cost.
Whether Thanksgiving is the right day for that is open to doubt – it’s a waste of a nice holiday. Maybe an annual ‘Sorry for Stealing your Country Day’ could be instituted?
Cyrus
Well, it wasn’t the start, though. Jamestown was founded on May 14, 1607, the first permanent English settlement, and there were a number of failed attempts before that, like on Roanoke Island. The first (successful, permanent) French settlement in what is now Canada was started in 1605, and weren’t the Spanish and Portuguese conquering Central and South America even before that?
Wow, “settling” and “conquering” are terms I used without thinking at first, but there’s a big contrast, isn’t there. There really were different methods to moving into a relatively lightly populated area like Massachusetts had been and moving in on empires like the Aztecs and Incas, but still, it reveals a lot.
Of course, something like what happened was almost inevitable as soon as Columbus landed, so if a day to commemorate the colonization is needed, Columbus Day seems appropriate.
libarbarian
Sew Buttons.
Look, it’s not a big deal and I’m not in ‘outrage’ mode about white people looking bad, so dont get the wrong idea.
My point is simply that there is a lot of “positive” stereotyping of Native Americans. Socially, the majority has flipped from a negative view of them as barbarous savages to an equally simplistic and inaccurate view of them as particularly noble savages – and the few NAs I know all find it lame as fuck.
Pb
Dreggas,
Er, yeah, because America came from nowhere. Look, that proclamation was made by the governing council Charlestown, Massachusetts, and they observed Thanksgiving starting in 1671 as well. Odds are, I had ancestors there. It doesn’t seem that their holiday was substantially different from the one outlined in Washington’s Proclamation of 1789. So what’s your argument here, that the holiday subsequently changed in character, and therefore we’re now free to ignore its history? That ‘reasoning’ would work well for Christmas, at least, probably a few times over.
Dreggas
A national day of thanksgiving is a national day of thanksgiving. People have compared it to a holiday comemorating colonization, betrayal etc when that is not what it comemorates in the least.
I am not saying ignore the history, as I have said I know the history and I know what happened. I know of the betrayals, of broken treaties, of one empire using certain tribes against tribes being used by another empire. However Thanksgiving is not now, nor was it ever a day celebrating the conquering of the Native Americans nor should it even be considered a day marking the beginning of that since that had begun long before the pilgrims came.
Kynn
Superior melee DPS, plus stealth rocks. Duh!
dogrose
Dreggas, please read dslak’s comment.
As far as I can tell, the proposal under discussion argues for some appropriate corrective to the all-too-standard Thanksgiving narrative, the one casting Native Americans as buckskinned waitstaff. I don’t think anyone is demanding that pre-K classes re-enact the Trail of Tears rather than tracing their hands on construction paper to make the traditional turkeys.
Why is this so objectionable to you? Not all (I’d argue very few) public schools cover Native American history as well as upstate NY schools apparently do.
Dreggas
I did read that comment, I commented immediately afterward that yes, that was the case in school until about 5th or 6th grade and then we started learning the rest of the story. What I find objectionable is the idea that people should be made to feel guilty on Thanksgiving because of something that started long before the first thanksgiving (see columbus day). That would be like me making an announcement on Christmas that it’s nothing more than the celebration commemorating one of many instances where the celts, gauls, goths, visigoths and other native peoples of europe were forced to convert to christianity and had their holidays highjacked by the church in order to do so.
Of course given that this announcement came out at Thanksgiving and not at columbus day (when it rightfully should have) the group in question is obviously working to further entangle the holiday with their interpretation of History as well (the being that Thanksgiving was established to commemorate the pilgrims landing and made a national holiday for that reason).
As has been stated there were many settlements here long before the Pilgrims, it is not as if without them America would not exist and the same damn thing would not have occurred.
just me
The reason why modern-day Americans should be more interested in what happened to the Native Americans than French etc is that they are the ones who benefit from it to this day. The US is strong and rich partly because it has lots of land and many natural resources, and it has these because the ancestors of a large proportion of the current inhabitants went to a great deal of trouble to shove the original owners into small, inhospitable reservations and/or exterminate them. People should know the cost of building the Puritans’ ‘City on the Hill’, and it might be the honorable thing to remember those who bore the worst of that cost.
History is rife with one group of people conquering another and often treating them poorly or outright killing or enslaving them. It isn’t like this is something unique to the American expirement.
Also in the new narrative we sometimes go out of our way to overportray the Native Americans as overly peaceful groups that didn’t conquer or war with each other.
I don’t think Thanksgiving needs to be turned into some national day of guilt. But I do think that we could be more honest in how we tell the stories even to the little ones, but they should be from a neutral point of view, not with the intent of guilting kids into feeling bad about Thanksgiving.
dogrose
Sorry, Dreggas, I just don’t get your insistence on equating a more balanced view of Thanksgiving (or any other holiday) with “making people feel guilty.” Shades of gray, dude.
Also, you skipped right over the part where I said Not all (I’d argue very few) public schools cover Native American history as well as upstate NY schools apparently do.
I grew up in Texas. We learned that Mexicans fought us (i.e., Anglos) for our land and, naturally, they lost. Native Americans (in the sense that we’re using the phrase) showed up only at Thanksgiving, and only as smiling walk-ons.
Your experience is not universal.