what a mess this holiday is
TL:DR the holiday and what we're (told to) celebrate is awfully complicated.
I am seeing an increase in the posts and statements about the National Day of Mourning the last 2 years on social media. (not nearly as much as "Happy Thanksgiving" with pretentious 1920s revisionist imagery of "Pilgrims" but that's beside the point)
I am not at all saying I disagree with it/Day of Mourning. But I feel I'm being put on the defensive with being made to feel guilty/wrong and responsible for atrocities and mistakes made by people 400-500 years ago
yes, me and my whole generation and all of the older generations grew up with the lies and mythology too. All of the lore surrounding the holiday was essentially fabricated and revisionist history from the 1920s, and the "real" origin of the holiday has more to do with the American Civil War and WW2 than it does anything with the "Pilgrims"
We white people grew up with the lies, too. Some of us are horrified as we uncover the "truth" and filter through the mythology, too.
But
I cannot erase the bad history. I cannot correct the atrocities and mistakes made hundreds of years ago.
But
I do not "celebrate" it either.
Yes, I dress as a Puritan colonist from Mass Bay Colony in 1629. But my interests lay within material culture, art/print culture, and military tech. What my group studies and portrays has virtually nothing to do with the "Pilgrims" and what they did. They were a separate colony and separated by political and religious "differences". To the best of our knowledge and study, the relationship between Natives and MBC colonists before 1638 was "peaceful".
But I don't use that to justify the atrocities and mistakes, either.
So, there are times I feel I'm being "attacked" or forced to feel guilty and repent for atrocities committed by people I am not related to, and things that were done/not done hundreds of years ago. I do not appreciate being thrown into a category and blamed for wrongs of people in the past. And I do not go out of my way to glorify those people of the past, either.
I am also not in the slightest knowledgable about Native heritage & history, so I try to never talk about their history for them to other (white) people. I prefer to let the actual people and the actual experts on the subject talk about that they are experts and experienced in.
That MBC group I'm with, we never talk about being "against" natives but we also don't talk about their history or their perspective, because we are not natives and we have so little information about them. We would be totally open to having any kind of representation, although we don't make an active invite, we (try not to) appear "closed" either.
At the same time, I'm not thrilled with being stereotyped or cast-off as Just Another White Oppressor And Part Of The Problem either. I do not go around casting-off natives as the Losers or Lesser Humans or whatever bullshit narrative Asshole White People come up with, either.
I was (hoping) that the mythology and misinformation about the "actual first thanksgiving" would start to be changed, but, the past weekend in Plymouth with the 400th anniversary and the whole Thanksgiving celebration thing that is the local custom, as well as the unfortunate reality that Plymouth is an obvious Trumperville. it was painfully obvious where the bias leaned towards during the weekend festivities.
There were some pretty embarrassing and pathetically awful comments and statements overheard. And that frustrates me but there's no hope in trying to address it let alone correct it. Some people are just itching for a fight and to pontificate their bullshit mythologies.
I know even Plimoth-Patuxet has gone out of their way, every Thanksgiving, every year, the last 10 years or so, to try and correct the mythology and set the records straight, which is also frustrating/disappointing because they were the originators of some of the propaganda and mythology in their earliest days, too. But they've long since addressed, corrected, and owned up to that.
It took us about 200 years to develop the false-narrative and mythology, it'll probably take us another 100-200 years to attempt to correct it all.
The story is still being written. We can't go back and correct the mistakes & wrongs of the past. Acknowledge it, but try to be of a clean-slate, start a new direction, an improved tradition/mythology? Does it Have to be so one-sided? (I do not agree)
One of the "traditions" I never felt comfortable with at the Dinner Table With Family was the "go around the table and recite what you are thankful for". The last few years and as more of the Native perspective comes out, the less and less I'm really sure how I'm supposed to have a "Happy" Thanksgiving, let alone what exactly I'm supposed to be "thankful" for. The learned ability to be a little more open-minded and empathetic to the Other Side Of Things? And attempts to be open-door with giving them every chance and space to talk about what they want to talk about without criticism or attack?