For many of the readers that pass by this site, posting about “Thanksgiving” is a little odd. Many of you know that I do not celebrate state sponsored holidays. And, with this day being a state sponsored holiday, you may wonder what I did? Well, its sort of a non-holiday for me. On most “Thanksgiving” days [commonly the 3rd Thursday in November], I’d rather be eating a veggie lasagna and enjoying a few bottles of wine. But, when you repeatedly have invites to spend the day with your academic friends and family, you can’t say NO! I’m a vegetarian which means that there’s no turkey on my plate; more like a veggie pot pie or some other “exotic” vegetarian dish!
For the past 3 years, we’ve joined around a table full of food–a physician, a theological historian, a theologian turned anthropologist [theological anthropologist?], an attorney, a nurse, and a biologist. Today, however, there were only 4 of us–the nurse and the physician were not present. Our friends are at Dartmouth college for the next 4 years doing a medical residency in neonatology. So, today was different, but today was a day for which I was thankful. Yet, I cannot overlook the history of Thanksgiving and the hegemony and colonial history that this holiday has embodied.
The privilege all have food. I think we should all have food. So, here’s an article from my trusty friends over at Alternet who invite us to consider the reasons why we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Why We Shouldn’t Celebrate Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day should be turned into a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples. Read more »
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