Every year, family, friends and transverse back and forth across the U.S. and celebrate the glorious holiday called Thanksgiving, which recalls a fond moment where the wondrous Indigenous People of this land ate with the visiting Pilgrims. For the last for years I have been increasingly vocal about my disdain for celebrating such a holiday. Additionally, I’ve been gradually reacquainting my daughter with the truth about the holiday, which yields gut-busting meals and family time with loved ones. Thanksgiving is a fallacy and a fraud as a day of giving thanks and here are 5 Reasons To Tell Kids The Truth About Thanksgiving.
1. The Whole Day Celebrates Genocide
Imagine a holiday that celebrated slavery at the root. How would Black people feel? Children should understand that the result of Europeans coming to this American land resulted in the mass death of another people. Now, Thanksgiving Day, as an event, has no historic link to genocide or massacres, but in a general sense, many regard it as “ThanksTaking Day” or a general “Day of Mourning” for what eventually happened to the Native Americans.
2. Thanksgiving Is Actually Based On A Myth
The early settlers, known as Puritans, never invited this mass of Native Americans for a happy sit down meal. They invited one person – Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader. Now, history is blurry on this, but I’ve read that Massasoit was a pretty smart dude. He came to the Puritan Party with 90 or more of his Native brothers and sisters – most likely for safety. They brought most of the food. It was not some joint harvest. The settlers didn’t even bring any grub. And an encounter of this sort never happened again, history says There was no prayers and there was no “giving thanks” at this time of supposed happy harvest. They never sat down for a happy harvest. It simply never happened.
3. Thanksgiving Is Actually A Holiday About War
The funniest thing is that what we deem Thanksgiving has almost nothing to do with Pilgrims, Puritans or even the Native Americans. The holiday most are acquainted with Thanksgiving was the result of the American Revolution for Independence. In 1777, the war was looking absolutely dismal for the American “rebels.” Eventually “Honest” Abraham Lincoln, president at the time, made a bold Proclamation of a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1863 to boost national morale during the Civil War. It was for a day of prayer and thanksgiving. But, do we really want to be celebrating war as we take time with our families and loved ones? (There are conflicting historical accounts of this. Some reports state that there was an actual Thanksgiving dinner than took place after the massacre of hundreds of Pequot natives.)
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