I stumbled across the Social Justice rantings of some privileged (staff writer) for The Dartmouth. The opinion piece is a screed against Thanksgiving. You can’t even get past the first paragraph without realizing what a miserable ass they are.
By now the world knows, or at least many of us do, that Thanksgiving is a holiday tainted by its unethical historical context. In tasteless celebration of the white man’s massacre of indigenous peoples, Americans gorge themselves annually on factory-farmed turkey, GMO-riddled green bean casserole and squash, artificially-sweetened cranberry sauce and all other sorts of American delicacies.
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How pathetic their head-space. A college-age individual. Experiencing an Ivy League education. Staff writer at America’s Oldest College Newspaper (founded 1799). In one of the safest and most-prosperous states in our nation. A land that has lifted more people (from every corner of the globe) out of poverty than (perhaps) every other nation in all of human history. And this author can only see the holiday as an expression of oppression.
So, what’s the cure?
It’s quite a piece of work. An expression of misery whose only hope for salvation is to embrace collective salvation. Collective action. And yes – a political posture reminiscent of a world that motivated millions of indigenous peoples to leave their homeland and move to America to get away from people who share a political worldview with this author.
Although we may lose ourselves in fun and festivities honoring the noble principles of gratitude and togetherness, we cannot forget about these social justice issues on Thanksgiving. Around the dinner table, in evening clusters of friends and family, forget the taboo of talking about politics and bring up the reality of oppression in America.
(Let’s invite them back next year!)
Ruminate over the lasting legacies of the colonists, the power dynamics and patterns of exploitation and corrupt societal values that persist in today’s world despite our educations.
(Have you considered that your education is what has made you so incapable of seeing what Ameria actually accomplished?)
Perhaps most importantly, and in keeping with the holiday spirit, think about all of the blessings you have as an individual, and then consider the costs of those fortunes may have on others, be they economic or environmental, direct or indirect, and brainstorm opportunities you have to make this country a better place for the oppressed.
(Reminder: The America that has probably lifted more people out of poverty than (perhaps) every other nation in all of human history.)
Maybe that means picking up a tag from a local giving tree or volunteering to cook holiday meals for people in need in your community.
(Because no one ever thought of doing that in the last 230 years.)
Maybe it means signing petitions, joining protests and demanding change and betterment from our country in reparation of the great harms that oppressed people and the environment since our country’s foundation, inequitable sacrifices that perpetuate the privilege of few.
(Like whiny staff writers at Ivy League colleges?)
Confrontation is the only way to educate ourselves, and this knowledge is the only way to generate the mass motivation necessary to turn this country into a land all people can be grateful to live in.
(A land where most people will live be grateful for their subsistence lifestyles dictated to them by the sort of people who join the well-heeled political class after they graduate from Dartmouth.)
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Cry Me A River
None of the commenters below the original article has anything supportive to say. No one. Not even the Christian hating Democrat Feminazi. But this was my favorite.
If you really believed what you are saying here you would drop out of school and devote your life to working on a reservation, such as Pine Ridge, to help the Indians there. Instead, you attend Dartmouth, a university on stolen land, and you absorb the same privileges of an ivy league education that you complain white men having.
Here’s a less radical idea: Keep all your complaints about history in mind, but acknowledge that the sort of events you complain about are common in the histories of all nations. But try to be grateful for all that the people who have gone before you have given to you. Be grateful for your freedoms, which most in the world don’t have. Be thankful that you don’t live on $2 per day. Be thankful for the men and women who put their lives on the line to keep our country and our cities safe from those who would do us harm.
Just make sure you do all that stuff in your Che Guevera T-Shirt.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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