Tanisha Madhukar - Blog #7 - Happy Turkey Day!
As Thanksgiving is fast approaching the laziness has begun to hit me, unfortunately I still have this blog to write. So I thought, why not turn this laziness into my muse.
Thanksgiving is a holiday inspired by the yearly harvest that was shared amongst Native Americans and Pilgrims. The Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians came together and held a grand feast in honor of their first successful harvest. As the holiday began to spread across the country President Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863. Since then thousands of traditions have sprouted from this beloved celebration, such as the Macy’s Day Parade and Thanksgiving Day Football.
To many, Thanksgiving is a holiday of reconnecting with family through food and laughter. For me however, it is a time of rampant capitalism and early Christmas. In school we were taught about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, and the violent history concerning the two, but we would also have projects such as hand turkeys and cards of gratitude. It made little sense to me as to why we celebrate a holiday that focuses on so much violence and prejudice. Though as I grew older I began to better understand the tradition of Thanksgiving.
Overtime, capitalism and power-hungry people have overtaken Thanksgiving, alongside other major holidays. Not even hours after Thanksgiving dinner are people lining up in front of stores and filling their online carts with major Black Friday deals. It's ironic that American society is so quick to switch from being grateful for what we have to wanting everything that we don’t.
The way American culture has been set up makes it really easy for us to neglect the sincerity of our actions. People often turn a blind eye or disregard their previous opinions in the interest of going along with the crowd. It is a major reason as to why capitalism in America is so prominent, we are conditioned to believe that we want what we do not have, despite the morality and necessity of the product. It’s important to distinguish between what we need and what we want as it will greatly improve the state of our nation.
In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the tradition of over-eating and over-spending this holiday season!
Photo Credits: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/610660030701659951/
Sometimes I genuinely wonder the purpose behind the Thanksgiving holiday, as I feel it's incredibly ironic that we celebrate a native american holiday even though we practically kicked them off their land and only have a few territories dedicated to them. I would say that for them, it's the opposite of “reconnecting with family through food and laughter,” since they definitely wouldn't have felt that over the years. I fully agree with you that American culture leads us to “neglect the sincerity of our actions,” since it doesn’t seem as crucial as Veterans Day or Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Many don't even know the history behind Thanksgiving and just view it as a break from school or as Black Friday/Cyber Monday, as you mentioned. Instead of focusing on what we have, you are entirely correct that we shift our attention to what we don't have and want instead. Store sales are so high that they drive mass consumerism and fuel businesses. On the other hand, one thing that I appreciate is that at least people still try to help those who aren’t as privileged, such as canned food drives and donations. This is the aspect of Thanksgiving that people should focus on: helping those around us and being grateful for what we have, not having a sale the day after we are supposed to appreciate the people and objects around us.
ReplyDeleteHi, Tanisha! I never really thought about the ironic difference between Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Now that I think of it, it is pretty weird how Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude and appreciation, directly followed by a day of splurging on everything we don’t have. While I guess it could be seen as the season of greed, I thought your comment about celebrating a holiday of violence and prejudice was interesting. I think that, for most people, Thanksgiving is more of a social holiday in the sense that people aren’t celebrating the original purpose of Thanksgiving (which was technically for their successful harvests and survival). While there was obviously way too much violence against Indigenous people, I don’t think Thanksgiving “focuses on so much violence and prejudice." I would argue Thanksgiving is the opposite of that. On the other hand, I do think the elementary school projects can be a little weird. I remember how, in Ardenwood, we exhaustively covered the violence against Mission Indians and persecution against them, only then to turn around and make little dressed up dolls of “happy” mission Indians. I get that the purpose was just to create relevant and (semi) enjoyable projects for a bunch of little kids, but looking back at it, maybe we could have chosen something else.
ReplyDeleteHi Tanisha, this blog was eye-opening to say the least. The comparison between Thanksgiving and Black Friday is something that I never noticed until after this blog. I primarily took away from this piece that “American society is so quick to switch.” This idea can be applied to practically every part of American society, as many people move on for a variety of reasons but the main issue is the fact that people move on too quickly. I remember that when the Nobel Prize recipients came out this year, it was barely on the news and then it was forgotten. By not acknowledging these scientists more, it demonstrates how we as Americans simply do not care about education and progress as much as we used to. I also do acknowledge that there is “violent history” in Thanksgiving but today’s version is the best kind of the holiday. It focuses on being thankful for each other and it has a positive impact on our country, not a negative one.
ReplyDeleteHi Tanisha, the irony of celebrating Thanksgiving is quite profound. The American people celebrating how we betrayed and slaughtered the Native Americans who gave us food and trusted us. In the 1600's the colonists did not celebrate on the modern beliefs, but because they killed 700 natives. Even the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving as to celebrate a victory against the Natives Americans. Leading back to the ideas of Capitalism, people do not want to end this holiday even though it is a celebration of a literal genocide. And it isn't as if people haven't ended federal holidays. From what I remember, recently people complained about the celebration of Columbus day, well, because he kind of killed a lot of people. The rhetoric used by these companies have commercialized Thanksgiving, with Black Friday deals fueling the Capitalistic cycle. It has been so engrained into our culture that people have lost sight of the origins of this holiday which is something that should be acknowledged and understood not ignored.
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