My social media feed has blown up in the last few days with all sorts of anti-Thanksgiving, anti -holiday, anti-white colonialism, trauma triggering, day of grief and every other thing in between. Yeah, it’s a terrible capitalist funnel of a holiday based on a the bunch of lies written into a colonizer’s mythology that perpetuated some really horrible things against humanity… hundreds of years later, millions of lives exploited and lands ravaged we still press on and argue about this fictional event that tries to create an air of humanity and cooperation that never really existed.
At the time of this so called feast the story speaks of coming together to honor the shared hope of cooperation. In reality the early years of people coming to this country was pretty dire. Disease. Death. Starvation. Lack of resources to know how navigate the climate and environment. Couldn’t leave. Fear. Lots of fear. God really wasn’t helping them much. This isn’t an excuse for colonization it does point to the fact that people do desperate things to survive… And like most historical story telling of events of this sort, it is more about a moral teaching ( they were Christians). The written history of the event was probably made up to give some lightness to the terrible condition of living at that time and like lies do this myth rolled forward like a drunken snowball and crushed truth until it crashed into reality and fell apart.
So fast forward and this National Holiday is now a poster child for everything we can hate and fight about as this country tries to find its way and identity…. again….
My feelings on this are if it’s really that horrible let’s stop doing it. I’m all for simple affective action.
Of course nothing is simple when it comes to human beings. Humans hate change even if it is for a good reason. We seem to fight tooth and nail for traditions we know are exploiting , racist and such. All in the name of “identity” Some people can’t think it through or the media poisons reason with fear. Power and politics get involved… and from there it rolls into the dark crevasses of stupidity and violence.
Then there is the years and years of trauma that need to be reconciled and acknowledged. The perpetrators need to be vilified. Reparations need to be made. Reconciliation will take years and many generations to heal… It needs to be done. It will take awhile with a lot of being real and dropping the denial.
Let’s start some place…. like realizing we are not the story we have been told. We are not the history that has defined us. We can start today and use it to make a better/different world for everyone. We each have the capacity to make changes that are part of solutions no matter how great or small they are
Be kind. Be grateful. Nothing is guaranteed for anyone. We can spend our time beating up the choices of the past or being traumatized by the consequences that are fouling the future. The other way is to live each moment in service to making the changes needed for a better world.
Today with climate changes, population, depleted resources etc…. the road ahead is paved with migration and the diaspora of people to new places for resources and survival. If the past serves as a lesson then we can figure out how to do it differently… creating a real story of hope, cooperation and humanitarianism.
Happy Reconciliation in Action Day. May we all be graced.
Shaman @ Large 