Everyone knows the story of Black Friday. After all it is our most cherished American holiday, a symbol of our economic buying power and incredible overabundance of free time. Unfortunately, Black Friday is in danger. All across the nation, people are slowly beginning to replace Black Friday with "Thanksgiving," a bizarre celebration which involves eating way too much food and trying not to get caught in the crossfire of family politics. We cannot allow this to happen; we must continually remind ourselves of the true meaning of Black Friday, so that this great holiday might never be forgotten.
Long ago, when the Pilgrims first came to the new world, they enslaved and slaughtered thousands upon thousands of the natives who were already living there and claimed the land as their own. Also, this one time they had a great feast with some of the natives. We'll focus on that bit for now.
After the feast was over, the Pilgrims realized that they had been missing out on all of the awesome, delicious food the natives were cultivating. Squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes—the Pilgrims simply had to have more. So they each resolved on their own to visit their native companions the next morning, so that they might barter to get some extra food for themselves.
One of the Pilgrims who was particularly clever decided that he would wake up before the sun even peaked over the horizon, and wait outside the natives' village, so that he might be the first in line to trade. After all, he suspected that his fellow Pilgrims had enjoyed the harvest as much as he had, and wanted to beat the rush.
Little did he know that many of his fellow Pilgrims had the same idea, and when he awoke he was dismayed to see a long line of tired Pilgrims, all waiting to trade with the natives. Unwilling to wait indefinitely, he and many of the others toward the back of the line began to leave, and pretty soon the line was growing into just a small crowd. Disappointed by this exodus, the chief announced that for the rest of the day, for every item bought another would be given as a gift. The Pilgrims rejoiced, and once again joined the queue so that they might benefit from this incredible "buy one, get one free" bargain. And so the great holiday of Black Friday, a celebration of consumption and selfishness, was born.
Think this story is silly? It is. But no sillier than the supposed "story" of Thanksgiving itself, which was invented in the late 1800's, and only circulated widely after World War I. The actual first Thanksgiving was a feast to celebrate the massacre of over 700 Pequot Indians, women and children among them. This is not a cute, idyllic story. Few moments in our history are. But that doesn't mean that Thanksgiving is somehow meaningless; sure, its origin is no more noble than the corporately motivated Black Friday, but hopefully we can spite those murderous colonials by remembering this Thursday all who have lost their lives in the history of our nation. Let us remember the genocide of the Native Americans. Let us remember the slaves who built this nation into a global economic power. These are stains on our history that can never be removed; all we can do is ensure that we are not responsible for more suffering, that we repay the world for damages we have caused.
This Thanksgiving, be thankful that you are not a refugee struggling to survive in war-torn Syria. We have the power to give a few of those refugees something they can be thankful for over the coming years; hopefully we will.
