Thanksgiving is one of those Holidays they teach you about as a kid. One where we draw turkeys out of the shapes of our hands and write what we are thankful for on the body. It was a great time off school and lots of food. But see, they never taught me about the truth behind Thanksgiving.
They taught me that the meaning behind thanksgiving is to give thanks for harvests and what I am grateful for in life, but by doing this the genocide of so many Natives is erased and "forgotten" for that moment. In reality, the first Thanksgiving dinner was made to celebrate the killing of 700 native men, women and children.
Eventually, Thanksgiving just became a story of Pilgrims thanking Native Americans for teaching them how to grow food. For this moment, people forgot the injustices Native Americans faced. Rape, slavery, poverty etc. This "story" written about Pilgrims and Natives coming together that day allowed for room to belittle Native Americans.
Realizing so much behind this holiday makes me see it differently. My point isn't to have people stop having dinners on Thanksgiving, but to make it clear that Thanksgiving is not a day that honors Native Americans properly. I will use this to thank my Indigenous ancestors for being resilient and to pray for those children and adults who have been killed.
Let us not forget the truth about Thanksgiving.
