It sounds a little Scroogey or Grinchy to post Thanksgiving caveats - (thrinchy?), but the holiday is so bound up with national history and pride that it would be a healthy thing, I think, to throw a little humility and atonement into the mix. Those Pilgrim forefathers and foremothers, after all, were an early warning of a tidal wave of misery and genocide for Native Americans. I think it's possible to be both proud of your history and ashamed of it at the same time.
For an interesting Catholic take on the spirit of thrinchiness, see Michael J. Iafrate's post, "Are you pro-life? Resist or subvert Thanksgiving," at his blog, catholicanarchy.org.
Here's a long post
ReplyDeletehttp://www.backstoryradio.org/2009/11/american-as-pumpkin-pie-transcript/
Just do a Ctrl-F search for "Anne" and see what historian Anne Blue Wills (a friend of mine) has to say about Thanksgiving history. Really interesting.
That really is an interesting article, Jay. I'm sort of pleased to find that my instinctive longing to pair a day of thanksgiving with a day of atonement and repentance has Puritan ancestry.
ReplyDeleteThat whole backstoryradio site looks good, too.