Why I Hate Thanksgiving

Why I Hate Thanksgiving Photo via Flickr user pinksherbet Its always about this time of year, when the University of Denvers quarter comes to close right before Thanksgiving, that I become both a) extremely stressed and b) angry. Stressed because obviously, finals, but why angry? Because everyone starts talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holiday spirit. Let me clarify that Thanksgiving is most definitely one of the worst holidays â€" and this is why. I first learned about Thanksgiving, not at home, but in school. I learned it was a time when the mysterious Indians showed up out of nowhere and helped the Pilgrims survive when they were unable to feed themselves, and in doing so, created a holiday which people celebrate to give thanks. We then, as 1st Graders, dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians and shared a finger-food Thanksgiving dinner. But what they didnt teach us was that many of the Puritan elite among these Pilgrims later turned against the Native Americans and burned their villages to the ground. This merely continued a history of violence against the Native Americans that had begun since the Spaniards first came to the Americas, a history that would continue for centuries, a history that has still left many Native American peoples as second-class citizens. One of the main reasons why I despise Thanksgiving is the way that the US seems to conveniently forget about this history. Why do we as US Citizens still celebrate Thanksgiving? To give thanks to the Native Americans? What if people, like me, never had ancestors in the United States at that time? And what are Native Americans expected to do â€" give thanks that they showed compassion to immigrants of whom many would later systemically commit genocide?  Do people sit down on Thanksgiving day and talk about the Trail of Tears? The racism still experienced by Native Americans today? The standard of living on reservations? No. Instead, people sit down with family members, watch a parade of Snoopy floats and lip-syncing celebrities and hours of football on TV, cook a big meal and fall into a collective food coma and conveniently call it a holiday to appreciate what we have. Photo via Flickr user eye of einstein We give thanks that we have food on the table by encouraging the mass annual commercial slaughtering of turkeys grown artificially and in poor conditions in order to meet the American demand, a custom which also basically flips the bird to any vegetarians or vegans. We give thanks by consuming and encouraging each other to consume huge quantities of food an average American Thanksgiving dinner is worth 2000 calories when there are still children in our US of A starving on the streets? But Thanksgiving brings family together!  If anything, a lot of people I know talk about how much of a chore Thanksgiving is, having to fly back home to see cranky relatives, taking time out of their precious 4-5 day weekend or their winter break to go endure some meaningless dinner that is exactly the same food, exactly the same conversations around the stove or the television every year. Moreover, some people are forced to work on Thanksgiving Day, unable to spend it with their families because those companies decided to make money from the last-minute grocery shoppers by denying their employees family time. My problem with Thanksgiving as a holiday stems not from the intent but from the action. Its all fine and dandy to gather together and appreciate things that we have, but Thanksgiving today doesnt have anything to do with that.  If Thanksgiving were less of a hypocrisy and more of an actual celebration of appreciation, then maybe it wouldnt be such a bad holiday. Maybe it could, not erase, but seek to heal the burns still left from centuries of history against Native Americans. However, until I stop seeing people claim to appreciate all these things they have in their lives then going the very next day to Black Friday (and dont get me started on that), I will keep having this discussion, year after year.