FEATURED ARTICLE
Glorifying the endurance of white Pilgrim founders diverted attention from the brutality of Jim Crow and racial violence, and downplayed the foundational role of African slavery. The fable also allowed its audience to avert its eyes from the marginalization of Asian and Latinx labor populations, the racialization of Southern European and Eastern European immigrants, and the rise of eugenics. At Thanksgiving, white New England cheerfully shoved the problematic South and West off to the
side, and claimed America for itself.
The real truth of Thanksgiving is that White Europeans bulldozed entire groups of people of color in North America and then used a story about one cross-cultural celebration to whitewash the bloodstains of their racist and imperialist actions in subsequent decades and centuries. In the long history of our nation, when has there ever truly been simple recognition of the numerous sacrifices made by people of color, let alone “thanks” given to them for their invaluable contributions to this country? Such a “thanksgiving” on a national level would be an occasion worthy of celebration.
the racism and exploitation running through all of it. Instead, it paints the pilgrims as the picture of Puritan perfection and rationalizes their actions in the name of “liberty for all”—as if that existed.
A significant byproduct of this false storytelling is also the erasure of African Americans and enslaved people during this time. The irony is that Lincoln used the story of White men and Native American men to paint a picture of “unity” for his own political agenda during the Civil War—all the while Native Americans’ freedom and equality had been brutally taken from them. Here’s how Deloria described this juxtaposition in The New Yorker: