Forums

I'd be interested to hear -- from 'Outsiders,' insiders, or whatever -sider you might be -- about your impressions of the contemporary significance of American Thanksgiving (I add the adjective for there is, of course, a Canadian Thanksgiving, too).
For those 'on the ground' in the United States: does Thanksgiving feel like a celebration of American history -- that is, an occasion when one is genuinely encouraged to express, and consider the sources of, national pride -- or does it feel more like (as I think Christmas feels to many) a kind of denuded, de-historicized, largely commercial event, without a 'referent' in history?

This article from Slate.com isn't quite what "Their America" is looking for, I realize, since it's written by an American, but it represents a kind of 'Outsiders' perspective on the Thanksgiving holiday.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/11/27/if_it_happened_there_how_the_u_s_media_would_cover_thanksgiving_if_it_was.html

If It Happened There … America’s Annual Festival Pilgrimage Begins

By Joshua Keating
This is the fourth installment of a continuing series in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries.

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States—On Wednesday morning, this normally bustling capital city became a ghost town as most of its residents embarked on the long journey to their home villages for an annual festival of family, food, and questionable historical facts. Experts say the day is vital for understanding American society and economists are increasingly taking note of its impact on the world economy.

The annual holiday, known as Thanksgiving, celebrates a mythologized moment of peace between America’s early foreign settlers and its native groups—a day that by Americans' own admission preceded a near genocide of those groups. Despite its murky origins, the holiday remains a rare institution celebrated almost universally in this ethnically diverse society.

During the holiday, more than 38.4 million Americans will make the long pilgrimage home, traveling an average of 214 miles over congested highways, often in inclement weather. The more prosperous citizens will frequently opt for the nation's airways, suffering through a series of flight delays and missed airline connections thanks to the country’s decaying transportation infrastructure and residual fears of foreign terrorist attacks.

The “pardoning” of a turkey is a sop to animal rights activists made somewhat moot by the fact that the country’s president simply dines on a different turkey.
Once home, the holiday’s traditions encourage Americans to consume massive quantities of food centered around the turkey, a flightless—and some would say tasteless—bird native to the American continent. All in all, 46 million of these animals will be slaughtered for the feast, nearly 20 percent of those raised each year. The average American will consume an almost unbelievable 4,500 calories, despite ongoing warnings about dangerous obesity rates nationally.

Virtually the only break from the eating comes when Americans gather around the television to watch a special presentation of football, the country’s most popular sport. If the brutal violence of the game seems at odds with the holiday’s emphasis on thanks and good will, no one seems to mind.

Though rooted in America’s ancient history, the celebration of Thanksgiving today also reflects the transforming values of American society. One relatively recent tradition is the head of state’s public “pardoning” of a turkey—a sop to animal rights activists made somewhat moot by the fact that the country’s president simply dines on a different turkey. To outsiders, it can also seem like a somewhat macabre gesture since the United States is one of the last developed countries to employ the death penalty for humans.

Traditionally, the Friday and weekend following Thanksgiving have been set aside for another American institution—intense consumer activity and bargain shopping. (The availability of deeply discounted goods is increasingly beginning even sooner, sometime on the holiday itself, angering some purists.) More than $59 billion will be spent over these days, though the exact figure will be watched closely by economists looking for clues about the country’s national mood and economic well-being. The event is known as “Black Friday,” though contrary to popular belief, this is not due to the injuries and deaths that periodically occur during retail stampedes.

In recent years, some experts have questioned whether the hidden costs of the Thanksgiving holiday have become excessive; whether the celebration is worth its massive environmental impact and the increased health risks due to traffic accidents and overeating. Still, the majority of the population holds fast to these pastimes. For them, they are part of a rare, quintessentially American tradition in a modernizing society that finds itself increasingly under the influence of the outside world.

from United American Indians of New England

National Day of Mourning

Since 1970, Native Americans and our supporters have gathered at noon on Cole's Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. Thanksgiving day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture. Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.

[...]

http://www.uaine.org/

Really fascinating topic to observe from over here (England). It has always struck me how peculiarly indifferent to the details of their own history Americans are, especially when celebrating it.
Some more food for thought (as it were)...

Your Thanksgiving cranberry sauce is poisoning Native American lands
Tara Houska
When we sit down to a Thanksgiving meal with friends and family, it’s easy to overlook the cranberry sauce, that familiar side with a vague purpose. But give it a second thought this year: the dark red fruit, associated with health and well-being, is laden with chemicals that are killing the lake of a Wisconsin-based Native American tribe and violating the tribe’s treaty rights.
Wisconsin is the largest producer of cranberries in the United States, helped in part by a special exemption from the state’s department of natural resources that allows the industry to bypass permitting for construction projects and diversion of surface water.
A number of cranberry operations sit adjacent to Lac Courte Oreilles, so named for the Native American tribe whose reservation encompasses the eastern half of the lake. Treaties signed with the federal government guarantee hunting, fishing and gathering rights for the tribe in exchange for land. But the fish population is at risk.
Though the cranberry industry has painted a picture of sun-soaked floating bogs of red berries and farmers in waist-high boots, the reality is a commercial operation that requires massive quantities of water to flood and drain fields of the marsh-grown vine several times throughout the year.
Water is pumped in from nearby lakes and streams, and once the harvest is complete, it is pumped back into the water supply. Heavy use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides on the plants result in clean water entering the bogs and phosphorus-laden water exiting.
Phosphorus levels contained in the operation’s runoff are so high that the fish population in the lake has declined, and some areas cannot be used during summer months due to increased algae and scum. Elevated lead, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic metals have also been found in cranberry discharges.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/26/thanksgiving-cranberry-sauce-wisconsin-poison-native-american-lac-courte-oreilles-tribe

I believe that it is North America's speciality to normalize violence and subjugate less powerful places and beings. American Thanksgiving is a prime example of that. We are raised to believe that Thanksgiving is a wonderfully, charitable time wherein friends and families come together to eat enormous heaps of mashed potatoes and talk about what they're thankful for, just as the pilgrims did. In history class, Americans, and Canadians alike, are taught about the heartwarming story of white men and native men coming together to form the beautiful land we live on today. As we sit around our tables and stare impatiently at the steaming hot plates of fresh food, we listen halfheartedly to our siblings and parents talk about how thankful they are for whatever it is they are thankful for--the good weather, the new Fallout game, each other. It's all, for lack of a better word, bullshit. You never hear anyone talk about the horrific effects of severe assimilation, or the pitiless massacres thousands of Native Americans endured. No, in North America, we talk about how thankful we are for the lives we have now. We treat ourselves to pumpkin-spiced lattes and send our grandmothers, "Happy Turkey Day cards." We normalize and dismiss the acts of violence that went on in the past, just as we normalize the violence that goes on today. That is why "National Day of Mourning," is important and should be spoken about more. American Thanksgiving should be taught as not a happy celebration, but rather, as a prime example of the selfishness of the American people; what America wants, America gets, even if it means harming one another. Why celebrate that?

I personally have never really celebrated Thanksgiving, and I have instead treated more like a normal long weekend. While I think it's great to have a holiday where people are thankful for what they have, the commercialization of this holiday, and it being right before Black Friday, seems to defeat the purpose. Sonya Collins' picture above about Black Friday says it all. In this way, Thanksgiving then appears to be some kind of obligation where you must be thankful (instead of people actually feeling grateful). Furthermore, I agree with Brayaden Fantin, about how violence committed against Indigenous people must be acknowledged as part of the origins of the holiday. Hopefully, if society takes this step, it will change how we see ourselves, history, and other individuals who've been wronged.

The central themes of Walden are representative of the common hardworking American in the 19th century – simplicity, frugality and self-reliance were all necessary for anyone to survive in the new country of America. It was and is a land of abundant resources; however, if one didn’t know how to utilize the resources correctly or learn to adapt to coexisting with their surrounding environment, continuing to survive in America would be near impossible. Death came in many forms including hunger, winter and disease – to combat them all the common American people survived off the land, working hard to earn their right to live.

It’s interesting that the American people today find themselves with traditions such as Black Friday and Boxing Day, holidays that once celebrated the American people now celebrate the purchasing of material goods. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two highly celebrated holidays in America that celebrates family, tradition and other values important to the American people – but the need for consumerism has introduced holidays specifically for spending money that have begun to eclipse the traditional holidays. In creating such a day as Black Friday, the American people are showing their love for consumerism and the corporations are feeding it with deals and sales. When reading Walden, I couldn’t help but think of what Thoreau thought of current American traditions such as going shopping at the mall or mindless spending such as purchasing an item solely because the vendor knocked off a few dollars. I realize that Thoreau was excessively frugal even back in his day; however he was right in that we don’t need the material to define us. The material possessions that surround you physically don’t establish who you are and that’s something that most people have forgotten. I think that if Thoreau saw what the American society has grown into, the culture of consumerism that it feeds off of, he would return back into his little simplistic cabin and not come back out.