Is Thanksgiving Bad?

For John, BLUF:  A number of people see traditional Thanksgiving as bad, calling for people to view it as a "National Day of Mourning, given the fate of Native Americans.  The Author is an Americaan Expat in France.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Is Thanksgiving a "Myth" or a "Problematic Holiday"?  What Nobody Tells You About Indians and Other Native Americans

From No-Pasaran, by the Unnamed Author, 25 November 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

Every time I hear about the tragedy (the tragedies) suffered by the Indians of North America (whether at Thanksgiving or at any other time), I bring up some variant of the following questions: Do the calamities also include the theft of the lands of the Apaches? Does the genocide, real or alleged, of the Native Americans also concern the extermination of the Huron tribe (Huronia)?

This type of question usually boondoggles the leftist, whose eyes grow like saucers and who waffles trying to reply, since in his eagerness to sum up American and world history by meting out simplified explanations in one-sentence platitudes (that conveniently, and invariably, happen to be damning towards Americans, i.e., white Americans), he has neither had nor taken the time to think any details through as he attempts to display his alleged expertise as a modern-day genius. The most intelligent leftists will be — rightly — suspecting that the questions are in some way or another some form of trap…

The problem, of course, is that the lands of the Apaches were stolen by the Comanches.

While the Hurons were wiped out by the Iroquois.

The Author paints a rather grim picture of some of the tribes across the continent.  He doesn't get into human sacrifice, which was practiced in the lower parts of North America.  On the other hand, he passes over the helpfulness of the local eastern Massachusetts Native Americans.  We commemorate that cooperstion when we celebrate Thanksgiving.  For sure, the Native American population can not be taken as a uniform collection of tribes,  Rather, they are a large number of groups, with unique cultures, from the Wampanoag to the Mississippian Culture to the Iroquois to the Comanches.

I think the appreciation of Thanksgiving is in the fact that a group of people faced bad odds, and beat them, and took the time to thank God for seeing them through their trials.  I think we should apprecite that at the first Thanksgiving the European Immigrants welcomed and thanked the Native Americans who helped them survive.  If we load the feast down with too much analysis we are impoosing our current understanding on people who might never have contemplated such complications.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff