The Thanksgiving Reality Check

I struggle with the imagery associated with Thanksgiving. From preschool through high school we are taught that the Pilgrims and Native Americans came together and broke bread at the first Thanksgiving in a moment of brotherhood. Fine. It's true in a round about way.

What bothers me is that the reason to give thanks was short lived for the Native Americans. The tragic reality is that the meal was a brief interlude in a genocide that was already well underway. Estimates vary as to the numbers of Native American lives lost, but it is generally agreed that Europes arrival in the New World led to the decimation of anywhere between seventy-five and ninety percent of the Native American population.

I can only wonder what might have been if that shared meal had become the standard for relations between Native Americans and Europeans. Sadly, wondering is all the brutal truth of history allows. The tragic reality is the white man had no intention of embracing a spirit of brotherhood with those who called this land home first. Instead, Europeans in the name of Christianity and Manefest Destiny robbed the native peoples of their lands, compromised their intricate culture and belief systems, introduced illnesses that would kill them by the thousands, and created treaties that were not honored by politicians or land hungry settlers.

Though the injustices experienced by Native Americans have become part of the history taught in American schools, these injustices are often viewed through a lense that puts the systematic genocide and robbery of the First Peoples in the darkness of the past. Sadly, the injustices continue today. Of course, the crimes against these former stewards of the land have become more subtle. Politicians, industrial interests, and other groups complicent in the continued suffering of Native Americans now hire PR firms to spin the plight of the Native Peoples into something that is portrayed as being self-inflicted. Thanks to brilliant advertising provided by the hired professional damage controlers, the sterotyped welfare, alcoholism, crime, and violence that are portrayed as being part of the current Native American culture is conveniently placed in the laps of the tribal leaders and not the circumstances the tribes are forced to endure. If that doesn't work, the professional media manipulators are quick to remind the viewing audience that the Natives could always open a casino to better their circumstances.

What often doesn't get told is that unemployment, high school drop out rates, poverty, suicide, and instances of mental illness are exponentially higher in Native American communities than those experienced in almost every other minority group in the country. Of course, these circumstances are difficult to remedy when the reservations are often geographically isolated and forced to exist in a perpetual state of economic crisis. This makes it nearly impossible for the First People to access mental heath services, find jobs, and send their children to the quality schools that only those who reside in suburbs can access. The problems suffered by Native Americans can hardly be placed in their laps when they have been forced to live in conditions that would require Herculian effort to even contemplate overcoming.

So, I struggle with Thanksgiving knowing that the heroes of the first have been so inhumanely treated. We gather around the table in homes that we, "own" to give thanks and to celebate attaining the American dream. Yet, we forget that in all likelihood, the land our homes are built upon was stolen from its rightful owners generations ago. I can't help but think that we are the ones who belong on reservations, subject to those who were here first. Somehow, I have a feeling that they would treat us better than we have treated them.