Okay so Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of days. That's right it is the time of year when we all gather with our families and gorge ourselves in the celebration of swiping our fine Nation. It is on this remarkable day when the United States comes together and celebrates the first feast between the Pilgrams and the Indians...I guess the Pilgrams were just fattening them up for the kill. You know just before I steal someone's land and rape his wife, I like to have them over for a nice dinner just to say "hey its nothing personal, but this is mine now." I think the gesture is important, otherwise I would feel guilty.
This is of course a rather tricky subject for me, being an American who daily grows fat and happy on this land our ancestors stole and if asked probably wouldn't want to give it back and move onto reservations. I don't personally feel guilty for the state of affairs, nor should anyone else at this point...we weren't there, but I don't think it is particularly good taste to celebrate the taking of a nation by stuffing your faces and lying about in a MSG induced daze while our fellow man tries to hock newspapers on medians for $.25 a pop.
Now some of you may be wondering how I get off lambasting Thanksgiving's anti-Indian overtones all the while calling them 'Indians' as opposed to 'Native American.' This is simple, because in the literale sense of the word, I am a Native American and I think I am going to start filling in that bubble on scholarship applications. Think about it, I have never lived in another country and I was born here. That is native. People like to say that they are German, or Irish or whatever but if you were born here you're a fucking American. Further about the name 'Indian' people think that it was a misnomer due to Columbus thinking he had reached India. India wasn't called India in 1492, it was called HIndustan. Columbus described them as 'Una gente in Dios' which means People in God. This got turned into Indian and that is what it means. Evendently even people in God aren't safe from Manifest Destiny.
You know it is fitting that we should watch football on Thanksgiving. It symbolizes the conflict that was to come from the fatefull first feast. Two large teams beating the shit out of one another for control of yardage. Picture the one endzone as the ocean from whence the pilgrams came, and the other endzone as the west coast. Every Thanksgiving we get to watch the epic struggle unfold once more. Especially when the Washington Redskins play.
Now beyond this cynacism I see that Thanksgiving symbolizes being thankful for every thing we have been blessed with. Okay I'll buy that, but I guess what I am thankful of the most is that I don't have to worry about someone coming into my house tomorrow and kill me and take my house. Thank goodness I don't live in LA. Anyway, I am very thankful for a lot of things this year. My family is healty if not a little insane, I have freedom and a right to talk shit about the nation that provides me that freedom. I really do love our country beyond all of its problems, I just wish we could do something about those looming shadows in our past. We can't, we jsut have to make sure that in the future that sort of nonsense doesn't happen again. In many cases that is happing already, and above all I am thankful for that.
well if this jsut pissed you right off or you thought it made sense or any opinion between them, feel free to write me at the below email.
© 1997 bodhili@hotmail.com
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