Elvis Tanyi (’27), Staff Writer
Let’s not get it twisted, there are many reasons why many of us—including myself— celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean after all it’s THE quintessential American holiday. It’s a time for all of us, family and friends, to come together and eat delicious food, and spend time with one another.
Thanksgiving is a celebration of harvest. In fact, this celebration of harvest enabled through feasting, ignites joy and gratitude that can be hard to find during the darker days of winter. In a time marked by isolation and stress, the togetherness that Thanksgiving brings feels more important than ever
But in light of all the positivity, Thanksgiving still remains arguably one of the most controversial American traditions.
The holiday everyone holds so dearly is entwined with a sustained history of genocide, and further punctated with a pattern of lies to conceal its checkered past. The atrocities inflicted upon Native Americans are undeniable; a simple Google search could tell you all you need to know. However, the reins of this influence stretches far over the Atlantic to Africa—the motherland for all Black people. Even minimizing the gravity of the issue to food that makes up the traditional Thanksgiving spread can exude the rich African influence present in American culture.
This story can be traced back to the coerced movement of African people to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade. From the late fifteenth century, the Atlantic Ocean, once a formidable barrier preventing frequent interaction between people inhabiting the four surrounding continents, was commercialized and ultimately welded the history between Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. As you probably already know slavery was the linchpin for this process. Consequently, Africans “willingly shared” a breadth of culinary expertise, corroborated by a rich ensemble of spices and ingredients.
Thanksgiving staples like collard greens and sweet potatoes are a byproduct of the forced assimilation of African raw materials into western culture. Every aspect, down to the turkey that lies at the epicenter of each dinner table on Thanksgiving, can be attributed to the enslaved Africans involved in the transatlantic trade. All of this influence, all of this culture, all of this, to be glossed over in textbooks. I apologize, but the influence of the people from my motherland can’t be limited to a five minute lecture in civics classes.
The lack of recognition is blasphemous, some might say criminal.
This is more than just the culinary scope of things. Thanksgiving is a resounding reminder of the resilience and cultural stubbornness of my ancestors to imprint their mark on an unknown land. Just as there are dark, somber days in winter, the subject of forced migration is a dark, somber chapter in history. However, through that darkness, through that isolation was a strong (read: unwavering) determination to preserve culture by any means necessary.
Sean Sherman bestows a jarring, but unfortunately true revelation about Thanksgiving. He writes “It is a story of supposed unity, drained of the bloodshed, and built for the sake of division.”
It’s time to face it: Thanksgiving is a perverse attempt by colonizers to salvage the “delicate” parts of the holiday while refusing to pay homage to the mosaic of culture that built this country.
In spite of all things, I don’t simply expect you to discard all of your cherished Thanksgiving moments. In fact, I would actually argue against that. I appreciate what it has given people. But we are capable of making the distinction between our own personal moments and what the holiday in its entirety represents. I propose eliminating this framework.
Cultivating joy and togetherness shouldn’t be marked on the calendar; it should be routine.
Taking the time to embrace those closest to you is a courtesy we should all indulge in more frequently. So I encourage us to not only acknowledge and address the destructive legacy of Thanksgiving, but to consciously come together with those closest to you more often and express genuine gratitude- even if it isn’t the fourth Thursday of every November.
