Abolish Thanksgiving - The War against America
Some morons see racism in everything. Now we have objections to children wearing the traditional costumes of Thanksgiving because they see the relationship between the Indians and the Pilgrims as one of Master and Slave.
This is certainly not what I was taught. Thanksgiving is an end of Harvest feast day where we take time to remember and be thankful for our blessings. Certainly the picture I had in mind throughout my childhood was the one seen here where the Pilgrims invited the Indians to join them in thanking God in their own way for the bountiful harvest of fruits and grains. I was not taught that the Pilgrims treated the Indians shabbily or without respect that day.
Here we have some angry Indians:
LA Times, Claremont parents clash over kindergarten Thanksgiving costumes
"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter's teacher. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history."
Raheja, whose mother is a Seneca, wrote the letter upon hearing of a four-decade district tradition, where kindergartners at Condit and Mountain View elementary schools take annual turns dressing up and visiting the other school for a Thanksgiving feast. This year, the Mountain View children would have dressed as Native Americans and walked to Condit, whose students would have dressed as Pilgrims.
Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside who specializes in Native American literature, said she met with teachers and administrators in hopes that the district could hold a public forum to discuss alternatives that celebrate thankfulness without "dehumanizing" her daughter's ancestry.
"There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype," she said.
There are of course Indians who believe that they always lived in North America and that they lived a peaceful and quiet life before the white man came. The truth is that they came as savage conquerors from Eurasia more than ten thousand years ago and ruthlessly wiped out or subjugated the indigenous peoples who lived here before them and claimed the land for themselves by the simple expedient of defeating their enemies.
I do not excuse or apologize that early settlers came to dominion over this land in the same way the Indians did. Do I wish mankind resolved their territorial disputes throughout history the way we do now, without violence, with courts and contracts? Sure. But I did not vanquish or subjugate anyone nor I have I ever owned slaves. We live today in 2008 and it's time Indians either became Americans or went back to Siberia where they came from.
Of all the holidays where gratitude and thankfulness are most observed, it is ironic that this is the holiday that's picked to be destroyed by ungrateful bitches like Michelle Raheja who enjoy the fruits of living in a country that is a thousand times less savage and primitive than the culture she came from.
I recall reading that one of the best characteristics of Indian culture is gratitude for favors and gifts. So I say to you Ms Raheja, be grateful you don't live in a moth-eaten tipi on a barren plain. Sit down this Thursday and dress your children in Indian and Pilgrim outfits and Thank God you live in America. Or leave.
