Thanksgiving is an excuse for americans to celebrate hate and fat

I think it's a time to think about how good you have it compared to how bad life can be for some. It certainly is not a time for us Americans celebrate hate. Look, you can breathe any white bashing hate speech into this innocent holiday that you wish, but I can tell you one thing for sure; natives celebrate it too! I live on the fort berthold Indian rez and I can tell you this from experience. I was at a Thanksgiving dinner just last year at a natives house and they seemed to love it and didn't make me feel like some racist outsider. We had 3 big turkeys and everyone had fun. The kids yelled and played and the grownups talked about the old days.

Please don't buy in to the white hating racist garbage that the liberal media feeds you and just enjoy the day with friends and family. Whether they're native or not.

Are you even an American? If you are then you should know that most Americans put natives up on a pedestal. They are very much respected and loved here. They contributed many things to western society and we appreciate and respect them for that.

A few things that we learned or adopted from american Indians:
Popcorn
Advanced war tactics
Pharmaceuticals
The syringe
Chocolate
Aspirin
An innovative way of drying meat (jerkey)

The list goes on to literally THOUSANDS of products tools and practices used today.

Believe me, tg is not a time to celebrate hate and murder. The original Thanksgiving was a thank you to the natives for letting the pilgrims live on their lands and for teaching them how to survive in the new world.

We all know that things went downhill after that and the natives were murdered, raped and their land stolen. But the holiday itself had nothing to do with the atrocities. It was about love, family and thankfulness of one cultures acceptance of another.

The history behind Thanksgiving is sketchy, at best. But, even if you strip away the history, it’s still an important time to gather with loved ones and be thankful.

Every country has national myths. In France, everyone's ancestors were members of the Resistance during WWII. In Britain, everyone kept a stiff upper lip and carried on during the Blitz. In Italy, everyone supported Garibaldi's efforts to unify the peninsula. Most Dutch people wilfully forget their country's colonial past and how The Netherlands handed a larger proportion of its Jewish citizens over to the Nazis than any other western European country.

Thanksgiving is part of the American Foundation Myth. It's not a myth in the sense of being completely untrue, but reality has been distorted to serve a larger goal. In this case, to promote the image of early American colonists as wholesome Christians who were simply seeking freedom to worship a benevolent god as they saw fit, and striving for a better life in a deserted, hostile environment. Acknowledging the historical reality would make some question things like American exceptionalism, and wonder if America really has always been a "shining city on a hill", as memorably expressed by John Winthrop, the fanatical Puritan (as if there was ever any other sort) and first governor of the Massachusetts Colony.

There's debate about when the first Thanksgiving took place, but a notable one that is known about took place in 1637. In that year, Winthrop declared a day of Thanksgiving, but it bore no relation to the widely believed current myth. What the colonists were ordered to give thanks to God for was the safe return of a band of heavily armed volunteers who had just returned from what is now Mystic, Connecticut. On that jolly little jaunt, they had massacred 700 Pequot Indians and taken women and young children to be sold into slavery. If any native Americans were present during those celebrations by the religious nut-jobs who founded America, you can be sure they weren't sitting down at the same table to enjoy the feast.

I have mixed feelings too, cause I feel like we shouldn’t be celebrating stealing land but I also feel like they wanted it to be a happy holiday about being caring and grateful... well how would I know. Anyways I try not to think about it cause I’m just happy to have a giant feast of my favorite foods to look forward to every year.

I am not American, but I love the idea of showing you are thankful. Even if it is only because of a dog that loves you. Not everybody can afford a feast, but you can have a friend.

I have contradictory opinions about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving used to mean something.
It was about family, gluttony, having a four day weekend (or at least thanksgiving off). It was also about being thankful for the things we have.

Nowadays the retailers are so at war against it that all we hear about is "black Friday". They cannot stand the thought of Americans, for even ONE day of the year, to sit back and reflect about how they are thankful. NOPE, you are suppose to go out and buy MORE bullshit.

I like thanksgiving. It just sucks that most people see it only as some kind of special shopping day. I mean most stores start "black Friday" in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday.