Rethinking Thanksgiving in time to face hard truths and create hope

As a white mother who is deeply concerned about the future we are creating for our children, I am both terrified by and hopeful about the complex and dangerous times we are navigating. This is the first year of my life that I will not gather with family members or friends for a Thanksgiving dinner. Although I enjoy the traditional meal and once found the construction paper costumes and cardboard Mayflowers in my children’s preschool classrooms endearing, I have come to question the “Thanksgiving myth,” which historian <a href="https://bostonreview.net/articles/the-united-states-is-not-a-nation-of-immigrants/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz</a> says, “obscures the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent, reducing the Indigenous population, and forcibly relocating and incarcerating them in reservations.” This Thursday I plan to watch the Livestream of the <a href="http://www.uaine.org/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">National Day of Mourning</a> while contemplating how our nation might begin to heal from and make reparations for our government’s genocide against the Native people who have withstood centuries of persecution yet continue to honor and care for this continent’s life-giving land and waters. <a href="https://gailmcnulty.medium.com/rethinking-thanksgiving-in-time-to-face-hard-truths-and-create-hope-73474527ac41">Website</a>