Should Thanksgiving Day Be Atonement Day?
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While the vast majority of U.S. Citizens celebrate Thanksgiving Day to remember the things we’re thankful for — including being thankful for our country — it may be better spent as a day of atonement. As Robert Jensen suggests in his article Why We Shouldn’t Celebrate Thanksgiving, he reminds us that what we should really be remembering is the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples.
After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.
The sentiment of Thanksgiving Day is certainly an honorable one. We gather once a year to remember and show gratitude to the many things we’re thankful for. However, as Jensen implies, it may be a shameful exercise if we make the main focus of Thanksgiving Day based on our revisionist, white-washed history of how our country was founded and how we treated Native Americans.
