"I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, other people get it, too. They realize how ridiculous the whole image of Thanksgiving is."

Said "Lyz Jaakola, 52, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, recall[ing] the catharsis she felt as a young woman watching the movie 'Addams Family Values,' a dark comedy released in 1993":

In one scene, the Wednesday character, cast as Pocahontas in a children’s Thanksgiving play, goes off script to take violent revenge on the Pilgrims. “You have taken the land which is rightfully ours,” she calmly seethes. “Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs.”

That's from an NYT article, "The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year For many Native Americans, the Covid-19 toll and the struggle over racial inequity make this high time to re-examine the holiday, and a cruel history."

Is this year a particularly good time to revisit the negative side of the origins of Thanksgiving? 

At first, I thought no. For millions of Americans, Thanksgiving is a tradition within their own family's story, and that tradition is sadly disrupted by the pandemic. Many of us have recently lost loved ones, and we all have suffered for almost a year from the enforced distance from family and friends and that separation feels especially awful with the approach of Thanksgiving — the holiday that has come to mean gathering indoors with a big group of people we love. It's about love, family, and food, not being upper middle class (which is what that "cardigans and highballs" business is supposed to mean).

But then I thought, sure, why not? Why not pile on and kick people while they're down? We're already feeling terrible. Give us something else to feel terrible about. We're deprived of loving warmth we'd come to expect at this time of year, so fling open the window and make it as cold as possible. Can't do Thanksgiving this year? Well, you should have never been doing Thanksgiving anyway, so let's just call this Year 1 of America Without Thanksgiving, and let's try to think of other sacrifices you need to make. 

Stop asking what am I thankful for. Start asking what more can I give up.

AND: Let's consume the entire Addams Family scene: 

 

Here's Wednesday's speech:

Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. 

As long as we're being urged to consider the whole story, look with clear eyes at Wednesday's vision. It entailed terrorism and genocide.