Perception vs 20/20

We thought this an evocative take on Thanksgiving.
Namaste,
Euroswydd, Mort and Reiki Clown

Hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20. And while 20/20 refers to a numerical value used by ophthalmologists to describe perfect vision, I’ve often felt perfect described perceptual rather than certifiably concrete parameters. When viewed from such a prospective Thanksgiving seems based on events which while representing the beginning of the end for the natives of the North American continent are nonetheless deserving of attention. The type of attention given a grave moral and ethical wrong rather than that of a celebratory genre.
Of course this is not news to anybody these days. Yet Thanksgiving is still touted as that heartwarming annual holiday when we should feel privileged to gather round the Groaning Board to reiterate our admiration and gratitude for those who brought in that first bountiful harvest. No matter the subsequent cost.
There’s nothing wrong with being proud of ones ancestors, it’s a healthy and grounding activity. However in light of the fact that this particular event is clouded with attitudes epitomizing the holier than thou (oh those dumb savages) controlling aspects of human nature perhaps the focus could be changed to more accurately reflect aspects of Thanks and Giving. Somehow exemplifying the precursor to the inhumane and environmentally skewed behavioral patterns extended over several centuries doesn’t seem a very commenmorative worthy event.
Admittedly I am coming off sounding extremely sour—I mean to. The precepts of this holiday are fraught with judgmental, overbearing aspects. Rather than a celebration of a bountiful, successful harvest it was a memorializing articulation embodying the very reasons the Pilgrims left their homeland in the first place—oppression and persecution. They tamed, overcame and overwhelmed the land and its people in order to prevail and implement their own agenda.
Now having gone up on my soapbox and reiterated the already well established ideas deploring the inhumane treatment of the Indians and their land let me shock any reading this diatribe by expressing my eager anticipation of this coming Thursday. Be assured I am not anticipating a commemorating of the inception of a continuation of unconscionable behavior the type of which goaded the Pilgrims into seeking a new homeland but something very different.
The day for me will be filled with sleeping late, chosen companionship, cooking, eating, the cozy smells of the season, relaxation and a welcome break from the normal routine. I will not be thinking (or at least I will try not to) of the Indians I met and came to know when I lived in the Southwest. I will try not to think of the horror stories they told me of their personal treatment, of the drunks filling the crevasses of those towns subsisting near Reservations, the hopelessness, the abject degradation perpetrated by those who ‘discovered’ and ‘tamed’ this continent.
Let me point out that I know how lucky I am. In my lifetime I have been subjected to profiling, derogatory treatment, being ostracized, denial of basic needs and rights all based solely on my sex and/or economic status as judged by the perceptions and vagaries of others. I have experienced homelessness and the emptiness of long distance travel associated with searching for a new one. Well acquainted as I am with the insurmountable weight of depression brought about by these and other factors I will enjoy this coming Thursday as a day to give thanks for having accomplished and learned much over the past year.
Thanksgiving can be a wonderful holiday in which to nestle positive meanings and actions. It is, however, incumbent upon us all to remember past mistakes and wrongs perpetrated in its name. How else can we hope to discontinue such horrors as genocide?