Ah yes, the great season of gluttony and overspending. 

It truly is the greatest time of the year, and I mean that seriously. There is something in the air that makes you want to smile, and the clouds hang overhead with the promise of snow. Many wonderful things happen this season, including food drives, the gift of giving, reunions with family and friends, and nothing is more important after another year in Covid. 

What puts a major damper on my holiday season is Thanksgiving. No, I’m not the Scrooge of Thanksgiving, but also I am. I love eating just as much as the next person, and being thankful is also really important, but being appreciative while celebrating the origins of this country should not happen. In fact, no one should celebrate the origins of this country because they’re dark, horrible, and inhumane. 

My problem isn’t about Thanksgiving, but what it represents. In school, we were taught that the original colonists who settled down here made peace with the Natives and we all sat down to a feast and broke bread on what we call the first Thanksgiving. 

I’m sorry to tell you that never happened. There is no record of this ever occurring, but there are records of colonists destroying the Native Americans. There are thousands upon thousands of stories that address the hidden truth of America’s origins. Although I’m not Native American, being half-Caribbean helps to put things in perspective a bit clearer. Colonists were horrible to many cultures and ethnicities, including Caribbeans and Native Americans, but regardless of your heritage, it’s important to be honest and kind. There wouldn’t be a problem in celebrating Thanksgiving if the bloody beginnings didn’t come seeping through every year. There are people who refuse to believe the horrible truth that we virtually eradicated an entire race and culture of people. People still want to maintain the idea that we came together and toasted with the Native Americans because it’s easier to put ourselves in a good light than in the truthful one. 

Our ancestors were horrible people and avoiding the truth is only going to make the situation worse. We need to take a moment to acknowledge all of what they’ve done and how they forcefully stole the land we now call America. Erasing a bad past is easy, but accepting the truth and moving on, making amends with the people they’ve wronged, is important and shows that we aren’t like them. We aren’t like our ancestors who were blood thirsty, greedy murderers. We are better than them because we would have never allowed this to happen. It’s painless to forget what you’d rather not know, but it’s right to step up and take responsibility for the truth. Isn’t that what America stands for? Truth and justice? Or does that only apply to a small group of people? 

This Thanksgiving, instead of celebrating the first (nonexistent) Thanksgiving, let’s take a step back and mourn for the country’s bloody beginnings. Even better, if you truly want to help make amends, donate or support Native American culture and businesses!

This November go out and learn about Native American culture and take the time to understand what we’ve lost. It’s hard accepting the truth, but once you have, you can only go up from here. So this Thanksgiving, you can bet I’ll be donating to support the Native American people, who are still suffering from the consequences of our destruction. Helping them is not only the right thing to do, but the American thing to do.