Problematic faves
Oct. 5th, 2016 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serene[Edit: Bill @PenzeysSpices responded immediately to point me to this: https://t.e2ma.net/webview/o0dlr/3861320930e0446feb951d5ac4db1769 which acknowledges some of my concerns. Thanks, Bill! I still think it should be a part of all discussions, not just the background info.]
Just got an email from Penzeys (my fave spice company) that included these lines:
My response:
Usually, I'm right there with you on these initiatives of yours. LOVE the love campaign, and the veterans cooking, and oh my gosh, so happy about the pro-science messages and efforts.
But Thanksgiving. We weren't immigrants to this country. We were conquerors. We were warmly accepted, yes, and then we killed everyone in sight. And took their land. And are still refusing to give them basic civil rights.
This country does not welcome newcomers unless they're white and have money. Otherwise, it vilifies them, makes them "illegal," and denies them the human rights of health care, a living wage, and often even the sanctity of keeping their families together.
Please reconsider praising the first Thanksgiving without acknowledging that it was the beginning of a campaign of domination by white Europeans over the indigenous people of this land who were already here and should have been allowed to live in peace.
Serene
Just got an email from Penzeys (my fave spice company) that included these lines:
2021 will mark the quadricentennial of our country's first Thanksgiving, celebrated with the harvest of 1621. As we count down to 2021, our hope is to promote Thanksgiving 400 as a reminder that America was not born July 4th 1776— that was us declaring our adulthood. America was truly born over the summer of 1621 in the extraordinary kindness of the Wampanoag people towards those delivered on their shores by the Mayflower. Through their example, the Wampanoag people set in motion a nation much different than any nation before or since. A nation that would not only welcome in newcomers, but also work to help them succeed.
My response:
Usually, I'm right there with you on these initiatives of yours. LOVE the love campaign, and the veterans cooking, and oh my gosh, so happy about the pro-science messages and efforts.
But Thanksgiving. We weren't immigrants to this country. We were conquerors. We were warmly accepted, yes, and then we killed everyone in sight. And took their land. And are still refusing to give them basic civil rights.
This country does not welcome newcomers unless they're white and have money. Otherwise, it vilifies them, makes them "illegal," and denies them the human rights of health care, a living wage, and often even the sanctity of keeping their families together.
Please reconsider praising the first Thanksgiving without acknowledging that it was the beginning of a campaign of domination by white Europeans over the indigenous people of this land who were already here and should have been allowed to live in peace.
Serene