Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Parent says NO! to Kindergarten Thanksgiving Costumes because it's "demeaning"

roachboy · 11-25-2008, 07:23 AM

well, see, she's right.
whether being right about this extends to a rationale for trying to stop this silly dress-up day is another matter.
but at the core of things, raheja is right.

i'd be cool with a political storm over this that functioned to shift how this ritual was framed for the students--that there is something really quite bizarre about this tradition, about the narrative. basically the problem is straightforward: the europeans were directly and indirectly responsible for the eradication of the native-american population. for example, between about 1617 and 1621, european diseases had killed somewhere between 70-90% of the native american population in new england, varying by region. for the pilgrims, this havoc could have been understood as an aspect of Providence, the kind of thing god does when he likes a population of chosen-types. for the native americans, i would expect that the story was....um......not quite the same.

this is one of those ugly historical realities that does not disappear between charades involving little kids.

you could say "WHADDYA TALKING ABOUT THIS IS THANKSGIVING FOR FUCKS SAKE LEAVE IT ALONE" but that just raises the same problem in spades. this is the history that this holiday pantomimes, that it sanitizes...but the event being commemorated was also that which was understood by william bradford (whose account of plymouth is its source)...but bradford's is a strange strange paranoid little book---i suppose the kiddies could read bradford and start getting a sense of just how fucking bizarre these people were, how self-consumed they were, how paranoid, particularly about the native americans, who quickly became sex-devils in the pilgrim collective imaginary.

i dunno---i don't personally see any situation in which being oblivious is something to protect, in which wholesale revision of the past is something to be proud of, in which avoidance of the centrality of massacre to the making of this america which is defined in part by it's wholesale inability to even start to face the realities, such as we know them, that are effaced behind such happy-face rituals as thanksgiving.

but the holiday is also about having survived in a fucked up and unexpected context for a year, about the unexpected kindness of others, about the power of banding together...

it's both. face it.
there's no amount of snippiness that changes any of it.
that said----again---- i don't care if the kids dress up as idiotic stereotypes today or tomorrow. i just think they should know what they're doing.

11-25-2008, 07:23 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, see, she's right. whether being right about this extends to a rationale for trying to stop this silly dress-up day is another matter. but at the core of things, raheja is right. i'd be cool with a political storm over this that functioned to shift how this ritual was framed for the students--that there is something really quite bizarre about this tradition, about the narrative. basically the problem is straightforward: the europeans were directly and indirectly responsible for the eradication of the native-american population. for example, between about 1617 and 1621, european diseases had killed somewhere between 70-90% of the native american population in new england, varying by region. for the pilgrims, this havoc could have been understood as an aspect of Providence, the kind of thing god does when he likes a population of chosen-types. for the native americans, i would expect that the story was....um......not quite the same. this is one of those ugly historical realities that does not disappear between charades involving little kids. you could say "WHADDYA TALKING ABOUT THIS IS THANKSGIVING FOR FUCKS SAKE LEAVE IT ALONE" but that just raises the same problem in spades. this is the history that this holiday pantomimes, that it sanitizes...but the event being commemorated was also that which was understood by william bradford (whose account of plymouth is its source)...but bradford's is a strange strange paranoid little book---i suppose the kiddies could read bradford and start getting a sense of just how fucking bizarre these people were, how self-consumed they were, how paranoid, particularly about the native americans, who quickly became sex-devils in the pilgrim collective imaginary. i dunno---i don't personally see any situation in which being oblivious is something to protect, in which wholesale revision of the past is something to be proud of, in which avoidance of the centrality of massacre to the making of this america which is defined in part by it's wholesale inability to even start to face the realities, such as we know them, that are effaced behind such happy-face rituals as thanksgiving. but the holiday is also about having survived in a fucked up and unexpected context for a year, about the unexpected kindness of others, about the power of banding together... it's both. face it. there's no amount of snippiness that changes any of it. that said----again---- i don't care if the kids dress up as idiotic stereotypes today or tomorrow. i just think they should know what they're doing. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite