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Nov. 28, 2019 - Liberty Hangout - Kaitlin Bennett
15:08
Thanksgiving is Canceled
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Time Text
Do I think Thanksgiving is an offensive holiday?
Yes.
It's a holiday that's commemorating the genocide of Native people.
Um we still deal with the scars of this today.
It wasn't our land to take.
We took it and we're celebrating that we took it from other people who lived there first.
And I think it's not nice.
Is that what Thanksgiving is about?
Yeah.
The idea of celebrating, um, it just like glorifies the like smallpox blankets and other things we did to like just completely eradicate the Native American.
I think we should, like you said, like rename it.
What would you choose to rename it?
Food and family day.
Blue checkmark liberals on Twitter have been saying Thanksgiving is offensive.
You shouldn't celebrate it.
While we're here at Rutgers University to see if the student body agrees with that.
Let's see what they think.
Let's see what they think.
I just noticed your shirt and wanted to get your opinion about something.
Oh sure, okay.
Okay, real quick.
So do you think Thanksgiving is an offensive holiday to celebrate?
I think that it's not intended to be offensive, but if you know the story it is, and I think what's more offensive is the fact that we teach little kids in schools like a surface level story that isn't true.
That I think is so much more offensive to I've I'm not Native American, but if I was I would be really offended and why it's not my job to speak for Native American people, but I would rather not offend anybody because there's no risk, you know what I'm saying?
To just like reject it.
So we maybe not to offend people, we should reject Thanksgiving.
Not as okay, I phrased it badly, but at least not teach little kids that the pilgrims and Native Americans were best friends and treated each other well because that's not what happened.
We show the camera your shirt.
Cool.
Yeah, this is from the Pride Parade um last summer, June 30th.
It was the anniversary of the Seminole Riots and it was an epic parade.
Epic, okay.
Well, I'm sure it was.
Do you think Thanksgiving and all of its history and what it started as?
Do you think we should be celebrating it based on its history?
I think that Thanksgiving is currently an institution in American culture and I think that its immediate effects are nice and good.
But I also think that every time that we have it, we should always consider the fact that the Native Americans are a people that we have kind of misrepresented as being okay with it or being happy about it during this this like time in our holidays.
So you don't think that Native Americans are okay with it?
I I think that they're probably not okay with how it's been represented.
Do you think Thanksgiving is an offensive holiday to celebrate?
No.
Um I myself am part Native American.
Oh okay.
So I don't really think it's that offensive to celebrate it.
Do I think Thanksgiving is an offensive holiday?
Yes.
Can you tell me why?
Well it celebrates the um can you hear me?
Wait, can you I'll I'll call you back in a sec.
Um it celebrates like colonizer like holidays.
I think like the idea of celebrating, um, it just like glorifies the like smallpox blankets and other things we did to like just completely eradicate the Native Americans.
You think um pilgrims did that that came over?
Yeah, well I mean I'm sure it wasn't all of them, but like as a whole, yeah, the like colonizer attitude did that.
All holidays like this, stuff like this is very nuanced.
Like you gotta as long as you acknowledge like that like that there has been a lot of oppression of Native Americans in this country and that I mean basically like ethnic cleansing of tons of people that doesn't eliminate the fact that you could celebrate Thanksgiving.
Yeah, I mean clearly it's offensive.
I think that over time like it does have a different connotation.
Now it's more about like seeing your family and things like that, but the inception of it is like inherently problematic because it was the genocide of indigenous people and we can't change that.
Like people were slaughtered.
There was an entire population of here that just doesn't exist anymore.
Because of because of European colonizers.
Specifically the pilgrims that came over on the Mayflower?
Um, the pilgrims, but also like the Spanish colonizers that came um with Columbus, like first of all.
Um Zana, yeah, she thinks it is, I don't think it is.
Why is it offensive?
Can I have her tell me?
Dana.
Literally.
Thank you.
It's all about like killing Native Americans.
She said it's all about killing Native Americans.
I really love eating turkey ass.
So like I don't know.
Like I wouldn't say so, but like I like it kind of is, but like at the same time, like who doesn't like eating turkey?
Like You said turkey ass.
I wanna make it clear, he said turkey ass, not just turkey.
Is there any other type of ass you like eating?
Uh oh I I I'm a big ass eater.
That's true.
Thanksgiving should be represented as a time when people hang out with their families, but also as something that was historically portrayed as pilgrims and Native Americans coming together when it was never really that.
Oh.
Okay, what was it?
What's the truth?
The truth was they showed up, they killed a lot of Native Americans and had poor relations with them.
And then I guess certain political realities of the time resulted in them exchanging information, but they still continued to fight.
Do you know when Thanksgiving happened when the pilgrims came over?
Um I think Thanksgiving probably doesn't really celebrate one specific instance, but more an idea of like a whole like time span.
It actually celebrates a three-day feast and harvest of thanks that the pilgrims and Indians made together.
Um a tribe and the pilgrims in Massachusetts came together and they gave thanks for helping each other uh have such a bountiful harvest.
Educate him.
Yeah, he's a white guy, he probably doesn't know much.
Well, yeah, America is based on genocide and the forceful um movement of black and brown people to this country, enslavement, um, and that history isn't acknowledged in virtually any holidays.
Um and things did you know that's what Thanksgiving was?
Not exactly.
Okay, go on.
I'm just yeah, it's it's a holiday that's commemorating the genocide of native people.
Um we still deal with the scars of this today.
Um How do you deal with them?
What how does it affect you personally?
I mean, we all live in the world of coloniality.
We all deal with the scars of colonialism.
Um it's looking rough.
Well, wait, can I speak on that?
It's looking rough around here.
Where are you going?
Come here.
I'm good.
What's wrong?
What's wrong?
What's his problem?
Oh no, he just wants to go uh back to the student center and get some food or something.
I don't think so, because he noticed me, came up here, and then now that I confronted him, he's walking away.
Is this testosterone level flow?
No comment.
Does that mean yes?
Sorry, have a great day.
Take him to the doctor.
Like now he's waiting for his friend.
I mean I celebrate Thanksgiving.
Um, and right now it's just like an excuse for us to eat food.
Um, but even in Thanksgiving, like we do when we give thanks, we're not just giving thanks to the food that we eat, but we give to the fact that this is indigenous land that we're sitting on.
We are people who have come here as settlers onto a place that initially wasn't ours, even me.
Why was it the Native Americans?
Why do they have claim to this land?
How do they own it?
Um, well, they were there.
It's like about degradation that you know, like the whole idea that we kind of lured them in.
Um, or you know, the pilgrims lured the Native Americans in with like Thanksgiving and then ended up killing all of them and the point is that like if we continue to uphold these things without looking towards why they happened in the first place, we're just going to be continuing to uphold this whole idea of systemic and inherent in you know in society, and it's not fair as much.
You think society is like inherently r I know it is.
I am where's the proof?
I'm a minority.
I So where's the proof that society is inherently?
Me and James are both white people.
Like we we are in the oppressive class.
And like we recognize do am I in the impressive class?
Yeah, just like we we benefit from white privilege in a way that like it's not it it's not obvious, but it's in a more subtle way.
Um I mean look around.
Do you see any indigenous people?
Do you see any indigenous people?
I myself am part Native American.
Oh, okay.
So I don't really think it's that offensive to Celebrate it.
There was genocide.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rape and genocide.
You know what else is a shame?
Is that all the chestnut trees were killed?
You know what f the colonists.
You know, you know the issue with the chestnuts.
Those used to be the eastern northeast, you know, that was basically the redwoods of this country.
It wasn't our land to take.
We took it, and we're celebrating that we took it from other people who lived there first.
And I think it's not nice.
Is that what Thanksgiving is about?
Yeah.
Okay.
Because I heard Thanksgiving was about the colonizers coming over.
They didn't know how the heck to live.
Half their population died because they didn't know what they were doing.
Native Americans came and helped them, and then they said thank you, and they had a feast of thanks.
That's the problem I have with it, is that that's how it's construed to be, and that's how history was when it isn't.
They came in, they did not have a nice dance party and a dinner party, they raped and pillaged their lands, they murdered their families.
It's not okay.
Um I think if you're going to kind of I feel like the cop-out now is like, oh no, it's about being grateful and about being with your family.
If it was about that, we would get rid of the whole thing and call it something else and build it upon something new.
But saying that it's about being thankful and about it it's just not.
It's it's just false.
They also deliberately like killed all the bison so that the Native Americans didn't have any food.
They deliberately like they created the concept of biological warfare by giving blankets with smallpox on them so that they could eliminate native populations.
It was a tactic they learned from the British and the European colonization of Africa.
So these are like I believe in everyone's right to self-determination and the ability to be free in their own religious pursuits, but that does not come at the expense of other people.
Are you Caitlin Vennett?
I'm Jenna.
Jenna?
I thought we were I think we were misinformed.
Yeah, yeah, we we were told you were someone else.
Yeah.
I'm Jenna Talia.
Oh.
What do you do with your life?
Well, yeah, no, it's a good joke.
I saw what you did there.
I don't You didn't pick up on this yet?
I don't know anything.
My name's Jenna Talia.
See what she did there?
Wordplay?
Genitals.
Oh wow, that took a while.
I think we should, like you said, like rename it and try to make it more about like, okay, yeah, family time, giving thanks about other things that we have, but I think the original meaning of it kind of, while it may have seemed okay a while ago, we've grown in our mindset and like it's not as okay as we once thought it was.
Okay.
What would you choose to rename it?
Food and family day.
I think it's something that's separate now from its origins.
But the way we first teach it to people, uh, maybe not the best thing because we're still focusing on like um a false narrative, I guess.
So a false narrative, will you give us the true narrative?
Uh like the slaughter of all indigenous people over uh uh extended period of time.
So that's what happened at Thanksgiving.
Not at Thanksgiving.
Okay, but uh that's just something that we try and maybe gloss over a little bit too much, I think, with kids.
I feel like if somebody's a friend they gotta speak up about it, and the groups that if they do feel offended that should speak up about it would be the Native American people because they're the actual people who had the damage inflicted upon them through generations and systematically have been abused.
So therefore once the Native Americans take up an issue with it, I feel like at that point we should respect their opinion.
We should if they wanted us to change Thanksgiving, you think we should?
They were the ones who were abused.
Okay.
The same way you wouldn't want something celebrated if somebody had abused you or placed system medication upon you.
So when the pilgrims came over, half of their population died because it was such a harsh winter and they did not know what the heck they were doing.
Like I said, do you think it would have been better for that tribe that they encountered if all of them wouldn't have made it through the winter?
For the tribe, yeah.
For sure.
I mean, they had clearly like they were all thriving there, they had like their whole community set up, they had their settlements, and like we kind of just came over and kicked them out of it.
So, like, regardless of whether like they were dealing with issues with the weather too, or like any of the diseases or anything, they would have been better off without the pilgrims having come over.
Okay.
So it would have been better if they all would have just froze.
Maybe all of it.
I don't want them to have frozen.
Yeah.
But you know, but the other side, it would have been better for someone else.
Yeah.
It seems to be that white people are continually creating this environment where minorities cannot thrive and cannot flourish, and it's just unfair.
And you're sitting here on a college campus saying minorities cannot thrive or flourish because of white people.
Yeah.
And I say that here you are at a state university in New Jersey, and you're not flourishing.
Because I'm sitting here and you know, flourishing does not mean I'm facing on a daily basis.
That's a very ignorant thing to say.
I didn't really know the true story up until like somewhat recently.
What in a short sentence is the truth?
Um that colonists came here from Europe to start something new because they were oppressed there, and they felt like they weren't being given all the rights that they should have.
And so they came here and there were people here who we really kind of just tossed to the side, took their land, and then oppressed their women, oppressed them as people, period.
So I feel like that's the story.
And while about Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
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