11/23/2017
I’m Virginia Dare and welcome to a special Thanksgiving edition of Radio VDARE.
Thanksgiving is as all-American as it comes, and so it’s not surprising it leads to some Narrative Confusion on the Left. On the one hand, the Left wants to use Americana to push its agenda, especially its most important goal of Open Borders. On the other hand, it sees the United States of America as evil since its inception, and so it can’t even pay lip service to American holidays.
If you’re conservative, the way this plays out is pretty funny.
The liberal media can’t decide whether Thanksgiving should be co-opted or condemned. The Huffington Post famously labeled Thanksgiving “Genocide Day” in 2013, but here are some more recent #Woke takes.
From Teen Vogue: Some “Native American Girls Describe the REAL History Behind Thanksgiving.”
They detail “the genocide of Native American people by the European settlers and American colonists. They also touch on the ‘Dakota 38’ — what’s now known as the largest mass execution in US history, where 38 Dakota men were put to death by Abraham Lincoln.” [by Philip Picardi. November 22, 2016]
Actress Mayim Bialik of The Big Bang Theory says she loathes Thanksgiving because it’s “one of the grossest examples of genocide in recent history”Radio VDARE: [‘Big Bang Theory star: Thanksgiving ‘one of the grossest examples of genocide,’ by Douglas Ernst, Washington Times, November 21, 2017].
Sean Beckworth at the Aspen Times complains:
You can push the sentimental family Lifetime movie stuff elsewhere because we (white people) literally killed a third of the holiday’s mascots. (Two thirds if you count the turkeys.) I could expand on the mass genocide prompted by pilgrims, but no one wants to (or really does) talk about it.[Thanksgiving analogies to whet the appetite, November 21, 2017]
We don’t? In post-America, that’s all we talk about.
What they are really saying here is simple. America would be better off if white people had never come here. Of course, none of the white people complaining about Thanksgiving or paying tribute to American Indians are going to give up their house or land, or actually do anything which would involve sacrificing wealth. Instead, they’ll seek to profit by virtue signaling and try to impose costs on other white people.
There’s a further point. “America” didn’t exist until British settlement created it. It was just a landmass filled with different tribes who had no common identity. This is also why the term “Native American” is misleading. They didn’t consider themselves American, and neither did Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. He called them “merciless Indian savages.” What used to be called the Pilgrim Fathers are celebrated because it was their settlement which created the beginnings of Anglo-America, which is to say, America itself.
But notice how the Narrative about the Pilgrims and European settlement changes when it is time to guilt Americans to accepting more immigrants. Suddenly, there are countless pieces relating refugees to the Pilgrims.
To cite just one, Ishaan Tharoor has a piece in The Washington Post grandly proclaiming, “Thanksgiving is an annual reminder of America’s refugee origins” [November 22, 2017]. Of course, he also complains the Pilgrims led to the “dispossession and disappearance” of the indigenous people. Geez, almost like letting in quote unquote refugees could lead to unintended consequences, huh?
Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower, moans in another article:
As I was writing this book, the plight of refugees coming from the Middle East and Africa began to be very visible in Europe. The parallel for me was that a lot of these people are like the Pilgrims — many had professional qualifications in their own countries.Today’s refugees are surgeons and doctors and lawyers who have nothing to show their status in their home country.
[How do the Pilgrims relate to immigrants today, by Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor, November 20, 2017]
That’s an interesting way to interpret the refugee situation. According to German labor experts, the refugees in Europe now are mostly composed of people who have no skills and who will be forever unemployable.
Some other pieces are arguing we should basically just destroy the holiday entirely. For example, one Carlos Ballesteros tells us, “Don’t want to feel thankful? How to have a woke Thanksgiving and wallow in darkness this year.” [Newsweek, November 21, 2017]
Shudder.
Look, it’s a fool’s quest to look for consistency, or to expect any of this to make logical sense. What is really going on is far simpler.
The Narrative will always shift to make the historic American nation look evil and terrible. When patriotic symbols or traditions are invoked, its only to fool well-meaning conservatives to act against their own interests and the country’s interest.
Thanksgiving is an American holiday, created to honor the settlers who built this country. Because this isn’t a nation of immigrants. It’s a nation of settlers, pioneers, and conquerors. And this year, I’m thankful for their sacrifices which gave us this great country. And after enjoying some turkey, it’s back to the fight to make sure we can keep it.
I’m Virginia Dare and we’ll talk again soon.
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