Thanksgiving without whitewashing. A journey.

I write this from the unceded land of Tonkawa, N?m?n?? (Comanche), Ndé Kónits??íí Gokíyaa (Lipan Apache), Jumanos, and Coahuiltecan peoples, also known as Austin, Texas.

As an original Brit making her home in the U.S., my relationship with Thanksgiving has been an interesting journey. It started 22 years ago when my then husband and I would celebrate the holiday with his family in Beaumont and Bridge City, Texas. I was introduced to eating a significant holiday meal on paper plates with plastic forks and the delights of green bean casserole. I felt like I’d stepped onto a different planet compared to my upper middle class upbringing in the UK where even a paper napkin was an abomination.?

Then from 2004 Thanksgiving was with my now ex-girlfriend and her best friends. In fact, my dear sister?Joanna?joined us that year and loved it so much she came back to visit within weeks of departing. From 2006 as a single person I started the tradition of joining my dear family-you-choose of?Brian O'Leary?&?George Appling, their family, our friends, and in later years their children.?

I always relished those few days to be with our cohort eating, drinking, and staying in PJs for 48 hours. Brian and I would watch Love Actually every year and my duty was to decorate the banisters with the Christmas wreath. We’d get so giddy staying up all night and one year standing in line at the Sear’s across the street — still tipsy! — waiting for the store to open just to experience Black Friday.?

Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday because it felt more genuine than Christmas where we didn’t shower each other with gifts (I hate shopping and gifts are my last love language), but instead showered each other with our time, presence offline, and messages of gratitude for each other and the lives we were leading.?

But in the past few years of doing greater introspection — plus research and writing my book — I’ve questioned the holiday in a more conscious way. I always used to joke that a white, British-born person like me celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States was a bit of an appropriation, but it was an appropriation I loved and I could say how “grateful” I was for it … so it made it all fine. But now, it’s feeling increasingly uncomfortable to not acknowledge and uplift the history of this occasion.?

We can no longer whitewash Thanksgiving into a feast of gratitude and shopping just to make ourselves feel more comfortable.?

I started my morning yesterday meditating on Insight Timer (as I do most mornings) and was introduced to Native American writer and activist, Jacqueline Keeler. Keeler speaks about the theft of land and genocide that happened during the period of the Pilgrims arriving in the Americas, and yet centers the generous act of native peoples helping the colonizers in love. Today Keeler and her people give thanks on Thanksgiving for their continued existence. There’s a link to a great interview with Keeler below.

Keeler’s mother taught her that Native people showed kindness to the pilgrims arriving. She told her “how much the pilgrims were truly struggling and how desperate they were for the help, [and] the fact that they would not have survived without Native American assistance.”

To show kindness to your oppressor is deep love. A spiritual love. Complicated, but present.

Today is Native American Heritage Day. The bill was passed by President Bush in 2008 and encourages us to focus on Native American history, achievements, and contributions. I’m pleased that I got to learn about Jacqueline Keeler this holiday — let me know if you have an interesting and inspiring new discovery of a person too.?

I choose to keep Thanksgiving as my favorite holiday, but I’m reframing it with the knowledge that I’m gaining over the years. The harms of colonization have resulted not only in the theft of ancestral lands and erasure of ancient cultures, but also the marginalization of people based on gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

I have a deep sense that I’ve had a past life as a pilgrim and it’s one of my key roles in this life to help repair the damage and uplift this land into a more peaceful, kind, loving existence. Qualities that have and still exist everywhere when you look for them. And I can’t get the fact that the town where I grew up — Boston, UK — was one of the stops of the colonizers. That town’s hospital is called, “Pilgrim Hospital” and all those years as a kid I never made the connection.?

As we work to address the disparities that impact the LGBTQIA2S+ and other marginalized communities, I acknowledge the intersectionality of Indigenous peoples in what we now call the United States. I honor their cultures, work to make amends, and endeavor to undo the occupiers’ current legacy.

And I can also eat Mac n’ cheese, drink wine, and watch cheesy Christmas movies in my PJs with family-I-choose.?

Sending gratitude and light to all.?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love always, Fiona?xoxo?

#Lionhearts ?

#NOWwithFiona #book #positivevibes #Bisexual #pride #lgbtq #bisexual #panseuxal #queer #transgender #bekind ?#joy #love #gratitude ???????????

#Thanksgiving #NativeAmericanHeritageDay

—

Jacqueline Keeler:?https://www.kpcc.org/2015-11-26/native-american-take-on-thanks-giving ?

Learn your land:?https://native-land.ca