Friday, November 24, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving
We celebrate Thanksgiving in our home -- turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, the whole nine yards. (Ok, we don't watch the football, but we can still use football imagery! :D )
But we celebrate with some misgivings. Not because it's not Islamic -- a day to thank God for the kindness of others, for survival during a brutal winter, for the countless blessings we experience each and every second of our lives, is about as Islamic as it gets. Of course, devout Muslims aim for that attitude way more often than once a year, but there's nothing wrong with an entire nation coming together to celebrate our blessings. In fact, it's recommended for people to praise God together, and we are promised that when we remember the bounties of Allah in a group, then God is remembering us in a better gathering (the gathering of angels).
No, our misgivings have to do with the shameful history of the creation of our country. We arrived, the native population welcomed us, taught us to farm their lands successfully, shared their harvests with us so we wouldn't die, and how did we repay their kindness over the next three hundred years... not so nicely, to put it mildly. Heck, the very people who were saved by the were engaging in battles not long after.
I teach my children that reparations to the Native Americans are due. As are reparations to black Americans (I don't like hyphenated terms -- a what point does a person simply become American? Many, many, many "African Americans" have been in America way longer than us "plain" Americans of white skin. And when does a person stop being an Asian American, or a Latino, and start being American? Hypenated identities seem to me to be just another way to reinforce the normative nature of white Americans.)
And then we enjoy our turkey. :)
Personal ¶ 11:06 PM
But we celebrate with some misgivings. Not because it's not Islamic -- a day to thank God for the kindness of others, for survival during a brutal winter, for the countless blessings we experience each and every second of our lives, is about as Islamic as it gets. Of course, devout Muslims aim for that attitude way more often than once a year, but there's nothing wrong with an entire nation coming together to celebrate our blessings. In fact, it's recommended for people to praise God together, and we are promised that when we remember the bounties of Allah in a group, then God is remembering us in a better gathering (the gathering of angels).
No, our misgivings have to do with the shameful history of the creation of our country. We arrived, the native population welcomed us, taught us to farm their lands successfully, shared their harvests with us so we wouldn't die, and how did we repay their kindness over the next three hundred years... not so nicely, to put it mildly. Heck, the very people who were saved by the were engaging in battles not long after.
I teach my children that reparations to the Native Americans are due. As are reparations to black Americans (I don't like hyphenated terms -- a what point does a person simply become American? Many, many, many "African Americans" have been in America way longer than us "plain" Americans of white skin. And when does a person stop being an Asian American, or a Latino, and start being American? Hypenated identities seem to me to be just another way to reinforce the normative nature of white Americans.)
And then we enjoy our turkey. :)
Personal ¶ 11:06 PM
