On the fourth Thursday of every November, families and friends around the country come together to celebrate Thanksgiving. Filled with warm energy and good food, Thanksgiving is often portrayed as a day celebrating gratitude, family, and community. But, it is also a dark reminder for many indigenous communities about the historical trauma and violent past of their ancestors. Thanksgiving also supports misrepresentations and overconsumption. With this in mind, many people are questioning whether Thanksgiving should be celebrated at all.

Thanksgiving romanticizes a harmful historical story. The traditional story includes Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a meal together. This depiction largely ignores what happened behind the scenes. Disease, genocide,  land theft, forced conversion, broken treaties, and centuries of violence are not included in the story of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people and the theft of land from the hands of the Natives. Many people are blind to this as this history is not taught in schools around the country. 

Thanksgiving also creates a misrepresentation of Native American culture. Many teachers don’t realize headpieces made out of craft supplies and school plays about the history of Thanksgiving creates generalized stereotypes on Native Americans. School activities such as these encourage students to think it is okay to wear culture as a costume. This makes it difficult for students to recognize the diversity of Native American tribes and leads students to believe it’s okay to mimic Native American traditional wear without having an understanding of their significance.

Thanksgiving also encourages cultural amnesia. It allows us as a society to just gloss over the harsh truths of colonization and indigenous oppression and replace it with a false narrative of community and generosity. When only the positive and selective parts of the story are emphasized, that’s what is mostly seen and remembered by people. It also allows nations to not have to take accountability of their actions. 

The celebration of Thanksgiving also transforms the holiday’s meaning into a show of overconsumption. With excess eating and shopping, the holiday starts to center around these aspects instead of reflecting on what we have. Thanksgiving is often seen as the kickoff of the holiday shopping season, with the start of Black Friday. This often encourages people to start to associate gratitude with materialistic ideas and wants instead of genuine appreciation. 

There are many aspects on why we shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. From the harsh past of Thanksgiving  coming out, to the support of materialistic abundance, Thanksgiving’s real mask is starting to unveil. It overshadows the negatives with a distortion of gratitude, family, and community.