TARGET: THANKSGIVING!
You can see the headline at Fox News, can’t you? Martial theme music, elaborate graphic, perhaps a mushroom cloud emerging from an about-to-be-carved turkey, an all-American family looking on in horror, white to the core, manifest destiny come undone, exposed at last, the pioneers of American imperialism obliterated by the revisionist blamers.
Wait… what?
Yes, there is war here, there, and everywhere on the American cultural landscape — and it ain’t just Iraq and Afghanistan. No, it’s Christmas and Easter and, yes, Thanksgiving.
So says Michelle Malkin. Which means it must be true.
Right? Right?
Mademoiselle Malkin claims to be “all for truthful, historically accurate lessons about Thanksgiving” — and that’s really something, because she isn’t for “truthful, historically accurate lessons” about anything else.
She just can’t stand the “‘diversity’-peddlers” — you know, all that “guilt-mongering and institutional racism indoctrination,” all that “Blame America” BS.
Oh. I see.
I don’t much care for political correctness either, nor for historical revisionism, but one extreme is often as bad as the other, and the “Blame America” extreme — and it is an extreme that does not represent most of those who are in some way critical of America’s imperialism (for the critics of Thanksgiving are actually a tiny minority) — is mirrored here by Malkin’s extreme.
No, her extreme is much worse — for her revisionism, the rewriting of history to whitewash America’s bloody past, requires the willful avoidance of historical fact, actually, the denial of historical fact.
In this case, Malkin lambasts the Seattle school system for making the rather obvious point that Thanksgiving may not be such a joyous occasion, let alone a celebration, for Native Americans, that, you know, the treatment (genocide) of Native Americans by America’s imperial colonialists, may be something of a sore spot.
“With so many holidays approaching,” say Malkin’s allegedly anti-American foes to their staff, “we want to again remind you that Thanksgiving can be a particularly difficult time for many of our Native students.” Is that not true?
Perhaps Malkin should ask Native Americans what they think. She quotes one, but is that one representative of Native opinion on this matter?
For Malkin, that hardly matters. Her point here is to try to score points against her “Blame America” strawmen — not to achieve “the right balance,” and certainly not to tell the truth about what actually happened, the bloody conquering of the continent at the expense of those who were here long before the European settlers got down to business.
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There is no War on Thanksgiving. The “war” is a myth made up by conservatives, just like the “wars” on Christmas and Easter and the flag and whatever other sacred cows they trot out at their convenience. They need these fake wars, these battles in the culture wars that they alone are fighting. Without them — without their little wars, without their myths, without their designated enemies — what are they, and what is left?
It’s Malkin, it’s O’Reilly, it’s Limbaugh, it’s Hannity, it’s Gibson, it’s all the rest of that ilk — pitting us against them, them against us, driving wedges into the soft underbelly of American politics.
Their followers may be ignorant fools, but they themselves feed off the wreckage.
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Meanwhile, most Americans will be getting together with their families, eating turkey, and watching football. Oblivious to America’s blood-stained history, oblivious to the cultural warmongering of the right.
(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)
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21 Responses to “TARGET: THANKSGIVING!”
BJ was all over this an hour or two ago. Seems that Seattle schools has a history of diversity with court cases relating to said diversity. This has lead to an ugly scene on the Internets. Seems the KKK, Ward Connerly and Stormfont are bothered by Seattle’s diversity and PC ways. The NW version of Matt Drudge(http://www.orbusmax.com/) is the source of this noise from the Oberlin cheerleader.
What’s more interesting here is the reaction to Malkin that starts this thread, which is, to be kind, highly immoderate.
PC is definitely a problem. When I was living in Maryland, some play-pen activists tried to get the state’s anthem changed because the anthem to them is too pro-Confederacy for their taste. This continues to be a pet gripe of some today. (And you’re probably aware of the well-earned reputation of Montgomery County, which is where I lived.)
Interesting. My take on the whole PC phenomenon is that it’s been turned on it’s tail and hijacked by the right. Maybe we need to start differentiating between old PC and new PC?
As for Malkin, my hope would be that her fans are as loathe to actually go out and vote as they are to think critically.
She’s simply less deliberately controversial and offensive than Ann Coulter. Plenty of us don’t pay attention to either of them (or to Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.) simply because we don’t adhere to the liberal line on every issue.
DLS, I don’t pay attention to any of those 4 either, at least not more than the 1% of my attention I’d pay to any creature that acted like it had a loose screw and might be willing to dart in and bite me on the ankle. Neither do I adhere to any party line on every issue. I’ve voted republican, independent, and democrat in my time and consider myself a common sense moderate at this point. That said, I breaka few popular stereotypes when it comes to easy (lazy) categorization of political stripe.
Let me see if what I read from this article is correct. There are two extremes, the one I disagree is much worse. Is that about it?
Well, I clicked over to Malkin’s post expecting to read an unhinged screed. Instead, what I got sounded pretty reasonable:
I, for one, agree with the passage Malkin quoted. It’s quite a contrast from the list of “myths” the school system is providing as material for teachers – the authors of the “myths” even recognize their “facts” are based on one researcher working with one native institute. One should at least expect that teaching materials at least be vetted and consistent with the totality of historical knowledge.
Certainly schools and teachers must be sensitive to how different populations view historical events differently and take care not to offend, but the material provided for teachers will do just the opposite.
[...] House TARGET: THANKSGIVING! » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
Just another situation where both sides are right. Yea, we did conquer and brutalize the natives while forming as a nation. But so did every other country in its formative years. And of course certain members of the right, well paid highly public and popular ones, are once again going to turtle down about an attack on a holiday from the “left” as if its going to be taken off the calendars and somehow cease to be. Whatever.
Entropy – Malkin takes one anecdotal example to say the Injun’s aren’t upset. I doubtif these groups feel that way.
http://www.oyate.org/aboutus.html
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/huchoosedah/program.xml
What about the BS from Malkin and the NW version of Drudge taking some memos in Seattle out of context to claim a “War on Thanksgiving”. This is as phony as her Houssein Zorkot non-story. I wonder if Billo will rant about this “war” tonight. This is just as silly as her investigative blogging over counter tops.
It seems to me that the “war” is over regarding Thanksgiving. The intense commercialization of Christmas has led to a big rush to simply get past Thanksgiving as quick as possible so that we can start our holiday shopping. Anymore, I think of Thanksgiving as the forgotten holiday. In talking with my co-workers, I’m not alone in that opinion. The “war” is over, and the retail industry won.
This alleged war on Thanksgiving has the same level of absurdity as the alleged war on Christmas. I mean the commercial aspect of Christmas has long since overtaken the original meaning, and I don’t see anyone freaking out about that. I imagine the folks who get more from Christmas economically than they do spiritually wish they could make Thanksgiving jump up and perform so well.
As for religion and history, there is no threat to christianity in this country, only the threat of hucksters who pretend there is, merely because not everyone wants to join that club. Likewise there are no shortage of folks who prefer tradition to historically accurate revisionism. Bizz as usual these days…
Rudi,
On the contrary she’s not saying the “injun’s,” as you inappropriately term them, aren’t upset, she’s saying that perhaps it’s not a good idea to rely solely on the biased historical perspective of the aggrieved groups to teach as “fact.” She’s also saying that perhaps it’s not such a good idea to teach our youngest children about all the bloody details of historical events.
It’s one thing to teach the context and repercussions of the events surrounding Thanksgiving in their totality, it’s quite another to advise teaching staff to use an admittedly and demonstrably one-sided account of dubious historical accuracy.
But maybe that’s just me.
And for the record, I don’t agree with Malkin’s characterization of this as a “war” on the holiday or any of that other nonsense.
Hannity is prone to bark; no doubt about that.
Interestingly, once while on the road I got to hear him and someone I consider a total nitwit, but who actually gave a really good account of herself against Hannity. This was in Boston, if I recall, at the 2004 Democratic convention. Hannity was set up broadcasting from it when, of all people, Janeane Garafalo walked by and agreed to talk on Hannity’s show (on the air). I stayed on the radio channel to listen to that. It lasted longer than I expected and at the end of it, Garafalo had definitely done well and survived her “date” with Sean Hannity.
The only other thing related to Hannity I’ll say is that one year he played an April Fool trick, in which he said he had converted to liberalism and promptly argued loudly with conservative callers-in who were disappointed to shocked. Many people didn’t realize it was a joke! I heard this at a later date and I found it to be hilarious. I wish I could find a transcript of it.
Her screed dealt with a memo regarding consideration Native American students at Thanksgiving. The “Thanksgiving myths” was for middle school students I believe. How should we treat subjects like WWII and the Civil War, derny the facts to save the little ones? I don’t recall any memos from Seattle dealing with “Injun Massacres”. How does one handle American history around Native American in the Northwest?
[...] Original post here [...]
FYI George Washington on Thanksgiving
whoops try this one
George Washington on Thanksgiving
I’ve got a better one. Don’t teach the truly little ones history at all. Start with geography and other basic facts about nations and continents that are far less controversial and will still provide a good base for what they need to learn later.
Do we really need another subject to ‘war’ over?
I’ve watched Thanksgiving pageant after Thanksgiving play at various grade levels, and the inclusion of Indians served only to incorporate a spirit of friendship and tolerance. If that message is given via a classroom lesson, so much the better.
The diversity in the audience should be given some consideration. If we want all the students to participate in Thanksgiving, then all the students should be considered in lessons about it.
On that score, it’s not so much what is said, but how it’s said.
Besides, the grade school level has to be a factor.
Even the smallest children can stand a lesson in tolerance. The blood and gore can come later.
I’m just tired of these ‘war’ games. Being in disagreement is not the same as waging war.
And if teaching friendship and tolerance is PC, then bring on teh PC.