The first Thanksgiving
Yes, yes, yes. 1621. Thankful Puritan colonizers shared a repast with their Native neighbors whom they were to slaughter within a few years. So lovely. So full of grace and forgiveness.
Nope.
The holiday we celebrate today was born in blood and slavery. After the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, which sealed the treasonous Confederacy's fate, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that a national Day of Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the final Thursday of November, 1863. It was as of yet not an official holiday, and presidents would issue Thanksgiving proclamations on around the same day until Thanksgiving Day was enacted as a national holiday in 1870, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant, the smasher of sedition.
Why do I mention this? Because it's important to remember that this holiday came about because of war. Because of a war to eradicate one of this nation's original sins, where it held millions of human beings in bondage to build this nation. Before Lincoln, there were various regional celebrations. But the tradition which we honor this weekend was born out of a cataclysmic war, one which would determine if this nation—flawed, honoring its ideals more in the breach than the observance—would persevere to be that imperfect beacon of freedom to a world ruled by kings and sultans, where men—and no women—had little to no say in how they were governed by the powerful.
In our current circumstances, it's hard to accept American exceptionalism. After all, our foes think they are bringing out that exceptionalism to its apex. A "strong" America. A "feared" America. A "respected" America.
But America was "strong" when it knew that its strength came through building alliances with free peoples. America was "feared" by nations which wanted to oppress its people and its neighbors. America was "respected" when it led by example, not force. Their "exceptionalism" is nothing but the tired old bromides of despoliation, dominance, and destruction. There is an even chance that this country is about to invade a sovereign nation—despotic, yes, but since when has that stopped us from making alliances?—to take its oil and to give even the most ephemeral of political boosts to the regime currently occupying our capital. That's not "exceptional". That's all too common in the history of this human race.
When was America exceptional? When after a war which ravaged the world, leaving it in ruins, it turned its unprecedented might and wealth not to establish dominion over it, but to rebuild it. When it created an international political order where it had an advantage, but not imperial rule. When, at home, it finally confronted its own sins, when its people decided that those sins could no longer be ignored, not if the country was to live up to its ideals, and those sins required atonement.
What our foes want to do is turn this Republic into that most ordinary of polities: one based on blood and soil. But our founding documents eschew that view of nationhood. Yes, our racist past was based on manifest destiny, that the white race was charged by God to exert dominion over this land. But much like the Hebrew Bible began with a God of vengeance and strict justice who evolved into a God of love and mercy, so, in its ideals, has this country evolved from a sanctuary for the "white race" into one where you are American by choice. You are American because you subscribe to this nation's ideals. You are American because you decided to come here and build a new life, living cheek-to-jowl with others like you, coming from all corners of the globe, seeking to better their lives and perfect this imperfect Union.
Our foes won't succeed, because they are yesterday's people. They are the flotsam and jetsam of a past age, an age which must be studied for its lessons so as to avoid their reoccurrence. This country is worth fighting for, because their is on other place like it on earth. Those who were never considered to be part of the commonwealth did not give up, and staked their place at the table. And no revanchist moment will come to victory, because it doesn't have the power to do so.
I will close this essay with our dear ancestor, Langston Hughes.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends.