Posted on 11/26/2019 1:01:07 PM PST by Perseverando
RALEIGH Social studies teacher Keisha Worthey wants her 13-year-old students to consider the Native American perspective as they celebrate the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
Worthey asked her students at East Millbrook Middle School in Raleigh to go beyond the traditional story about Pilgrims and their American Indian neighbors celebrating the “First Thanksgiving” in 1621. The seventh-grade students heard about how Thanksgiving is a day of mourning as opposed to a day of celebration among many Native Americans.
“Our question for the day is how do we frame the narrative — or the story — of Thanksgiving?” Worthey told her class on Friday. “For some of us, that means we’ve been taught ‘oh the Pilgrims and Indians had a great time at the first feast. They were best friends.’
“But historically we know what happened to the indigenous population in America. What happened to them? They were killed. Can we talk about Thanksgiving without talking about that conversation? No.”
Worthey is among a growing number of educators who are changing the way Thanksgiving has historically been taught. These educators say they’re peeling away the myths that have surrounded the Thanksgiving story.
TEACHING THANKSGIVING IN A CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE WAY Earlier this month, the Wake County school system’s Office of Equity Affairs tweeted that teachers should teach Thanksgiving in a historical and culturally appropriate way that includes centering on the voices of indigenous people. The tweet included links from the state Department of Public Instruction and the Center For Racial Justice in Education.
Do you teach Thanksgiving in a historical & culturally appropriate way? Are you centering voices of Indigenous people? See links from NCDPI, @RaceJusticeEd about this crucial & often misrepresented part of our nation's history. https://t.co/yNrbP8RLWghttps://t.co/DBp2ioS4Bq
— WCPSS Equity Affairs (@WCPSSEquity) November 12, 2019
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
For the rest of us:
Some people just love to rain on any parade that has Americans enjoying themselves. If you must have that conversation, then do it far away from the Thanksgiving Season, such as in April or May. Then, I might take you more seriously, vs being someone who wants to stomp out every spark of fun.
President Obama destroyed the real meaning of Thanksgiving, which is to thank God for His blessing on us individually and as a nation.
Every presidential proclamation up until Obama specifically referenced God’s providence to our country. Obama deleted reference to God, and instead made it about giving thanks to first responders and others.
More and more, I now see that type of faulty narrative being given as the reason for Thanksgiving—thanking other people rather than giving thanks to our Creator.
I don’t care, I just like turkey.
“Keisha Worthey”
No need to even look.
Prior to 1863 states had their own Thanksgiving on different dates. Lincoln made it a national holiday on the last Thursday of November.
I’m old enough to remember when you could go a whole day without reading or hearing the word “narrative.”
What Worthey neglects to mention is they were killed by diseases which were unknown to science and medicine and any of the early explorers, fishermen and settlers at the time. The loaded question is asked in a hate America context of guilt attributed to the Pilgrims not as an unfortunate side effect of civilizations meeting. The teacher missed that message.
She should have compared the pilgrims to today’s Mexicans and muslims.
If these “educators” want to teach the correct history of Thanksgiving, they will teach how the American Indians helped the Pilgrims get started and the Pilgrims invited them to share because of the help...
If the “educators” want to teach about how the colonialists and American Indians lived their lives through time...
They will teach about the Indians who sided with the French during the French and Indian War and which Indians sided with the British...
They will teach about the Indians who sided with the Americans during our Revolution... They will teach about the Indians who sided with the British...
“Educators” if they are honest, will take the interactions of Colonialists and Indians overall, both good and bad...
The "story" perhaps then is, Keisha, that I bet the Indians wish they had really good border security, did not have open borders, were not fighting each other all the time, and were able to clearly know who they were letting into "their" land.
The teacher didn’t “miss” anything. Your facts do not fit the narrative, and thus were discarded.
These assholes know exactly what they’re attempting to do. We simply need to continue confronting them with the facts and the truth and not just ignore them.
They are intentionally poisoning the minds of our youth. Why do we let them get away with this?
And the bounty they enjoyed after they abandoned the communal system and embraced private property rights and free market capitalism.
The pilgrims were thanking God even though almost half of them died. They brought the good news to a new nation. Today when we celebrate thanksgiving we are giving thanks to God.
Then FDR changed it to the third Thursday in November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season for the merchants.
Families were split, observing Thanksgiving on different days depending whom they voted for.
Nowadays the T-day battleground is Debbie Downer vs `crazy rightwing uncle’, or else it’s Mom & Dad vs their new SJW college monsters.
“Natives” were killing each other in obscene and horrible ways long before white man came around. We just happened to bring a whole lot of disease and fire-water that they had not experienced before.
Law abiding Americans agree!
What saved the Pilgrims was they abandoned the “commune” lifestyle, sharing the labor to plant and harvest. The lazy ones didn’t work, and they almost starved. They then divided the land and each had to produce his/her own food. Then they prospered. Test of Socialism. Big fail.
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