Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a-reminder-thanksgiving-is-a-problematic-holiday-celebrates-a-myth-of-colonialism-and-white-proprietorship-of-the-u-s.1047771/page-9

I think it's pretty easy to infer some level of guilt is meant to be felt with the statement, perhaps not an entire condemnation of the individual, but it's easy to see why the title would make people feel a certain way. Is the post meant to simply supply information and nothing more, or is there something one should be considering to do with said information?

Basically, should one feel bad knowing this, while partaking in the holiday? Not partake at all? Fight family who do partake, or? I personally don't have much a horse in this race, as I don't really care about Thanksgiving on the commercial end, but I do like Christmas despite being an atheist, and having all sorts of opinions against religion, so I kind of get it.

I enjoyed reading the OP as I felt it supplied some information I wasn't fully aware of, but if I did partake and decided to keep partaking, I'm not sure if that means I become the bad guy now, or something else. It's not easy to read the intent here sometimes, as people seem often determined to turn anyone into enemies, even if they're supposed to be on the same side as it were.

I do think the way some people smugly dismissed the OP was definitely inappropriate though, it's still good to know history, even if you have decided to put your own spin on modern day events.

If one is inferring guilt from a reminder about the mere existence of oppression, then that is a personal admittance that one, presumably as a literate and indepedent adult, should be able to constructively confront and question. One should have the abilty to take a second and ask "Why do I feel this way? What is driving me to feel attacked? Why am I centering myself in a conversation about a much bigger issue?"

These are basic emotional regulation skills that should've been exercised and strengthened back in one's college years. And yet given the demographics of this forum, we have people with a decade or more of life on that age range who still gnash and complain about being made to feel "guilty" because they were struck, personally wounded, by a mere textual reminder that one of the few holidays they pitifully receive from a system they understand oppresses them but yet they actively choose not to fight against is indeed ultimately about whitewashing a nasty colonial history that continues nearly unimpeded to this day.

Fuck your personal guilt.

No one is owed a sparing from difficult feelings that result from understanding one's potential complicity within a world that fundamentally operates on oppression. No one is owed grace, and sympathy, and comfy emotional insulation from lazy liberalism and reactionary defensiveness in the face of segregation and genocide. It's like handing a bratty toddler a cupcake to pacify them instead of allowing the extinction of the negative behavior in the effort to educate. Being a minority is also not an out either. These are not the issues we should be focusing on.

Which brings me to my reiterated point that people are more interested in trying to run defense of Era members' emotional immaturity and subsequent complicity with a pervasive negative peace than the issue the OP outlined. You ask about how you're supposed to feel and what you can do about the holiday when these questions were literally answered by the two articles in the OP discussing the matter! Literally ignoring the contributions of Indigenous people to continue this useless conversation about how SAD some people felt because their special day off was so callously ruined and trampled on by a forum thread.

And yet you insist that we are on the same side. No we are not.

These mere feelings, these squealing tantrums of defiance, these tearful insistences on centering one's self in every single issue are not constructive. They're not defensible. They're not cute. Some of y'all need to finally grow up, get over yourselves and your special feelings, learn how to take a second or two to question your emotional approach to difficult issues, maybe practice hardening yourself by actually talking about these things in real life, and do further research on what solidarity starts to look like.

Because complaining about how a damn thread title hurt your feelings when Indigenous folks are out here trying to resist genocide just ain't it.

These mere feelings, these squealing tantrums of defiance, these tearful insistences on centering one's self in every single issue are not constructive. They're not defensible. They're not cute. Some of y'all need to finally grow up, get over yourselves and your special feelings, learn how to take a second or two to question your emotional approach to difficult issues

Does anyone know how many spider mans i can have on the screen before I get my electricity cut off?

 

maybe practice hardening yourself by actually talking about these things in real life, and do further research on what solidarity starts to look like.

Say it loud for those in the back.  Do. The.  Fucking.  Work. 

Bother Your Family On their Day off  Like Malcolm  X would've done

Gentle reminder that not one single indigenous voice on Resetera has been raised in resistance to Thanksgiving Day.