Every year, millions of people gather around their tables to celebrate “Thanksgiving.” They plate their food, share their traditions, take pictures for social media, and try to create something wholesome out of a holiday wrapped in cozy nostalgia.
But underneath that picture-perfect surface sits a truth that’s uncomfortable — and for many, intentionally ignored. Thanksgiving is not a harmless celebration. It’s the anniversary of genocide. A day tied to massacres, land theft, forced removal, cultural erasure, and centuries of violence toward Indigenous nations across the continent.
And pretending otherwise doesn’t make that truth disappear. It just makes us complicit in erasing it.
The Myth vs. The Reality
Most of us grew up on the same story:
Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a peaceful feast, everyone wearing buckles on their shoes and smiling across the table.
That was never reality.
Not then, not now.
The arrival of European colonizers brought epidemics that wiped out entire villages. It brought enslavement, massacres, and forced conversions. It brought the systematic destruction of nations who had lived here for thousands of years. This land wasn’t “discovered.” It was taken.
And Thanksgiving — especially the way mainstream America still celebrates it — acts like all of that can be swept under a tablecloth and covered with gravy.
Why This Day Should Be a Memorial
Indigenous communities still carry the generational trauma of that violence. Their languages were banned. Their children were taken to boarding schools. Their ceremonies were outlawed. Their lands were stolen through treaties that were broken the second they were signed.
So how does a country look at all that history and still call today a celebration?
It shouldn’t.
A memorial doesn’t mean we can’t eat good food. It doesn’t mean we can’t sit with family. It doesn’t mean we can’t experience joy or warmth.
It means we tell the truth.
We honor the ancestors who were killed.
We acknowledge the nations that survived despite everything.
We recognize that we are still living on stolen land.
And we refuse to participate in the glorification of colonization.
A Better Way Forward
Many people — myself included — choose to reclaim this day as something else entirely:
A day of remembrance.
A day of truth-telling.
A day of respect.
A day to honor Indigenous nations, not erase them.
For some, this means participating in National Day of Mourning.
For others, it means lighting a candle.
For others, it means learning the real histories of the tribes whose land they live on.
And for many, it means transforming Thanksgiving from a celebration into a memorial — a moment to stop, breathe, and say, “We know what happened. And we refuse to forget.”
Food Does Not Belong to Colonizers
Let’s be honest: most of us aren’t gathering today because of the Pilgrims. We’re gathering because food brings comfort, warmth, and connection — and food traditions are older than any colonizer myth.
You can eat ham, chicken, stuffing, mac and cheese, collard greens… you can laugh with your family, you can enjoy your plate.
That doesn’t make you complicit.
Silence does.
We can eat and still mourn.
We can cook and still acknowledge the truth.
We can gather and still honor the people whose lands we gather on.
A Memorial for Indigenous Nations
This day should be a moment to honor:
- The Diné (Navajo)
- The Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires)
- The Ndé / Apache
- The Aniyvwiya (Cherokee)
- The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe)
- The countless tribes erased from maps but never from memory
- And all Indigenous nations surviving, resisting, and rebuilding today
Their stories matter.
Their sovereignty matters.
Their lives matter.
Their history matters — even when the country wants to pretend it doesn’t.
Maybe one day this nation will have the courage to rename this holiday, to acknowledge the blood behind it, to honor the Indigenous communities who lived — and live — on this land.
But until then, we can choose truth over tradition.
We can choose remembrance over myth.
We can choose to honor Indigenous people instead of celebrating their suffering.
This isn’t Thanksgiving for me.
This is a memorial — and a promise never to forget.
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