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Most of us here at Hamline have a lot to be thankful for, but we must realize that we cannot be fully thankful without also being aware of a constant social inequality. This inequality perpetuates our happiness while excluding countless others from full participation in this national holiday.

We should be thankful that we live in a democratic society with the power to elect its own officials to office.
We should be thankful that the Hamline community was devoted to civic involvement regarding the elections earlier this month.

We should be thankful that there are students of color and advocacy organizations that put on programs to support and challenge diversity at Hamline. Each month, there are myriad events to enrich the campus’ understanding of our diverse learning community.

We are also mindful, however, that two-thirds of the Hamline community does not attend these events.

We are thankful that the percentage of incoming students of color is 20 percent this year, a giant increase from the 10 percent of last year. Again, we are also aware that these numbers will likely drop over time, since the campus does not have enough support systems in place to reach out adequately to all students on our predominantly white campus.

Often, the voices of students of color are simply not heard. To Hamline’s credit, however, the university as a whole continues to strive toward ever-better support systems for all of its students.
Finally, we should all be thankful to modern-day authors like James W. Loewen, who have taken it upon themselves to remind us what we are really celebrating on Thanksgiving.

The ethnocentric tale most of us learned about Thanksgiving, in which Squanto planted fish in the corn hills to save the pilgrims, and the meal they all shared at harvest time, is far from accurate. It marginalizes Native Americans. The pilgrims’ ease in finding food and shelter was due primarily to the catastrophic toll of European disease on the local Native American nations. Carried to America by British and French fisherman only three years prior to the pilgrims’ landing on what is now Cape Cod, diseases such as influenza, hepatitis, chicken pox, and smallpox killed off 90ą96 percent of southern New England’s Indian population, wiping out roughly 12 million people.

As a result, newcomers on the Mayflower came upon the empty Massasoit villages, complete with corn, beans, and plenty of graves to dig up for goods. Squanto himself was taken as a slave by the British to Spain and managed to make his way back to Cape Cod in 1619 from England with Thomas Derner, only to find that his village of Pawtuxet was entirely dead. He and another Wampanoag, Hobomok, helped the pilgrims to not only work the land but also to set up fur-trading posts all over the New England coast.

A harvest feast was not uncommon for British settlers, many of whom observed the Celtic holiday of Lammas, usually celebrated in August. Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War in 1863 to drum up a little extra patriotism for the Union, but the pilgrims didn’t become a part of the story until 1890.

Historically, many early settlers interpreted the plague endured by Native Americans as a sign that “God was on [their] side.” This racist epithet of white righteousness continues today in our country, as well as in American foreign policy.

When we celebrate Thanksgiving as it has typically been observed and celebrated, we make it harder for American children to interact and respect people from other cultures. We must be thankful that we know the real truth about Thanksgiving, but also mindful that our cultural stories need to change. We must be mindful as well of the current issues facing the real First Americans in a society where many people keep trying their best to put them in the past.

This week, when you take time out to be with family and friends and to be thankful, remember to flip the coin over, think for a moment, and ask yourself what you can do to work toward a university, state, and country that none of us will have to apologize for.