I’m super grateful because Matt sent me this article last night and it’s all I could have ever wanted. It’s actually two opinion pieces in one long post, but I only got through the first one by a gentleman named Sean Sherman who is “a proud member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.” His culinary feelings about the day that is so close upon us were tragically shaped by those “meat-and-potatoes dishes inspired by Eurocentric 1960s-era cookbooks.” He has had enough. The time to rise up and demand better things has dawned.
What sort of better things, you ask? Decolonization. That’s what. Thanksgiving needs to be decolonized, because, in the words of Mr. Sherman, it is “steeped in colonialism, violence, and misrepresentation.” The way to solve the problem of the colonization of Thanksgiving is to “explore the Indigenous perspective” and “discern some of the nuances of decolonization” and also “gain a deeper understanding of American history.” I can’t think of anything more charming than pulling a few bits out of this unserious, and, one might say, ungrateful look at a beloved holiday, and then sharing what’s on my heart, as some Christians like to say.
First of all, Mr. Sherman, “award-winning chef, educator, author, and activist” believes Thanksgiving is “sanitized” and
neglects to mention the violence, land theft, and subsequent decimation of Indigenous populations. Needless to say, this causes tremendous distress to those of us who are still reeling from the trauma of these events to our communities.
What sort of trauma, you might ask, could a person in 2023 still be “reeling” from?
Thanksgiving’s roots are intertwined with colonial aggression. One of the first documented “Thanksgivings” came in 1637, after the colonists celebrated their massacre of an entire Pequot village.
I’ve heard other ways of telling the story of the first Thanksgiving, but I have some pie to make and some laundry to do, so I’m gonna just let it go for now. At the very least, it should be fair to acknowledge that no people alive today would celebrate a massacre of an entire…scratch that. I guess a lot of people still do celebrate those kinds of things. Just not the people that Mr. Sherman wants to hold responsible for the mediocrity of his culinary heritage. Anyway, what can “we” do about this? Should we scrap the whole thing? By no means, explains Mr. Sherman,
I do not think we need to end Thanksgiving. But we do need to decolonize it. That means centering the Indigenous perspective and challenging the colonial narratives around the holiday (and every other day on the calendar). By reclaiming authentic histories and practices, decolonization seeks to honor Indigenous values, identities, and knowledge. This approach is one of constructive evolution: In decolonizing Thanksgiving, we acknowledge this painful past while reimagining our lives in a more truthful manner.
I do think that living in a “more truthful manner” is always a good idea. The problem is, decolonizing things isn’t really about truth, it’s about making as many people as possible as uncomfortable and anxious as possible, among other nebulous and destructive aims. The writer, mercifully, thinks people should still be allowed to eat food:
Indigenous contributions—including turkey, corn, beans, pumpkins, cranberries, sweet potatoes, and wild rice—are central to the Thanksgiving menu. By embracing these foods and supporting Native American producers and practices, we can ground the celebration in a genuine appreciation of this land and its original custodians—the same way that we celebrate European contributions to the American plate.
I don’t know why the writer insists on using the word “we.” The whole point of decolonizing “things” like shared corporate expressions of gratitude for the immense blessings of wealth, generational peace, infrastructure, affordable fresh produce, cheap fuel, the cultural and societal benefits of a thousand years of the Christian gospel, rain, sun, snow, family, clothes, and an almost completely frictionless life is to destroy a sense of “we.” Under the guise of seeking unity and tolerance, it makes some people into oppressors and some into victims—people far off from the original Pilgrims and Indigenous People who acted in ways we can either laud, question, or even revile, safe within our post-Christian assumptions about truth. I know that Mr. Sherman would never want to do this, but most efforts at decolonizing and deconstructing really have a deeper, more perverse agenda—to “decolonize” heaven by dethroning God. The writer of this piece, of course, doesn’t know that, and thinks he is doing something clever:
The journey to decolonize Thanksgiving is also an opportunity for a broader movement to decenter colonial perspectives around the world. The University of Saskatchewan has possibly the most succinct definition of colonialism: “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.” Western colonization has often exhibited a complete disregard for Indigenous customs and cultures that value diversity and a harmonious relationship with the land. Decolonization in this context would mean resisting the dominance of colonial influences globally and reclaiming Indigenous knowledge, values, and, of course, foodways.
I mean, I don’t love globalism. But the writer should notice that almost every Western culture is convulsing itself with guilt over the various ways it exploited local populations. So much has been written on this subject, Mr. Sherman could probably find some good links online if he is interested. And a good book is Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, which, whether you agree with him or not, at least recomplicates historical narratives that are told far too tritely by the deconstructors of today. Leaving that to one side, the main problem I have with the piece is that there are no brilliant descriptions of indigenous food. If you don’t want 1960s meat and potatoes, at least put in a recipe for what you mean people to do with the cranberries and corn. But no, Mr. Sherman can only keep explaining in the vaguest, most general way that eating is something that human people have historically done in communal ways:
The Western colonial diet has almost completely ignored the nutritional and culinary diversity of North America, just as other Indigenous cultural practices have been decimated by Eurocentric forces. At our restaurant, Owamni, and in tribal communities everywhere, food is a celebration of history, culture, and environmental stewardship. When we strip away the ills of colonization, we demand the shared human right of access to healthy, culturally significant, and regionally appropriate foods.
I’m so sorry, dear Mr. Sherman, but you can’t actually “strip away the ills of colonization.” You can repent of your own sins and receive the consolation and mercy of the cross, but that would mean letting other people off the hook for their trespasses against you. What you’re really doing is trying to back already guilty people into a yet darker corner and refuse anyone the benefits of gratitude, that most subversive of all postures toward the world. The article is very much of a muchness, so I will just skip to the end:
This Thanksgiving, let’s break the bonds of colonization and capitalism—not just on our plates but in our perspectives, too. I want a Thanksgiving where I can be thankful that I live in a world where diversity is celebrated, and where every person’s connection to their food, land, and history is respected and cherished. I would like to be thankful not only for a more inclusive world but for a more accurate accounting of the past. This inclusivity and commitment to truth would honor Indigenous people, but also every person on the planet. Banning histories as a righteous crusade to eradicate different opinions is wrong; understanding true histories is necessary. A decolonized Thanksgiving could transform a holiday marred by historical amnesia into a celebration of genuine gratitude, unity, and recognition of our rich Indigenous heritage. It would offer a clearer lens through which to see the entire world.
Let us drop food and knowledge, not bombs.
I don’t want to disappoint anyone, least of all Mr. Sherman, but there’s no way to get the kind of world he wants by just trying very hard to be more inclusive and more committed to the truth. Trying harder to do anything almost never works. It’s usually by stopping, refusing the false choice presented by the experts of the moment, and seeking some other, deeper, grander, more enchanting truth that any “progress” can be made.
What I love is how the present world, the world of 2023, is so deeply mired in historical amnesia. Rather than being able to truly see the past, they look over their present dissatisfaction and fail to observe or acknowledge the true nature of their grief and despair. They don’t want to admit that it is spiritual, not culinary, nor that it is interior and not the fault of generations past. Because they don’t know and desire the God who made both them and their ancestors, they bite on quick, easy, appealing answers to their troubles. They won’t look at the true condition of the human heart, which is bent toward wickedness continually, which is violent and intolerant and bitter. Without the transforming power of the cross, without the Christian gospel of forgiveness and redemption, there can be no heartfelt and satisfying giving of thanks by anyone in any generation.
So anyway, have a nice day!
I'll take a Kennedy Thanksgiving over a Sherman woke Guiltgiving, thank you.
One of the interesting things I have observed over the years - especially before the woke madness descended upon us - is that cooks and musicians love to meet and find new ways of cooking and doing music that is inspired by an interchange of two different cultures. He is correct and saying that our diet has quite a few foods in it that the Europeans would not have eaten before coming to America, but I noted that he mentioned sweet potatoes - that's something that North American indigenous people would have had no knowledge of because those are more of a tropical food than something north of Mexico. And white potatoes are descended from tubers cultivated by the indigenous people of the Andes. And there are a number of foods commonly eaten now - at least buy some people - from Africa, such as okra and peanuts.
We really can't decolonize anything. Our current cultures are the product of a great deal of interchange over centuries. We can note and remember the larger history of that interchange, including the nasty and even vicious elements - but trying to decolonize is akin to trying to take all the ingredients of a cooked omelette back into their original condition.