Still Thankful for Thanksgiving Day

I've always loved Thanksgiving. It's a holiday which, unless you're the one doing the heavy-lifting on the cooking (which, blessedly, I never have to do: light-lifting only!), is relatively painless. (Unless your relatives are relatively pain-inducing. We have our moments, but I'm pretty fortunate when it comes to family. Thankful, too.) There's not all that much crazy run up and commercialism associated with it - other than the spin-off into The Holiday Shopping Season. 

Ah, Thanksgiving.

It has a very New England-y feel to it, which I like. And even though things turned out terribly for the native Americans - and I am in no way discounting this - and even though there are many elements to the Thanksgiving Day backstory that are a crock, as a foundational myth there parts of it that are worth hanging on to. 

The Pilgrims may have been crazed zealots, but they were brave to get on the Mayflower and go. (I've been on the replica. That journey across the Atlantic was nasty, brutish, and long.) The Wampanoags did help the Pilgrims survive their first grim winter here. The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did - at least at one moment in time - peacefully break bread. 

The story of how the indigenous peoples were treated by the white man has been shameful. There's no denying that. Anyone who's driven through the West knows when they're on a reservation: the land is no good for farming or ranching. 

But conquering land, to the loss and detriment of those who were already occupying it, is nothing new. (And it's not uniquely the province of white people. Most of history is made up of stories about about who conquers whom. And that's never been pretty.)

Yes, much of our history is terrible, especially when viewed through a modern lens. (Come to think of it, a lot of the present is pretty terrible, too.) And I believe that we absolutey owe the American Indian tribes plenty.

But there was never any way that the North American continent was going to sit there, with its vast riches and relatively sparse population, when all those huddled masses, all that wretched refuse of those teeming shores - originally my ancestors, now someone else's - needed a place to go. 

Me? I don't want to see all the awful things that have happened throughout our history eliminate the good that we should cherish. And part of that good is that part of the genius of this country is that it could take immigrants and, in a generation, turn them into Americans. Which still happens. And which is just plain brilliant.

I could go one. And I will at some point be writing about "what white privilege means to me." But this is just a simple little blog, and since it's Thanksgiving, we'll stick to a directly related topic. One that has recently made the local news.

If Massachusetts has a liberal/lefty-ish capital (other than Cambridge - make that Somerville), it would be Northampton. A charming small city in Western Mass. Home to Smith College. A significant LBGTQ population. 

In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden got 65.6% of the vote in Massachusetts. In Boston, he took 82.9%. Northhampton gave Biden 87.5% of their vote. 

It's a city where people are concerned about things like equity. Things like diversity and inclusion. I hate the word woke, but Northampton is woke. 

The city's arts council runs a biennial juried show at the local library.  One of the works chosen for this year was that of a 70 year-old retired librarian, Doris Madsen,

...whose work “400 Years Later, no. 4” portrays the Mayflower as it floats through a fog of spectral figures she’d previously described as Indigenous “ghosts.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Madsen's work was based on an embroidery piece of her mother's, which depicts the Mayflower. She was trying to make a point about white supremacy (her words), and was certainly not trying to denigrate American Indian peoples. 

That wasn't good enough for artist and poet Jason Montgomery, a native Californian of Chicano and Indigenous descent. He took quite a bit of offense over the inclusion of Madsen's work. It was cultural appropriation, genocidal art. It was chosen by a white jury, centering whiteness. 

Well, actually, the jury was composed of a white man, a Latina, and an Asian American woman. 

Mattered not.

“The idea that you would disregard Indigenous voices and Native voices, especially now, in favor of old white women . . . it’s reprehensible,” artist and poet Jason Montgomery told the told the Northampton Arts Council before it voted to cancel the biennial.

And, while they were canceling the biennial, they apolgized for having chosen Madsen's work - which they labeled genocidal art - to begin with.

The entire affair has blown up, sides taken, gauntlets thrown.

Montgomery, who sounds to me like a pretty sour-grapey jerk - although it had been in the past, none of his work was chosen for this year's biennial -  has dug in:

“I would face 1,000 Trump supporters rather than a roomful of progressives in Northampton,” he said. “At least I know where I stand.”

Well, you probably couldn't find 1,000 Trump supporters in Northampton, so there's that.

Madsen? She's just perplexed and saddened by the matter. As, I guess, us old white women are wont to do.

Personally, I believe that, when it comes to any of the arts, there's no such thing as cultural appropriation. Exploring cultures, themes, events, personas that are not your own is a critical part of the creative process for many artists and writers. Sure, they should be open to criticism if they don't get things right, but what they're producing is a work of the imagination. And that imagination should be able to take them anywhere.

As for Madsen's piece, it's not Chief Wahoo, the recently retired mascot of Cleveland's baseball team, with his grinning buck teeth. It's not Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on Howdy Doody. Madsen's not trading in stereotypes. She's not belittling anyone, making fun of anyone.

Madsen's work may not be great art, it may not even be good art. But it's the work of a creative (and empathetic) mind. And it really was good enough for the Northampton biennial.

Look, we could all use a critical examination of our history. We should all know about how we got to where we are today, and that means while we're learning about the good - the things that the Founding Fathers, however flawed, got right; our long history as an immigrant nation; the inventive, the creative genius that has flourished here; our country's beauty, it's occasional goodness - alongside, we should also be learning about the bad and the ugly. The treatment of the Indigenous peoples. Slavery. Jim Crow. Know-Nothingism. Racism. Violence. Polluting the natural environment. Unequal justice. 

Denying the bad is a terrible idea. Owning up to the not so great aspects of our history will only make us stronger. (Think of how the Germans teach their Nazi past.) But denying that there's anything good about our history is complete and utter nonsense. 

There just doesn't seem to be any middleground anymore. Everything has to be over to top. (GENOCIDAL ART!) 

I love Thanksgiving. I want to keep celebrating it. And I want to do so without flogging myself for being an old white woman.

Oh, what a world we live in.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Sigh...)