Hypocritical Holidays

There is only one thing that would merit eating turkey on the third Thursday of each November: being with my family. That's the only reason why I indulge in this piece of crap holiday: Thanksgiving. And I know that I'm pessimistic about a lot of things, including life itself, but I hate Thanksgiving more than any other holiday. What happens is, we "give thanks" for all the blessings we have, like our health, our family, our friends, and that fat turkey sitting on the table waiting to be devoured. But has anyone really thought about the history of Thanksgiving, or what happened subsequently afterwards?

The original Plymouth colony and the Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans sat down to have the first Thanksgiving in 1621, and it was peaceful. Thanksgiving was meant originally as a day of reverence to God for a bountiful harvest and blessings showered upon man. But as the 17th century unfolded, more and more Puritans came to America, and because they were dying of massive famine, they persecuted and all but annihilated the Wampanoag tribe with a new element of America: bullets. Today, there is so much disdain for the holiday amongst Native Americans that they renamed it a "National Day of Mourning" in 1970. Just think about how the Native Americans view Thanksgiving: a day of feasting, resting, and eventually running from the new white people in their land.

Now, I'm not advocating the abolishment of Thanksgiving, that is to say I love the turkey part. But we must understand the true foundation of the holiday, and the subsequent years afterward where there was only an interest in survival and hatred. I don't want to put a damper on this holiday, but I can't help but think how truly hypocritical it really is. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic and standing up for a meaningless point, but it is worth noting that the original people in this land don't recognize this highly Christian (and commercialized) third Thursday of November. If I'm making too big of a deal about this, then you can ignore this whole blog, but those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, and I don't plan on persecuting anyone anytime soon. We should all cherish this holiday. We should all understand what it means, and what our actions in our daily lives will do to others. Even if you're stuffing your face with turkey and cranberry sauce, please realize that a lot of people aren't, and that when we can all get along in the spirit of being good human beings, we can truly call this day Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the stuffing.

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Statement of Purpose

August 29, 2005.

I was standing on the Mississippi River levee, in Baton Rouge (in other words, no, not that levee). Four friends and I fought through the near-horizontal rain that soaked our clothes. The 60 mile-per-hour winds literally whipped us back and forth as we neared a meterologist for Channel 2 news in the hopes of getting on live TV. The river's thunderous waves beat against the bottom of the levee, but the surge was nowhere near dangerous height. We pressed on, laughing and smiling, lucky to have gotten out of school for a week. When we finally made it across the levee to the weatherman, we became hurricane hunters from St. Paul, Minnesota, and eventually started a "Go Katrina (clap clap clap-clap-clap)" chant. All five of us LSU Tigers were swept away in a force of nature, and we sang and danced in the pounding rain, only subconciously aware that while we were playing, others were drowning.

As we returned to our dorm, Kirby-Smith Hall on the northside of campus, CNN was reporting a breach in the 17th Street and Canal levee in Downtown New Orleans. From there, I was silenced. The four others had not known New Orleans as their hometown for the past 18 years. They did not recognize the streets that were being inundated with water. I could only watch quietly, and expression-less, as news anchors in swanky New York studios were telling me what I could very plainly see for myself: my hometown was underwater. Sitting in the lobby of Kirby-Smith, clothes still soaking wet from the torrential downpour, I wasn't quite ready to cope with the reality of the situation. But I kept staring, mouth tightly closed, nervous at what the latest reports and images would bring.

That was a year, two months, and 23 days ago. And a lot has happened since then. I left LSU, moved to Baltimore, currently working as a waiter on the Inner Harbor, I have a niece, the Democrats took control of Congress (although not official for another two months), Donald Rumsfeld resigned, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have turned into the voices of truth, Britney Spears got her damn mind back, and I've been re-accepted to LSU, with plans of retuning in January. Oh, and I've lost at least 50 pounds. But I'm getting to the reason of this title, "Statement of Purpose."

Whatever I decide to do in life, writing will be a factor, and it's good to voice one's opinion. It's what made this country great. But now, in the closest thing to fascism that exists, we have gone from democracy to hatred in about 6 years. Actually, 6 years, 2 months and 10 days. September 11th, 2001, changed this country. America transformed from a respected superpower to a feared, out of control wasteland of hatred and disrespect, and it's true. The tragedies of that day (and I am in no way making light of that, it was a tragedy) enabled the hacks in power to send its brave soldiers into battle over a platform of lies. America was afraid that something like this would happen again, and they had every right to be. But the additional fear of another attack led to our invading of a country we now know had nothing to do with arguably the worst day in American history. And it is in this lie that a harsh reality emerges: The estimated cost of fixing New Orleans is roughly the same as the War in Iraq costs.

What happened to America? What happened to the "land of the free and the home of the brave"? What happened to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? What happened to "this nation of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth"? What kind of world do we live in where our leaders are not held accountable for their actions, regardless of whose lives they damage or outright destroy? I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America. A natural disaster sent me to Baltimore, but the inaction of our government has stalled my return. Personally, my life does not matter as much as the lives of countless thousands of families, friends, and Americans, who wake up on the same days, require the same food, and have the same need for love that all humans possess. The last time I checked, this was America. This was the land where the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses took shelter from their own countries, longing for some individual concept of freedom. And regardless of where those people ended up, or how they fared, they came to America because this was the land of the free. When our government turns its back on its own citizens, when Americans turn their backs on Americans, it is no longer the land of the free; rather, it is the land of hypocrisy. And that must change.

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