Remembering the Way It Never Was

Thanksgiving begins the season of remembering the way it never was. The stories we tell ourselves as a nation shape the narrative going forward. The stories we tell ourselves at Thanksgiving are a prime example of revisionist history. This means that we embroider the story backwards so we end up looking different than we really are.

The Thanksgiving story is the one most of us learned in grade school. The Pilgrims and the Indians sat down at a bountiful table and shared a meal as a sign of their cooperation and friendship.

Too bad that’s not remotely the way it happened. According to the Christian Science Monitor, most everything we have learned about Thanksgiving is a myth. The images that dominate our understanding of Thanksgiving stem from the “creative musings of a magazine editor in the mid-1800’s.”

We are learning more and more about America’s colonial history. As we get closer to an honest story the push back is enormous. Around the country we see parents trying to define what their children learn in schools and school board members trying to shift curriculum to keep the myth alive. It has a lot to do with America’s racist history, to be sure. At this time of the year it is also about the popular narrative of the first Thanksgiving.

Connected to this popular myth is the supporting myth that Pilgrims came to the new world in search of religious freedom. In truth, it was a relatively small number of Separatists who journeyed in search of such freedom. The majority of people who came to the new world were entrepreneurs looking for economic opportunity. In a twist of irony, the Separatists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony created a repressive religious system that far out-weighed the one they left behind. A state-established church and mandatory participation were the hallmarks of their “freedom.” Basically it meant that anyone who didn’t subscribe to their way of living and believing was an outcast. Think Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson fleeing to what is now Rhode Island to escape religious persecution. Go figure.

What is dangerous about this story we tell ourselves is that it encourages us to think we are different than we really are. This shapes how we understand ourselves going forward. If we see ourselves as benevolent toward Native Peoples, we can dismiss the history of genocide that is closer to the truth.

If we tell ourselves that Pilgrims were coming in search of religious freedom, then we perpetuate the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation. This is particularly dangerous as it provides a major plank in the platform of Christian nationalism that is on the rise in the United States.  According to German scholar Annika Brockschmidt, the myth “of a golden past” is a danger signal in both the rise of Christian Nationalism and fascism.  “Calling for a return to how the country used to be, when in fact it’s a version that never was. It’s used to divide the country into us and them.” Holding on to the notion that Pilgrims came in search of religious freedom (read Christian) feeds the myth that we can return to something that never existed.

Brockschmidt further explains that the tendency to “paint outgroups as not real Americans” is another danger sign. It’s no secret that as a nation we are becoming more and more divided. There is a dangerous mash-up of political, religious and social conservatism that is becoming more authoritarian and less tolerant. It all combines to stoke the kind of fear, resentment and anger against anyone perceived to be “other.” It serves to strengthen the position of the “in” group and marginalize everyone else.

It may seem a trivial matter to put on our make-believe Indian head dresses and Pilgrim hats while we pig out on food we imagine they ate in 1619. In truth there were no potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing or cranberry anything. It is, however, a way we promulgate the myth about who we are and what we are about.

Honesty is the enemy of revisionist history. We have some serious reckoning to do with our history, the myths that define us and what we hold on to going forward. Until we grasp our history in a more honest way, we have no hope of shaping a different future.