It gets a little harder every year to so blindly celebrate Thanksgiving. While I’m not ready to forego the celebration altogether, it certainly would do us well to remember exactly what we did in order that we could be so “grateful”. The story of the United States is not one of a few intrepid explorers landing on the continent, finding it uninhabited and fulfilling our Manifest Destiny.

It is the story of brutal occupation and oppression in order that the white man could dominate the land and its people. The acts that occurred as European Americans expanded west should be brought to light and we should spend our holiday asking forgiveness rather than thanking God for his blessing.

This miniseries, while it had its drawbacks, was at least an attempt to show the Native American side of the story. I’d suggest watching it and encouraging others to dialogue about what really occurred. God forgive us for our arrogance.

In addition to watching this film, I started this book. It’s a pretty eye opening experience. The author makes the claim, after reviewing many High School history textbooks and using the 12 most often used one for his book, that history books are grossly inadequate for the giving the reality of what actually occurred in history.

They are filled with nationalism, heroification and often gross errors and lies.

For instance, before you go searching, what do you know about Helen Keller? List off everything in your head that you remember about her.

Don’t you wonder why you can’t describe anything that happened to her after she overcame her disability? Don’t you wonder what she did with her life?

Don’t you now wonder why you don’t know anything else about her? Take a look at this Wikipedia article and let me know why you think our wonderful American history textbooks wouldn’t list anything esle about her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

Search for truth. It’s not always easily offered to you.