2020-11-27. leftover

yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US, a holiday that I love and that I feel guilty for loving. personally it's always been good for me -- I've seen family, friends; cooked great food; drunk a little (or a lot); watched movies; lazed; generally had a wonderful time. Every year, even this year, with its uncertainties, has been a good Thanksgiving from my limited view.

and yet. we are beyond the time of limited views. thanksgiving is a holiday celebrating the colonization of a continent; the mass genocide of its original inhabitants; the continued mistreatment of those people and of other victims of the American myth of exceptionalism and attendant expansion, greed, and plunder. it seems like there's precious little to be thankful for on a world stage.

i worry that my ability to have a good thanksgiving is a function of my supreme priviledge as a white cis male. sometimes i am quite sure of the fact. the fact is that, for me, i know i am more powerful than many and i am still nowhere near powerful enough. i don't know where to put this. i don't know what to do.

i originally opened this to thank kensanata for telling me about

Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem Op. 45

but the leftovers had other ideas. anyway, thanks for it. it's informing my mood on this rainy Black Friday.

Speaking of Black Friday (and after this really, I'll be done), I used to think it referred to the day Jesus was crucified. Maybe it's telling that the dominant religion in America calls the day a reformer was murdered "good."

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Copyright (c) 2019-2020 Case Duckworth. CC-BY-SA.

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