Have a Sensitive Thanksgiving

Here comes Thanksgiving, an odd holiday now but one of my favorites. It’s out of place (it should really be back in late October), and sliced off from its earlier function as marking the start of the Buying Season: overeat on Thursday, buy on Friday. Retailers have pushed the beginning of Buying Season back to late October. But I like the holiday. I like the house that fills up the hours long roasting turkey smell, I like cranberry sauce, and I like the three birthdays we mark at the groaning board; my wife, my sister, and my father in law have birthdays within a week of Thanksgiving. I like to try to have a Pilgrim theme to the meal and the décor, and oe of these years I’m going to serve the meal in Pilgrim costume.

Er. Maybe not. Someone might get mad.

There’s a school nearby (not my school) community, where the first graders have put on a Thanksgiving pageant for over twenty years. They make costumes and re enact the first Thanksgiving. Some take the part of Pilgrims, some Indians. Very cute.

Not this year. They made their costumes, but at the last minute, the principal cancelled the pageant. This year, they learned a smidgen about the Oglala Lakota Sioux culture.

What, you may ask, do the Lakota Sioux have to do with Thanksgiving? Something approaching zero.

How did this happen? Take a deep breath now, and let’s all say together, “Because the costumes were insensitive.”

*Big Sigh*

From the Chicago Tribune:

A group of Skokie 1st graders got an unexpected lesson in cultural sensitivity Friday when their principal wouldn't let them dress as American Indians for their annual Thanksgiving celebration.

After a parent complained that the costumes the children had made might be offensive, the principal told the kids to leave their construction-paper headdresses on the classroom shelves.

Those who had opted to be pilgrims fared no better. Their paper black hats and bonnets also were banned, and for the first time in more than two decades, the 1st graders at Madison School commemorated the events of October 1621 in their school clothes.

What was so “insensitive?” That’s hard to say, but the words of Leonard Malatare, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux and a spokesman for the American Indian Center in Chicago, may give us a clue.

"At this age level, you let them dress up in feathers and do the little Indian thing, they'll grow up with that image in their head," Malatare said. "I've had people come up and ask me if I was born in a teepee. We need to start getting away from these stereotypes."

Let’s stop a moment. First grade kids. A pageant reenactment of the first Thanksgiving, the kind and generous Wampanoag sachem Massasoit feasting with the Pilgrims who had survived that first horrific winter, and had, with his help, raised enough food to get through the next. A pageant put on by a very diverse community, with costumes to tell the two groups apart. We can all imagine the kind of costumes, especially the “construction-paper headdresses.” A band of brown paper, with red or yellow “feathers” glued to it, to be worn askew on the six-year old head. How might these be insensitive?

I suppose they could be insensitive if they are historically inaccurate. Did the Wamponoag’s use feathers in their dress? Look at this slide show from their descendents, and tell me.

Looks like they wore feathers, sometimes. It’s not insensitive to remark on the fact.

The situation at Madison School is not unusual, said David Spencer, director of development at the American Indian Center. School officials often call the center asking how to handle Thanksgiving celebrations, Spencer said.

"The things schools are doing is they are representing Native Americans as one group of people, not a diverse community," Spencer said. "It's incredible how many Chicago public school teachers don't know anything about indigenous culture."

Davis said he was surprised to learn that what Madison School had done for so many years could be construed as offensive.

"I had a fair amount of confidence that our traditions here were based in good teaching and good learning, and that we were not doing any harm in any way," the principal said. "I thought what we were doing was a pretty good way to recognize this holiday."

School officials across the country mistakenly believe the same thing, said Faith Smith, the president of the Native American Educational Services College in Chicago. Part of the problem, she said, is that Thanksgiving is one of the few times during the year when teachers and administrators think about American Indians.

"Nothing else happens through the year," Smith said. "It's as though we don't exist for 364 days, and then for one day we appear. That just isn't appropriate."

Ah. The culture of the Native Americans of Thanksgiving is not the source of complaint. We have moved into the politics of resentment. We are not considering the actual Indians of Thanksgiving, but resenting that the culture of the Eastern Algonquin federation, of which the Wampanoag were a relatively small part, was the first Native American culture encountered by the English, and thereby became the grounds for the “stereotype” image. We’ve gotten entirely away from Thanksgiving now. We’re not done.

How did the kids at Madison School commemorate Thanksgiving? What did they learn?

In place of the kids' traditional costumed re-enactment, the school invited Malatare to tell the children about his culture. Malatare taught the pupils a few words in the Oglala Lakota language and led them in a traditional blessing.

Er. The Oglala Lakotas originated in northern Wisconsin, and had little or no interaction with English culture until the middle of the 18th century. And he led them in a “traditional blessing?” In a public school? How insensitive to the feelings of Moslem and Christian children-and their parents.

Some of the parents weren’t fooled.

"I don't think it had anything to do with Thanksgiving," parent Keith Liscio said of Malatare's presentation. "I think it kind of just hijacked the whole purpose of today's program."

Liscio said he couldn't find a way to make his daughter understand why she couldn't wear her pilgrim outfit.

"She and her friend came home from a Brownie meeting last night, and they were in tears," Liscio said Friday after visiting the school with other parents to watch the assembly. "This is a tradition that was changed in the blink of an eyelid because one person complained. We're just bent over so far backward to be politically correct that we're doing things that are almost nonsensical."

I can’t blame the principal too much. These guys are conditioned to hit the ceiling whenever the word “insensitive” floats through the air. It’s true that he could have found the Wampanoag site I found; it took me less than five minutes to find it (seach for Massasoit Thanksgiving and see what you find), and he could then have said that the costumes were accurate given first grade abilities. He might have detected that the American Indian Center’s agenda was not about teaching about Thanksgiving. But so might the nosy-parkering parent who couldn’t let first graders be first graders.

As one of the mom’s said, "It's us adults, really," she said. "We're the ones that need to get our act together."

Comments

[Sakile Yungai]

I am the parent who complain about the feast. I asked a question a school. If the school decided to put on a feast dealing with Jewish-American culture whould they allow the kids to dress up with long side-burns and the hat that some Jewish males wear, even if it was done in good faith/ The answer is no. Why, because the Jewish community will not allow this to happen. The school understood this and stated that they would not do this because of how the Jewish commiunity would react. If the school can respect the Jewish culture, then the same should happen to other cultures equally. Just as Faith Smith stated, "Nothing else happens through the year," Smith said. "It's as though we don't exist for 364 days, and then for one day we appear. That just isn't appropriate." People who are a part of the dominate culture in this society sometimes have a difficult time understanding how their actions affect others outside of the dominate culture. These people set the trend for others to follow. What I mean by this is that there needs to be more done throughout the year to honor Native-American culture. This is not the case now, at least at Madison. There are alot of negatives images out there about Native-Americans. Our children attended schools in other states that have done more. Example, a Native-American night throughout the year. If the school believed that they didn't do anything wrong, by did they back down?

[Rachel]

In response to the comment from the complaining parent: Oh, give me a break! I'm Irish and you don't see me griping about how we are portrayed on St. Paddy's Day (a holiday most don't even take notice of). We get rainbows and Lucky Charms? Despite this, you won't see me up in arms to my school board every 17th of March. Quite frankly, it isn't the school's place to reinforce and represent the cultural spectrum. Our schools are places for EDUCATION not SOCIALIZATION. If children are properly EDUCATED, they will have the intelligence and reasonability to "just get along." I am sick and tired of watching as one school after another succumbs to teaching children every aspect of the world's genetic makeup. Who cares? If the color of our skin really doesn't matter then why have our schools become "focus groups" for the racial spectrum instead of centers for literacy and necessary education? There are plenty of materials out there to expand understanding of any and all cultures, but we have to teach them to read first, not be able to identify the racial characteristics of each Native American group.

[kontan]

It seems that political correctness is taking hold and throwing common sense overboard. I'm all about respecting others, but using children to push an agenda is obnoxious.

[Not getting it!]

I am the same parent revisiting this site!

WHITE PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET IT AND MOST OF THEM NEVER WILL! SO,I WILL SAY, WHO CARES if YOU GUYS DON'T GET IT! I KNOW I NO LONGER CARE. THE LAST PERSON DID NOT RESPOND TO WHY THE JEWISH COMMUNITY WOULD NOT ALLOW THEIR CULTURE TO BE DEPICTED IN THIS MATTER!

By the way for the Irish person, you still have your white skin to protect you! THIS IS WHY YOU CAN SAY WHAT YOU STATED!

No matter how much other may hate Jews, white Jews in this country have power and money. And it is money and power, not just basic respect for others that rule most people in this world.

So try it! Have a Holocaust Day! Have the children dress up as little Jews in concentration camps with numbers on their bodies, look as if they will die, and see how the fast the Anti-Defamation League (Own by Jew if you did not know) will be so far down your throats!

[Mark]

Sadly, complaining parent you have missed the point. Your resentment toward white people for injustices done to your ancestors (emphasis here...NOT YOU DIRECTLY) is the issue. Kids learn by doing so let them dress up. Let them wear feather headdresses (some Indian tribes wore them, no?). Let Washington DC pay tribute to the Native American by calling their football team the Redskins. Let freedom reign so that all men can say "free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last!" The dream of Martin Luther King Jr will never be realized as long as you harbor such resentment for sins committed long before your birth. There is nothing insensitive about kids learning how Native Americans saved the collective rear ends of the white people (Pilgrims). The Native Americans are the heroes of the story. Sadly your resentment prevents you from seeing that. There is no way to teach 1st graders the diversity of the Native American tribes. There is no way to teach adults the diversity of the Native American tribes. They are vast and varied.

Its time to stop clutching on to your resentment and start living up to Martin Luther King's dream.

I for one would love for kiddos to dress up as Jews for a day and put themselves in the shoes of the people who faced the holocaust. God forbid we forget!! Some already have when the fawn over Ahmadinejad like the news reporters who interviewed him and Columbia University.

[Dominic]

I disagree with Mark. Kids can learn absolutely anything you want them to, if you make the attempt. If ALL you teach them is that Native Americans wear head dresses and say "How" as a greeting and live in tepee's, then that's what will stick. Honestly, past Elementary school, when else did you really have an in depth look at Native American Culture. Bottom line, yes. It is offensive. It's dominant versus subordinate culture. As an Irish American who also has the benefit of White privilege, there's no repercussions for being stereotyped with rainbows and Lucky the Leprechaun. Majority communities don't have negative stereotypes, they're protected. However, Native Americans are a rapidly depleting culture and community in this country. Their people are persistently pigeon held by one-sided representations of an array of people. Pocahontas, Redskins, Cleveland Indians,...come on. I would try to make it make sense to you on a level you could understand, but that's next to impossible because you're privileged. But would you think it were a "learning" experience if during Black History Month students wore Black-Face? What about Asian Pacific Island Heritage Month? Should they use scotch tape and make their eyes slanted? Should young boys wear wigs and burn bras in a make-believe fire during
Women's History Month?

Children learn by doing, yes. But let them learn by doing what's right, not what's white.