By Kimberly Palermo

How Americans celebrate Thanksgiving today is a far cry from its historical origins and that’s probably a good thing. The truth about Thanksgiving has little to do with the white washed version we learn about in school or the Disney fairy tales we grew up watching.
So, what is the “truth” about Thanksgiving? Well, that’s the thing… it’s really hard to say, since experts tell us there is a very limited amount of tangible evidence available today.

A letter written by the pilgrim, Edward Winslow, has been kept. In it, Winslow speaks of the celebration held somewhere between early September and early November in 1621. But, interestingly, if you go online, you’ll find almost as many historical “explanations” for Thanksgiving, as there are websites on the internet, or at least it sure seems that way. So, what is the “truth” and why don’t we have the facts about it?

Let’s back it up a minute. From a historical perspective, the American history that is taught in most schools is almost always complete and utter propaganda. Surprise, surprise!! It’s watered down, Euro-centric, white washing of the facts and almost always full of fiction. Some call it “spin”, I tend to call it outright B.S.

Like the children’s game of “telephone,” where a short message is whispered from person to person, the end result is something that may hardly resembles the original message. Sometimes, the message is lost altogether. Anyone who’s ever squabbled over a miscommunication with another person can attest to how difficult basic communication can sometimes be. Multiply this similar phenomenon, over time and it can greatly change history with slight distortions as it’s told or written again and again.
But what if misrepresentation is not an accident? It takes but a slight blurring of the facts in order to change or heavily impact history. Purposely, subconsciously, or as a result of how information is disseminated, the way history is presented is used to control the way people view the world. I’m usually not one for conspiracy theories, but it won’t take too much convincing to show you what I mean. It’s called whitewashing. When history is whitewashed, it “covers up vices, crimes or scandals to exonerate through biased presentation of data or by simply omitting data.”

Interestingly, Americans are known for boasting of great freedom and “liberty and justice for all” and compared to many nations, this rings true. But the fact is, Americans, in general, are good at “pointing fingers” at other nations when we have yet to confront our own barbaric past. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the brutal truth over denial, ignorance, and arrogance any day of the week.

So, let’s get started with some examples of what we’re talking about. You may want to sit for this. The most obvious example of whitewashed history happens to also be one of the most drastic. I call it the myth of the blue eyed, white skinned Jesus.
History tells us that Jesus was a Hebrew who lived 2000 years ago in the Middle East. In those days, most people never moved more than 100 miles from their birthplace in their lifetime. I suppose someone thought a “white Jesus” would be easier for Europeans to identify with than the historically accurate brown Jesus.

Remember those maps we’d see in our American history textbooks? I don’t know about you, but mine usually looked like this

If you take a look at those 13 original colonies, you clearly see that many American history books conveniently leave out the parts that shows Native American nations already existed in what we now call the United States. These were organized societies with distinct cultures. The truth is that the land mass we call the United States today looked much more like this before Europeans took over:

Another example of how history is re-written or whitewashed can be shown by examining the historic reasons for the Civil War in the United States. Some textbook publishers purposely make reasons for the South’s secession largely ambiguous. They do this because the truth is not easy to face and they don’t want to lose sales to school districts who, for various reasons do not want to reveal America’s unconscionable past. Many textbooks insist that the Civil War was fought over “state’s rights.” What they are really talking about is a state’s right to keep slavery, the selling of humans as property, legally! Apparently, this false information has succeeded in whitewashing an ugly truth, covering up the barbaric and horrendous facts. As the Atlantic’s, Ta-Nehisi Coates point out, Americans are still in disagreement as to the cause of the Civil War. “A recent national poll found that while 54 percent of Americans identify slavery as the cause, 41 percent do not.” In his popular video, entitled, Was the Civil War about Slavery? Colonel Ty Seidule, of West Point Military Academy, explains that slavery is the one and only cause of the American Civil War.

Additional proof that the Civil War was fought over slavery can be found in a speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens called, “The Cornerstone Speech.” This speech is so named because it calls out slavery as the “cornerstone’ of the Confederate government, while stating, “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”

Referring to the US Constitution’s “all men are created equal,” his speech goes on to say, “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”

With this undeniable truth that indeed, slavery and only slavery was the reason for the Civil War, how could 41% of adults believe it was not? White washing is powerful. It has the ability to re-write history. Simple omissions, the use of vague terminology, and/or a convenient “spin” of events, amount to lies and misperception over time.

These examples can be shocking to first time viewers. Unfortunately, there are scores of other blatant examples throughout our history that create a more “appetizing” historical perspective, lying or bending the truth until it is hardly recognizable. So, by all means, celebrate Thanksgiving, enjoy your family, and eat to your heart’s content. But don’t for one-minute think you are celebrating the “real” history of the United States.

Check out Kimberly’s YouTube Channel: End Racism, Bigotry, & Inequality In Our Lifetime

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