Thursday, November 22, 2007

Turkey Politics

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States.

And traditionally Thanksgiving usually means two things: turkey dinners and the Detroit Lions losing.

Well it seems at least one bureaucrat in the United States wants to add political correctness to the tradition.

Powerline points out that the Seattle public school district's "director of Equity, Race & Learning Support" sent a letter to teachers urging them to instruct their students in the "myths" of Thanksgiving.

"The 'myths'," writes Powerline "are a means of teaching students, among other things, that the Pilgrims were 'rigid fundamentalists' who 'egregiously' stole Indian lands and 'massacred' Indians."

Here is the final "myth":

Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time.
Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.

No doubt for Christmas the Seattle public school district's director of Equity, Race & Learning Support, will send out a letter urging teachers to remind children that Santa's elves are oppressed, non-union workers.

6 comments:

Iain G. Foulds said...

..."The path to happiness and fulfillment requires constantly re-kindling your bitterness and resentment."... politically correct proverb.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Santa's elves are fully unionized now... In their union's failed bid to buy BCE (which they lost to the Teachers in Ontario), they are considering the purchase of Mobil Exxon instead.

Anonymous said...

Only in America? Nope. We're just as politically correct here.

Balanced education? Nope not in Ontario either.

Students in an Ontario political science class this semester had a professor who was 1)a union exec.2)a member of McGuinty's citizen's panel on electoral reform. Mid-term question on the benefits of MMP, and taking shots at the "right" the lessons learned.

rondi adamson said...

What? No Top Ten Turkeys?

Anonymous said...

And who exactly was it that gave us the politically incorrect evil known as "tobacco"?

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

My understanding is most Pilgrims were generally quite poor and from the lower economic class so people the left usually have sympathy for. And even though I think what the whites did to the Indians was totally wrong, we cannot change history. What we can change is how we deal with things going forward. We need to learn from our mistakes and likewise work with those who were victims of past discrimination and poor treatment to ensure we are able to live together peacefully.