Thanksgiving is a wholesome time to come together with family. A time to eat delicious food
prepared with love. A time to reflect on everything that you have to be grateful for. And when
you really take a step back and look at this heartwarming holiday, you realize that Thanksgiving
is seriously fucked up.
Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Today’s video is
all about American Thanksgiving. Now I’m not here to spoil your holiday or invalidate
your family traditions. I simply want to take a look at both the origins of Thanksgiving
and the current practices involved with its observance. Thanksgiving, for all its warm
and fuzzy feelings, is essentially the celebration of genocide with genocide.
Let me explain: we're first going to take a look at the origins of Thanksgiving, and
then move onto current practices. It may seem for a bit that I’ve gone off my vegan rocker
into a history lesson, but I promise I’ll bring it back to the animals. Now there is
a bit of debate as to the actual date and circumstances of the very first Thanksgiving.
Proposed dates range anywhere from 1565 to the latter 1600s. I’m going to focus on
two of the more accepted accounts, one being a little more warm and fuzzy than the other.
Please reference the blog post linked here and in the video description for further resources.
One of the more highly cited, and more wholesome-feeling first Thanksgivings was in 1621 with the Pilgrims
and the Wampanoag Indians. According to some of the scant records, Squanto of the Patuxet
tribe, who has survived slavery under the English, negotiated a treaty between the Wampanoag
Nation and the Pilgrims, an element of which offered mutual protection. The pilgrims has
just harvested their first crop and were “exercising their arms,” meaning firing their guns.
The understanding is that Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader heard this and came to aid in a supposed
attack. When he and his warriors arrived they were invited to join the feast, though they
had return with more food as there wasn’t enough for everyone. This feast apparently
lasted three days. Today, this relationship established between the Wampanoag and the
Pilgrims is mourned by the Wampanoag, who gather every year with hundreds of Native
people at Cole’s Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock for the National Day of Mourning. Before
1616, the Wampanoag numbered 50,000-100,000. The arrival of European traders brought along
a deadly plague, which killed up to two-thirds of their population, while many others were
captured and sold as slaves. And yet these people still welcomed the Pilgrims.
The second highly cited first Thanksgiving, and one much less wholesome-feeling, occurred
in 1637, and is said to be the first officially proclaimed all-Pilgrims Thanksgiving. The
Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop declared this feast “a celebration and thanksgiving
for subduing the Pequots,” one of the native tribes. It was essentially a victory feast
for the massacre of the Pequot people. The Pequot had not agreed to the treaty Squanto
had created with the Wampanoag. Their tribe had already been reduced from 8,000 to 1,500
by English-borne diseases, and around time of the massacre the Pequots were celebrating
their annual green corn dance ceremony. In the predawn hours, English and Dutch mercenaries
surrounded the sleeping Pequot and ordered them to come outside. Those who did were clubbed
to death or shot and those remaining inside shelters were burned alive. William Bradford,
the former Governor of Plymouth described the massacre, saying “Those that escaped
the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers,
so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was a fearful sight to see
them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory
seemed a sweet sacrifice.” It was the day after this that Governor Winthrop declared
the day of celebration and thanksgiving in honor of this horrific event.
So that is the groundwork for our Thanksgiving holiday. Built on the genocide and violent
destruction of an entire people. Now you may be saying that this is tragic and un-excusable,
but it’s not what people are celebrating with Thanksgiving today. The modern holiday
is far removed from this showcase of our inhumanity. But I have to challenge this and say that
while our thoughts and intentions may be nowhere near this historic genocide, our actions today
are incredibly in concert with those historic settlers. You see, knowingly or not, we celebrate
this original genocide with a second genocide. And that is the genocide of turkeys.
Now you may scoff at this concept of a turkey genocide, but what turkeys go through is nothing
short of horrific, barbaric, and terrifying. According to the USDA, more than 45 million
turkeys are killed annually in the United States just for Thanksgiving. That’s one
sixth of all the turkeys sold in the US each year. I just want to give a quick warning
that some of the images I'm going to use in this next section may be disturbing to some
viewers. I urge you not to look away to give a voice to the millions of turkeys who have
to go through this experience behind closed doors. But if you choose to look away, please
do listen to the audio so that you still hear the information. And I'll play this tone [tone
sounds] when the footage is complete and you can look again. Before being slaughtered,
turkeys spend their short lives cramped on top of one another, even in so-called free-range
and cage-free facilities, a term which means nothing (just see this video of mine for more
information on that). Due to these atrocious conditions, turkeys are rife with disease,
respiratory infections, ulcerated feet, blistered breasts, and ammonia-burned eyes. They are
pumped full of antibiotics yet 75-100% of them still contain disease when they reach
the slaughterhouse. They are bred to grow so fast and abnormally large that they are
made lame by their own weight and often have to use their wings to reach food and water.
Were a human child to grow at this rate, it would e 1500 pounds by 18 weeks of age. Because
of their size and inability to move properly, turkeys must be sexually violated in order
to breed them. The makes are assaulted for their semen, which his forced into the females.
At birth, turkeys are mutilated. They are painfully debeaked and detoed without the
use of any anesthetic. When they are only 12 to 26 weeks old. Turkeys are grabbed by
their feet and jammed into crates without food or water and shipped off to slaughter.
There is no law in the US to regulate the treatment of turkeys during the catching,
shipping and slaughter process. Once at the slaughterhouse, they are strung up by their
feet, which is especially painful for this unnaturally large birds. They may also be
stunned by an electrical stunner or run through an electrified water bath so their feathers
come out more easily. They are fully conscious for this process and then have their throats
cut. [tone sounds]
This is the process that is repeated 45 million times a year for American Thanksgiving alone,
as we come to the table to show our thanks, very literally honoring our country's original
genocide with the now longest-running and bloodiest genocide of our species’ history.
So I’ll say it again. Thanksgiving is seriously fucked up.
Now all of that said, you can certainly have a vegan thanksgiving and reclaim this horrific
holiday for something that we can all be grateful for: delicious food free of cruelty. And on
Friday I’ll show you exactly how to have an epically ethical thanksgiving dinner so
stay tuned. For more information about the treatment of turkeys and other birds, check
out the organization United Poultry Concerns, which I've linked in the blogpost. And this
year during your Thanksgiving, perhaps take a moment to reflect upon the extreme suffering
inherent in this holiday both historic and present and honor the memory of those lost,
both human and animal alike.
Now I’d love to hear your thoughts on Thanksgivings and your traditions. Let me know in the comments.
Give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and please share it around to spread the word.
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