Thanksgiving Dilemmas: Family, Tension, Killing, and Compassion

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-11-24 09:34:00 UTC
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Thanksgiving. Two days to go. I have a hard time with this day. For one, I have issues with it that resemble my issues with Columbus Day. And when you're discomfited by a holiday's origins, and its current traditions are overwhelmingly exploitative and violent too, it can be difficult as a progressive, antioppression-minded animal advocate to decide how you want to approach this day.

Nevertheless, I am going to a family gathering on Thursday, like I do every year, with three dozen other people -- grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and their spouses, and cousins' kids. I am from the heartland, from a close-knit family in the rural Midwest. And you don't miss family holiday gatherings unless you have to. But holidays are difficult. The jokes about what I do eat -- and whom I don't eat -- are hard to take. Watching my mother cut up a dead bird isn't the highlight of my day. Envisioning who that bird used to be and what she went through is not a happy, thankful experience. If it weren't for my grandparents, maybe I wouldn't feel the need to put myself through such occasions, but my beloved grandparents are still here with us, and that is something for which, yes, I do give thanks.

So I am going. And I will be expected to keep my mouth shut, to not tell my family about the animal whose flesh they're tearing into, to not dispel their illusions, to not make them feel guilt over the suffering they've funded and over which they're laughing. If I so much as roll my eyes or make a snide remark under my breath, I will be considered rude and pushy about my "beliefs." If they stick a fork in my face with a piece of animal hanging from it or make jokes about the dead animal they're eating, that will be considered acceptable and "good-natured."

Rape. Mutilation and amputation. Broken legs. Heart attacks. Terror. Slit throats. Yes, so many reasons to be thankful for the carcass on the table.

So I don't know what will happen this year. I have increasingly less patience for the jokes and increasingly stronger emotions upon seeing that dead body and imagining her brief life, her suffering, and her final moments, indeed imagining all the millions killed for just this one self-indulgent day. There's something screwed up about purporting to be celebrating togetherness and love and gratitude -- peaceful notions -- while centering the day around the dead body of an animal who suffered in ways we can only imagine and who died a terrible, unnecessary early death for no other reason than human tradition and selfishness. (And yes, you can expect to read similar frustrated remarks from me when the December holidays come around.)

A vegan Thanksgiving can involve all the best aromas and flavors of the season -- all the delicious vegetables and fruits and spices we associate with this time of year -- and turkey-free, turkey-compassionate celebrations have gone mainstream. News organizations and programs from the New York Times and CNN and the Martha Stewart Show to local news stations and publications have featured segments on compassionate rather than selfish eating this year.

And truly compassionate choices are animal-free. Not "free range." Not "heritage." As noted in a below-linked-to post, "free range" means zilch. And the body of a "heritage" turkey may cost you a small fortune, but the purchase doesn't absolve you of responsibility for that animal's suffering and unnecessary death. It doesn't make that individual's suffering, pain, fear, and desire to live any less real. Killing is killing. And in addition to having turkey-replacement options, pretty well any other traditional holiday dish can be veganized.

For more, please see the below posts from elsewhere, as well as a few from last year on this blog (remember that there are some holiday recipes in last week's Friday Food too). And make a new tradition this year: compassion.

Photo at top, of Opal and Victor, rescued residents of Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, courtesy of Deb Durant of Invisible Voices; first featured in "Turkeys at Poplar Spring: The Luckier Ones"

Posts and resources elsewhere:

Related posts here:

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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