The University at Buffalo hosted an event about “decolonizing Thanksgiving.” The school’s Intercultural and Diversity Center organized the event on Thursday, November 21.
The hour-long event is part of the university’s “Tough Topics” segment. “Tough Topics are a weekly open forum to discuss local, national, global and trending news of interest to students,” the university’s event page says.
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This past week’s event prompted students with questions such as “Is it right to celebrate Thanksgiving and America’s history of settler colonialism?” and “What can we do to honor this day of mourning for Native communities?”
“We can redefine the meaning of Thanksgiving to remember and respect indigenous peoples’ histories,” the page for “Decolonizing Thanksgiving” concludes.
“Decolonizing Thanksgiving” is not the first Thanksgiving-critical event the University at Buffalo has organized.
In 2021, the Intercultural and Diversity Center sponsored another “Tough Topics” segment on “The Real History of Thanksgiving.” The program criticized Thanksgiving for being “whitewashed.”
“Come out to the IDC to discuss the real history of Thanksgiving and what America should do in place of this celebration,” the description said.
According to its webpage, the Intercultural and Diversity Center “provides a welcoming space for students, and we coordinate educational programs and cultural events aimed to broaden student perspectives and promote inclusion, equity, and social justice.”
Other colleges and universities have offered their students events similar to the University at Buffalo’s. For example, Washington University in St. Louis also advertised an event called “Decolonizing Thanksgiving” last week.
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“This event encourages reflection and conversation on how we can reshape traditions to be more inclusive and mindful of historical context,” the page says.
In past years, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oregon promoted the idea of decolonizing to students.
Thanksgiving’s “main messages are that of gratitude, food, and family,” a description for a 2021 University of Oregon event said. “[H]owever, Thanksgiving is, foundationally speaking, a celebration of the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe.”
Thanksgiving this year is Thursday, November 28.
Campus Reform contacted the University at Buffalo and the Intercultural and Diversity Center for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
