Joy Reid Blasted Over Comments on Thanksgiving: ‘Our Birth Was Violent’
MSNBC host Joy Reid’s take on Thanksgiving sparked backlash on Twitter. During her show this week, Reid sought to set the record straight on the holiday. “For millions of Americans it’s a day of cherished traditions…
MSNBC host Joy Reid’s take on Thanksgiving sparked backlash on Twitter.
During her show this week, Reid sought to set the record straight on the holiday.
“For millions of Americans it’s a day of cherished traditions. And as Americans we certainly value those traditions,” Reid said.
She continued, “But it’s also important to unpack the myth of Thanksgiving. It is a holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies, built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn; a simplistic fairytale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed.”
Reid suggested it is the “truth that Republicans want banned from our textbooks, because here’s the secret they want so desperately to keep: We are a country founded on violence.”
She argued, “Our birth was violent. In 1619, a ship with more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in Virginia ushering in two centuries of American slavery that left millions in chains or dead.”
The host went on, “When those humans in bondage were finally free, a terrorist organization that was a card-carrying member of polite society — the Ku Klux Klan —picked up where the Civil War ended using violence to maintain white supremacy.”