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fitzcarl 講師のコラム

Thanksgiving

2017年11月20日

Once again the American holiday of Thanksgiving has come. This tradition is that some celebrate as the first American holiday maybe even before Independence Day. However, others say it's a lie covering up genocide that began with Columbus and continues even up until today (if not as extreme as back in the day).

It seems that human history is the history of genocide: a powerful group eradicating a weaker group and then being eradicated itself by a even more powerful force. In the case of the United States, it was Europeans versus the indigenous peoples of North and South America. Of course as an African American via Jamaican descent, I am also very aware of the exploitation of African people, natural resources, science and technology.

The past cannot be changed but it seems it is constantly repeated. The end seems obvious because of the ease with which a few unstable individuals could bring about nuclear annihilation upon the entire human population as other life on earth. The plethera of doomsday apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi literature and cinema attest to this fear very well.

Will racism, sexism, greed, discrimination and other ills plague us until the end? Will we create artificially-intelligent androids that will find humans wanting and decide to get rid of us for the good of the planet? Will we continue to burn fossil fuels and suffocate from air pollution and have our coastal cities and island nations disappear under rising oceans?

Will a superior life form from another planet come to earth and treat all humans the same way that indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas and Australia were treated by Europeans?

Is there any hope for human beings at all? What do  you think? What can we do to avert disaster and bring about a brighter future?

Will there ever be a Thanksgiving that everyone can truly celebrate?

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