Everything You Know About Thanksgiving is WRONG | Decoded | MTV News

Decoded now on #MTV!

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, but the whole story we're taught in school about Pilgrims and Native Americans is basically, just WRONG. Everything from the Native Americans and Pilgrims being best friends, to the outfits the Pilgrims actually wore, down to even the eating Turkey is based on loose half-truths and propaganda. So join Franchesca as she serves up some Thruthsgiving!

Starring:
Mom: Esther Friedman
Aunt: Greer Morison
Grandpa: Philip Smith
Teen: Sholntay Taylor @SholantyTaylor
Dad: Anthony Aroya

Crew:
Director: Karrie Crouse
Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Written By: Jon Gutierrez
DP: Eric Browse
Gaffer: Steven Latta
Art Director: Emmeline Wilkes
Art Assistant: Heather Yancey
Sound: Mike Snyder
HMU: Fatima Butler
PA: Emily Thielen

Sources:
Wampanog & Pilgrims Were Political Allies, Not Friends

The Pilgrims Didn’t Necessarily Invite the Indians

Squanto Didn’t Learn English to Help the Pilgrims

It Wasn’t a Yearly Event

The Food was Much Different

The Pilgrims Didn’t Land on Plymouth Rock

Pilgrim Fashion Was Much More Colorful Than We Are Taught

Full History of Early Settlement:

Further Reading about Thanksgiving History:

More from MTV News:

[tuxedomarmot]

As a Native person myself, I really appreciate the intent of videos like these. Thanksgiving is a tense time for many indigenous people, being more of a time of morning than a time of thanks. And on top of that we often have to educate non-Native people about the truths of Thanksgiving when we're already stressed out and hurting. Hearing allies to our community talk about it and educate others is great! I do have one criticism though: lines like "we fought and killed all the Native Americans" are not helpful. They cast us as a sad, forgotten historical people that have been long since wiped out. That's not the whole truth. The truth is that we suffered and many of us were killed, but we also lived. We are live today as modern peoples working to preserve our history and culture. Instead of talking about how we were all killed, talk about how we suffered losses but are preserving, and that knowing the truth about Thanksgiving is not only important for historical accuracy, but for thinking about how to help Native people who are live today.

[macadysmith]

I celebrate Thanksgiving as a day to be thankful and not the history of it

[Gears_Starting]

Franchesca Ruins Everything? People that follow the channel College Humor and know what "Adam Ruins Everything" know what I am talking about.

[truetocaesar]

“Everything WrOnG about thanksgiving”




It’s all the pilgrims fault😂🙄

[AnaxofRhodes]

Viewers: do your research. Don't assume everything said in a 3-minute MTV comedy sketch is true. Don't assume any history is true. Be able to prove yourself. Bias affects everyone and infects everything.

[HeirOfGlee]

Thank god for education, thank god for the internet and thank god we can finally hear the stories of the silences over the "winners"

[witchplease]

Can you make a video about the nasty double standard that anytime a black woman is tall and has muscles or simply an athletic body, she is accused of being a man or transgendered (Serena Williams, Michelle Obama are often victims of this) but "masculine", athletic white women such as Ronda Rousey are considered sexy and strong? Its random, but I couldn't stop thinking about it lately. It bothers me.

[gravitybringsmedown]

This is what I do whenever I see my family and we talk about the history of anything.

[splatcheur]

POV your teacher make you learn this in class and your tired so you post a comment
Btw the video is really great

[MilesJaiProductions]

I learn so many new things whenever I watch this series! I absolutely love that this show exists. <3 <3 <3

[GO-GO_SO-SO]

I guess the number of thumbs down is the number of people that don't want to hear the truth, can't handle the truth, and don't want to have the truth be told.

[kissfan]

2:15
We did not kill all the Native Americans. There are almost three million American Indians right now; over five million if you include multi-racial Indians.

I hate it when people (including fellow progressives) treat Indians in the past tense. You've talked about this before, so it's a shame to see you slip back into old habits.

[robertlouisburns]

I grew up giving thanks for the pilgrims coing here and inspiring other to come here. It encouraged others to come here, one being a man froam Germany in 1765. He, along with so many others is what lead to me an my sibling being born. People from many coutries and native Americans are in my family. Sorry, I won't stop celebrating that. I also celebrate to give thanks for my family, health and good friends.

[ConnAndTheThings]

This is everything. Should thanksgiving be celebrated at all then? Isn't it a bit like if we'd tried to cover up slavery and made it look like a "mutual agreement of labour" and then had a holiday about it 100 years later?

Also it's always struck me as ridiculous that its a day to be thankful for what you have, and then within a week you're tearing someones hair out so you can get that flatscreen at 50% off

[medicalfield]

You should have a part 2 to this. Bring on Actual Indigenous ppl to tell the story from their perspective. Let Them tell Their story w/o someone speaking for them. They could teach us a/b their culture and heritage; and expose more lies europeans have told the world.
Good job, Chescaleigh.

[CegeRoles]

This is *literally* what happened at my Thanksgiving Dinner last year; I was the one doing all the soapboxing and my Grandma (love her to death but she is VERY old fashioned) was not having any of that. The whole dinner was really uncomfortable between all the arguing and my mom was really fucking pissed at me afterwards. I explained to her that I was just trying to bring to light about the truth about Thanksgiving and she responded that, "Yeah I get that what you're saying, and I understand that you feel the need to talk about it, but talking about it over dinner is *not good table manners*!" That shut me up, both because I knew she was right and because I knew if I pressed the argument I wasn't getting any of the pumpkin pie she made.

[julieshez]

Thanksgiving needs to be better than the old history for both native-Americans and other American people.

[rossskhi]

What she said about Black Friday I gaged I hope y’all caught that 😂😂😂

[OneikaTraveller]

Because... America!!! LOL! That line had me rolling. Great job, as always!

[EduardoGonzalez-ufvf]

The problem with the truth is that it always floats to the surface. Praise Yah.