Thanksgiving is a holiday that always has me feeling conflicted.

Yes, I love turkey and gathering with family – but it is important to remember what the story of the first Thanksgiving actually represents.

Growing up, I remember making Pilgrim hats out of construction paper, drawing pictures of smiling Pilgrims and Native Americans eating together and celebrating brotherhood.

However, like many things we are taught about history, this story of the first Thanksgiving is not the whole truth.

When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in 1620, the Chief of the Wampanoag, a man named Massasoit, decided to help these would-be settlers and teach them how to hunt, plant crops, harvest them.

It is said that the following year, 1621 that they did have a festive gathering after a successful harvest in which the Wampanoag attended and brought 5 deer (not turkey).

Less than 50 years later, these same Pilgrims betrayed these Native people who had helped them and showed them kindness, tricking them into disarming, then slaughtered them and sold the few survivors into slavery.

The genocide of the Indigenous people of this country is a tremendous dark spot on our history and we must confront our collective shadow, the stain of our past in order to heal these wounds.

To me, this starts with telling the truth and remembering history as it truly was, not the white-washed version that many of us grew up with.

The way that the story of the First Thanksgiving has been depicted by artists and history books in a way that makes the white people look central, and even that they were the ones being generous to the Native Americans.

This is not true, it’s false propaganda.

We can’t heal the past and move forward into a new future unless we confront the past with truth and courage.

It’s important to remember to show kindness, even to strangers.

And to embrace others, despite any differences.

To give help and charity and acts of kindness wherever we can.

If we acknowledge our past, even the shameful parts, we can learn from the past and choose a different path in order to move forward into a new future.