We Will Not Go Into the Museum

If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth.

“G is for Genocide,” an oil painting by Lakota artist Danielle SeeWalker. Reproduced and sold as a fundraiser for the UN Crisis Relief Fund in Gaza.

There’s no greater paradox on earth than the week(end) of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday in America. It’s an unparalleled showcase of the nation’s essence, steeped in hypocrisy, morbidity, and violence. Nowhere else does the contradiction emerge more starkly than on a day meant for giving thanks and reflecting on gratitude, only to give way, as the weekend comes, to a chaotic celebration of consumerism and excess.

My birthday falls smack in the middle of the worst week in America. I could try to explain why I feel that way, but the tweet I read the other day expresses it better than I could: “Thanksgiving is the PERFECT American holiday: gluttony in honor of settler colonialism.”

This year’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and yesterday’s Cyber Monday trifecta sting particularly hard. We’re celebrating a weekend, a holiday rooted i…