When I was a child, my favorite Thanksgiving ritual was going around the table, announcing what we were thankful for. The ham in me couldn’t wait! I would prepare my little speech in advance, being sure to include something funny, something wildly unexpected, instructions for vaporizing my brother and thanks for the wonderful country we live in. The last part was at my father’s insistence because he had run away from his home in Russia when he was 15 years old, and had come to this country alone, to escape murderous pogroms and his imminent conscription into the czar’s army. For the rest of his life, his gratitude to the U.S. was unwavering — the country that had accepted him as long as he was willing to work hard and be a good citizen. We children couldn’t just say we’re grateful for living in a great country. Dad required that we be specific with details. He really wanted us to think about it.
Seventy years later, and I am now the grandmother of curious, well informed, young adults. I have carried on that Thanksgiving tradition with my family throughout my life. But last year, my grandchildren challenged me! They came prepared with many questions — and many statistics. They had done their homework.
Am I thankful, they wondered, for the fact that the U.S. has a higher infant mortality rate than 27 wealthy western countries? Higher, even, than Cuba, Slovakia and Qatar. This despite the fact that the US is the wealthiest nation in the world! A closer look shows, one grandchild said, that the live birth rate is excellent in the U.S. but that an embarrassing number of infants do not reach their first birthday. Furthermore, higher U.S. mortality rates are due almost entirely to high mortality among less advantaged groups. She pointed out that we are not taking care of the poorer families in our country. I had to agree with her about that.
I said, “I am thankful that 15,000,000 more people have health care this year than last year. Maybe this will reduce infant mortality in the U.S.”
Another grandchild chimed in. She said that she is not thankful for the fact that the United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25% of the world’s total prison population. Roughly one in every 107 American adults is behind bars, a rate nearly five times that of Britain! Why, she wanted to know, do we put so many in jail, and why do people of color account for 60% of those imprisoned but only 30% of the US population?
I said, “I am thankful that (now former) Attorney General Eric Holder took steps to address the draconian policies that doom so many to prison and that the numbers are getting slightly lower. I hope that the trend continues now that the issue has reached public consciousness.”
This was not the end. Why, another grandchild wondered, are we killing each other? He said he is not thankful that when he gets into a car with his African-American friends he has to worry about being accosted by a policeman and perhaps even shot because the cop thinks he may be a threat –which he’s not. He said that this is a big concern for him. Does he have to give up these friendships, these social activities, to protect his life?
“I am thankful,” I said, “that we are finally having a national conversation about race. For too long we have been pretending that racial issues are solved. We’ve certainly come a long way since the days of Brown v. the Board of Education but we still have a long way to go.”
And then they shifted to gun violence. And again they had come armed with facts. Active shootings in populated public places have increased since 2000 from 6.4 to 16.4 incidents per year. They cited many studies that showed that more guns equal more homicides. The U.S. has higher rates of homicides from guns than Pakistan and Sudan, and only two fewer than Iraq, which has 6.5 deaths per 100,000.
“Well,” I said, “these are sobering facts and I am thankful that we live in a country where we can talk openly about these issues without fear of decapitation or imprisonment.”
And then it was my turn. I thanked all for taking this Thanksgiving ritual very seriously. I thanked them for being aware, informed and concerned because we need every citizen to be a watchdog of our way of life to be sure that the good things this country has to offer are not usurped through apathy or poor judgement. I am thankful, I told them, that we live in a country where there are no legal limits to what or who we can become, if we set our hearts and minds to it. I am thankful that we live in a country where diversity is celebrated, and that ours is a melting pot society. I am thankful for the freedoms we enjoy that are specified in our Constitution and rigorously defended by the checks and balances of all three branches of government. I am thankful that we can express our concerns and disagreements freely without fear.
“Let us never take freedoms for granted that others can only dream of,” I said. “Now let’s talk turkey!”
• Dr. Barbara Fleisher co-authored with Dr.Thelma Reese “The New Senior Woman: Reinventing the Years Beyond Mid-Life,” is also co-host, with Dr. Reese, of the blog ElderChicks.com.
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