Ed. Note: In response to John Carlson’s Dec. 3 opinion piece, “Correcting big lies about America,” the Kirkland Reporter invited Redmond Reporter Editor Bill Christianson to write this weeks editorial.

On the fourth Thursday of every November, Americans pig out to the fullest extent while ignoring the sins of the past.

Teachers have long since squashed the myth that Christopher Columbus sailed to America to prove the world was round, but some still perpetuate the myth that he was the peaceful discoverer of the American continent.

Columbus, in fact, was the precursor to a mass genocide.

More than 100 years later, the Pilgrims arrived peacefully to participate in the first Thanksgiving dinner. But, instead they opened the door to more death and destruction of the Native Americans. Eventually, they became the minority, captives in their own land.

You can bet, they were never thankful for the famine, war, death, and plagues brought on by the Europeans.

Thanksgiving was a holiday created by President Abraham Lincoln to give Americans something to be thankful for during the Civil War.

People can be thankful for a lot of things, but genocide should not be one of them.

How can something so devastating as genocide become so overshadowed by a national holiday? Even if it happened centuries ago, a subject like genocide is something that should not be ignored no matter when it happened.

So, this Thanksgiving you can be thankful for the money in your pocket or the freedom you have, but just remember the indigenous “Americans” who yearned for that freedom first.

This Thanksgiving, we should be careful of what we’re grateful for.

America, taken brutally from the natives already happily settled, built on the backs of slaves, and made powerful through numerous wars, has a bloody history. Nearly everything Americans have to be thankful for has hurt someone else along the way.

The thought behind Thanksgiving is a pure and good one –- set a day apart when we gather with family and friends and remember all the many things we have to be thankful for.

And we Americans have a lot to be thankful for.

The problem isn’t what we remember; rather, the problem is what we forget.

Americans simply don’t think about the people they have to step on to get where they are. This Thanksgiving, don’t make that mistake.

Freedom is wonderful. By all means, be grateful for it. Enjoy that turkey dinner and be thankful for our freedom, friends and family.

Just don’t forget about all the people who don’t get to be grateful for American freedom.