If You Need a Hotline to Handle Thanksgiving, Then You Actually Need to Get Over Yourself

A social-justice group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, has launched a hotline that people can call if they need help handling tough political discussions with their families on Thanksgiving. 

“This Thanksgiving, SURJ is offering two ways to help support white folks in having tough conversations with other white folks — conversations that are necessary if we want to break silence about race in this country,” the hotline’s website reads. “We’ve put together a discussion guide that gives some more substantial talking points for those tough conversations, as well as some questions you can ask to elicit feedback and avoid conversational shut-downs.”

“When you get stuck during Thanksgiving conversations, SURJ has you covered,” it continues. “Simply text SOS (with no quotation marks!) to 82623, and we’ll send you some key talking points that tend to come up in these tough conversations.”

There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. First of all, it’s absolutely absurd that this group is encouraging people to have tough political discussions with their families at Thanksgiving dinner, when people are full of food and wine and fully expecting to be able to have a good time with the people they love. If you are someone marching in there — armed with your gender-studies major and SURJ guide — intent on showing your 95-year-old grandpa what a racist misogynist pig he is, then you are the a******, not him.

If the conversations happen, then they happen, and it’s okay to engage in them. I’m a girl from a Polish Catholic family, and I would never in a million years consider yelling at the dinner table to be some kind of travesty or even outside the norm. But it’s important to remember that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about appreciating what you already have. These naval-gazing do-gooders should try to take the day to love their families as they are, instead of viewing them as potential conquests for their own political agendas and then freaking out and calling a hotline if those potential conquests don’t seem ready to surrender — which, by the way, they won’t.

Anyone who thinks they are actually going to better the world by having a tough conversation over Thanksgiving dinner is kidding themselves. It is certainly important to have these kinds of conversations, we do need to work together to make the world a better place, but approximately zero people are going to be in a mindspace that lends itself to having a productive conversation about tough issues during Thanksgiving dinner — and if you try to tell me that you can’t understand this, then I’m going to say that you are either an idealistic idiot or just saying that because the real reason you want to do it is to make yourself feel like some kind of hero and don’t want me taking the wind out of your social-justice sails.

Approximately zero people are going to be in a mindspace that lends itself to having a productive conversation about tough issues during Thanksgiving dinner.

Anyone in this situation needs to realize that, whether or not they have had to endure seeing their uncle tweet “Make America Great Again” during the election, they still have an uncle and a family to be with at Thanksgiving. Some people don’t. Some people are alone; some people are homeless, and some people are dying. Yes, dying — which is something that I have not yet done but would bet is at least a little worse than having to stuff your face full of delicious treats at the same table as someone who disagrees with you politically.

The Internet has been flooded with so many think-pieces focusing on how terrified people are to go home and gorge themselves, and it’s completely ridiculous given what the worst-case scenario actually is: That you and your family do fight about politics. I mean, seriously . . . so what? First of all, it’s important to note that whether or not you participate in one of those fights is a choice. Just because your racist uncle invites you to a fight doesn’t mean you have to engage; it’s pretty easy to change the subject or leave the room (rooms: something that many currently freezing people sure wish that they had!) instead of screaming back. And if you want to scream back, that’s fine too. Whatever! Who cares! Because when it’s all said and done, you still have a lot more than a lot of other people have. You’ll still have a family, you’ll still have a roof over you while you eat, and you’ll still have eaten enough to like totally have undone all that hard work you put in at SoulCycle last week — which might be a good thing, because people like you don’t really know how to function without having things to complain about.

#related#Can Thanksgiving with family have stressful elements? Sure. Might it be tougher than previous years because of the election? Sure. But if you are going to spend the entire day freaking out about everything not being exactly as you wish it were, then you’re missing the point. If you want to spend the other 364 days a year treating the world like a victim-off, then fine. Do you, I guess. But Thanksgiving is the one day a year that is supposed to be about being — spoiler alert! — thankful. Complaining is okay, but so many people have gone beyond that. They’re viewing “Thanksgiving Day” as “I Have to Engage in Excess With People I Wish Were Different Kinds of People My Life Is So Hard Day,” and are completely unaware what is so disgustingly ironic about doing so. If you think you need the whole world to mourn with you because you have to share your many blessings in a different environment than you would choose, then what you actually need is to get over yourself.

– Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.