make sure your mind and body are clear and ready for intellectual combat

November 25, 2015 6:13 PM

Thanksgiving is coming up and preparation is crucial don’t let this be like last year when your uncle tricked you into admitting that “Yes Mussolini did make the trains run on time I grant you that ok.” A woke guide to winning the annual familial debate “Thanksgiving”
posted by koeselitz (39 comments total)

Make sure to point out that Mussolini did not, in fact, make the trains run on time.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 6:48 PM on November 25, 2015 [8 favorites]

Funniest part:
“Well IMHO thanksgiving should be banned.” you reply cooly.
“You know who else wanted to ban cultural practices he didn’t like?”

LOL. Nice one, I needed a laugh thanks.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:49 PM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]

The fascist analog was me all along!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:09 PM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Inside Cody hands you a Sam Adams. “Fake ass corporate craft beer.” you counter. “Actually Sam Adams was instrumental in kicking off the craft brewing revolution and while it’s maybe not as forward thinking as some of the smaller breweries I find it an overall well balanced, decent session ale, you should give it another shot.” “It’s still a vector of late capitalism but I guess technically it tastes ok.” Well played. Remember in intellectual combat it’s as important to cultivate allies as it is to defeat enemies.

this is p good
posted by Sebmojo at 7:17 PM on November 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'm actually a bit glad that we're not doing family Thanksgiving this year.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:01 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh god, I am so painfully reminded of the smug undergrad I very nearly became during several close calls in the late '90s, and thank god I eventually came out of the closet and developed a sense of humor about myself, because I haven't felt this relieved to not be me at that age anymore in a very long time.
posted by mykescipark at 8:02 PM on November 25, 2015 [9 favorites]

What is "woke" ? Is it like "turnt" or "based" ???
posted by jcruelty at 8:58 PM on November 25, 2015

yep
posted by Sebmojo at 9:16 PM on November 25, 2015

A couple years ago we had a thread on how thanksgiving was colonialist appropriation. And my eyes were opened. Now, a few years later, this article again matches my sentiment. Thanks for posting.
posted by rebent at 9:19 PM on November 25, 2015

"Woke" means "awake" as in "aware"
posted by chrchr at 9:38 PM on November 25, 2015

A strange game. The only way to win is not to play.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:44 PM on November 25, 2015 [9 favorites]

I thought today that I had an Onion-esque "Local Nephew Still Can't Believe Uncle Not In Favor Of Full Communism" article in me but it was probably too late to pitch.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:01 PM on November 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

Just then the ultimate adversary, racist uncle Jim, emerges from his american football induced coma. “Hey bud put’er there how’s graduate school going. I can kinda remember graduate school. Back before there was a sun. I think I had a good time. Worked hard, maybe found a minute here and there to play hard too hah.” He has an MBA.

I lol'd
posted by triggerfinger at 10:01 PM on November 25, 2015

A strange game. The only way to win is not to play to change the rules.

Fixed that for me.
posted by daq at 10:04 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

As a Brit, I've always thought it unfortunate that Americans should have their two obligatory travel-across-the-country, huge, stressful family gatherings so close together in the year. The thought of surviving one such occasion only to know you're going to have to do it all again in only a month's time makes me shudder.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:38 PM on November 25, 2015 [9 favorites]

i have to spend tomorrow with my inlaws and i'm not allowed to drink because baptists

help
posted by Jacqueline at 12:52 AM on November 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

Jacqueline, I have found that saying you have to go home early because puppy is a great answer. Also if the house is big enough, they'll never notice you sneaking off to a quiet room to read Metafilter. I mean, I've heard.
posted by corb at 3:17 AM on November 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

i have to spend tomorrow with my inlaws and i'm not allowed to drink because baptists

Can't you take along your newly discovered favourite soft drink and only drink that? With rum or vodka.
posted by biffa at 3:52 AM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Having Thanksgiving up at my sister's in funky old-hippy Western Mass. so there won't be any conservative relatives to argue with.
posted by octothorpe at 5:48 AM on November 26, 2015

People (not speaking of anyone in this thread) always moan and groan about having to fight the annual fight with [political unsavory] at Thanksgiving, both on the right and the left. But it seems to me that, as with arguing on the Internet, it's something a lot of people secretly enjoy, else they'd opt out.
posted by echocollate at 5:51 AM on November 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

Tips for Dealing With Fake 'Racist Uncle' Think Pieces This Thanksgiving

The think piece economy evolves in much the same way, albeit with an affected ironic distance from the anima that drives normal human interest. Wrapped around pop culture like a lamprey, it lacks that creature's silent dignity and postures as an independent being, in spite of where all the blood comes from. Thanksgiving, a wonderful secular food ritual, thus provides endless nourishment for supercilious whining, preying on new straw men as the circumstances change.

For much of the 2000s, you could enjoy a kind of generalized complaint about how much "Thanksgiving sucks," which was hackneyed the moment it began. I went over this years ago, but this mostly took the form of assignment-padding pieces, penned 30 minutes before vacation time, saying "Why Having to Use a Rental Car and Go to a Suburb of 80,000 People to Eat 12 Pounds of Food With My Mom Is Basically a Trail of Tears." Family, friends, food, free laundry. Spare us all.

The underlying tone was a great derisive snorting about the provincialism to which the writer was about to be subject. It conveyed the sense that the worst part of Thanksgiving was being forced to return to the thing that had been escaped and that could in no way define the writer, who was now a being from a brighter place. Going home was a retrograde process, some ignoble devolution that inevitably occasions departing the glittering New York-D.C. axis, which only spent 2002-2008 breaking the entire world.

But beating up hicks and yahoos and white trash — translation: poor people — eating starchy and inexpensive staple food is sort of a bad look in a think piece economy increasingly driven by identity politics and the latest Upworthy-styled headline about changing the conversation. That kind of punching down only problematizes the discourse when you're humping the latest "[Celebrities/Behaviors/Tweets] Are Problematic" pitch. So the straw man has been refined from the more troublingly inclusive venue of suburbs, places with cars, ranch houses, lots of food, big TVs and football to the universal Racist Uncle.

posted by rorgy at 6:04 AM on November 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

What if I really am about to have dinner with my Racist Uncle?
posted by nev at 7:52 AM on November 26, 2015

Feign food poisoning and lock yourself in the bathroom?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:13 AM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, some of us actually are going to have to bite our tongues and/or drink the pain away. (I am of WASP extraction, actually arguing is anathema as it is not pleasant and involves emotions. I hope my therapist is looking forward to our next session.)
posted by kalimac at 8:37 AM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

i'm not allowed to drink because baptists

This is why edible weed was invented.
posted by sneebler at 8:41 AM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm more offended that my uncle only ever has Heineken for beer and if I bring over a case of something better they think I'm a snob.
posted by numaner at 8:55 AM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

My birth family embraces political arguments at Thanksgiving. It's a no holds barred, Fox talking points vs the real world, who can interrupt the most shouting match from start to end. I love it.

My wife thinks we're insane.
posted by underflow at 9:11 AM on November 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

I love political arguments and your Thanksgiving sounds amazing. My thanksgiving currently consists of my stepdad showing me everything Siri can do. "Siri, what is zero divided by zero" "Siri, can I borrow some money" etc.
posted by triggerfinger at 9:34 AM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm more offended that my uncle only ever has Heineken for beer and if I bring over a case of something better they think I'm a snob.

Time was, Heineken would have marked him out as a snob.
posted by BWA at 10:00 AM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

i have to spend tomorrow with my inlaws and i'm not allowed to drink because baptists

What, are you pretending to be a baptist too? The way I see it, if they don't want any that's just more booze for you!
posted by Hoopo at 10:46 AM on November 26, 2015

Heineken is big in Vietnam, like if you go to a restaurant and wanted to be cool, you'd order them. But because they've gotten cheaper there, everyone order them. And then they come here and they're like "omg it's everywhere and it's super duper cheap must get ALL the packs".
posted by numaner at 11:13 AM on November 26, 2015

I've solved this problem by not visiting my extended family for holidays (or,basically, ever).

Life hack for adults: you can choose your family.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 11:17 AM on November 26, 2015

This is my 40th Thanksgiving and I can't recall a single political argument. Usually it's just personal slights, real and imagined. I would have preferred political arguments, to be honest.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 11:55 AM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

I dunno, I've been trying to find a "chosen family" for years upon years upon years and I still can't find one that lasts for more than a year or two before the rest of them move away or get married and make their own families.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:58 AM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

As a Brit, I've always thought it unfortunate that Americans should have their two obligatory travel-across-the-country, huge, stressful family gatherings so close together in the year.

Well the thing is, at least in our family, Thanksgiving is the holiday of aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins whose names you can't remember, while Christmas is just more immediate family (maybe grandparents). My parents and I have reached a respectful recognition that the other is just WRONG (and we certainly tease each other), while the extended family don't have that arrangement. They just make pronouncements and get angry if I engage. So Thanksgiving is just a special extra challenging form of family holiday, IME.

My parents and I may have reached some sort of agreement but there's only so much you can do when Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in their community Thanksgiving parade, sigh
posted by olinerd at 12:10 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

No political arguments yet, but a distant family member did see me with my head exhaustedly bowed and said, "Are you praying for another baby? You should be." I think on the whole I wish there were political fights instead.
posted by corb at 6:03 PM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Rock Band saved me. Played that with the Baptists' kids most of the evening.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:07 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

What, are you pretending to be a baptist too? The way I see it, if they don't want any that's just more booze for you!

They don't allow alcohol in their home!
posted by Jacqueline at 6:31 PM on November 26, 2015

That is unfortunate Jacqueline. My worst issue at the in laws place is that they drink pretty good red wine and I'm more of a beer guy.
posted by Hoopo at 10:38 PM on November 26, 2015