Joy Reid calls for day of ‘mourning’ on Thanksgiving

"Tonight, we begin with Thanksgiving, the day we gather with friends and family to enjoy turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie," she begins, painting a nostalgic picture of seeing loved ones, having lively discussions and watching football.

"For millions of Americans, it's a day of cherished traditions, and as Americans, we certainly value those traditions," she says, "but it's also important to unpack the myth of Thanksgiving."

After that warm-up, Reid goes on to attack the "holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies, built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn."

In a condescending tone, she describes the holiday as "a simplistic fairy tale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed."

"It's the truth Republicans want banned from our textbooks, because here's the secret they want so desperately to keep," she adds. "We are a country founded on violence."

She goes on to invoke aspects of the 1619 Project, an ongoing distorted journalistic retelling of the founding of the United States, to accuse the country of continuing to perpetuate violence and white supremacy.

"In 1619, a ship with more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in Virginia, ushering in two centuries of American slavery that left millions in chains dead," she says, "and when those humans in bondage were finally free, a terrorist organization that was a card-carrying member of polite society, the Ku Klux Klan, picked up where the Civil War ended, using violence to maintain White supremacy."

"As Americans, we continue to choose violence," a likely invocation of the recent shootings in Colorado and Virginia.

The 1619 project has been widely criticized by historians, but continues to be pushed in schools as fact despite fierce opposition from parents and politicians.