UNT celebrates traditional Thanksgiving with slaughter of native Dentonites

The spirit of Thanksgiving is alive today at the University of North Texas — and thousands of Denton residents are dead, dying or wishing they were. That’s because this year, UNT History Department Chair Jack Winthrop is bringing the holiday back to its savage, genocidal roots. So what’s going on with Turkey Day in this quirky college town?

“I was tired of crass consumerism and tacky decor transforming this pure and pious holiday into a celebration of excess,” Winthrop explained. “The best way to bring this noble day of Christian observance back to its original intent, in my opinion, is to partake of the bountiful fruits of this fair land of Denton, while bringing the love of the Lord to its native people with a firm hand.”

To carry out Professor Winthrop’s vision, enthusiastic UNT students are donning period-accurate Pilgrim garb, taking up arms and waging a campaign of genocidal destruction upon the people of Denton, with the end goal of purifying the fertile land of savagery and exploiting its rich natural resources for their own personal gain.

But Winthrop says students don’t have to worry — they’ll still be able to find all their traditional Thanksgiving favorites this year.

“You’ll find plenty of stuffing — stuffing mangled corpses into dumpsters, that is! And don’t forget the cranberry sauce! It’s blood,” he said.

“What you thought was cranberry sauce is actually blood,” he added.

Journalism freshman Samuel Carver said he’s enjoying the holiday more than ever before.

“It’s nice to get away from stuff like football games and Black Friday and really celebrate Thanksgiving like the Pilgrims did.  It’s taught me so much about the history of this great nation,” he said, while collecting smallpox-infected blankets for distribution to Denton’s homeless population.

Despite the day’s grotesque carnival of wholesale slaughter, participating students say there’s always room for compromise.

“I like my cranberry sauce in a can, but my buddy Steve likes to make it himself on the stove with a sack of frozen cranberries and a little sugar,” said English junior Jim Darrel. “We went ahead and stole both from Kroger after murdering the cashier, stealing his land and enslaving his children, just to be sure. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Campus Voices: I could have been Darren Wilson.

By Officer Anonymous, UNT Police Department

I could have been him. Darren Wilson, I mean.

It’s not so difficult to imagine. All it takes is one bad night. One dorm room drug bust gone belly-up. One bad apple refusing to use designated crosswalks. That’s all it takes to bathe this campus in the blood of an unarmed adolescent.

There would be so, so much blood. All over the Library Mall. Droplets cooling on the wings of the eagle statue. Great big crimson pools, coagulating at Scrappy’s feet.

What I’m saying is, the odds of me gunning down a UNT student — either in the line of duty or simply because they frightened me — are not statistically insignificant. Apply the same thinking to every other armed officer on this force, and a future shooting becomes almost inevitable.

That stuff that’s been going down for months in Ferguson? Tragedy. So many good cops, getting their name dragged through the muck by a savage mob. That kind of thing could happen here, if we murdered someone. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, sometimes for hours at a time. Mouth sagging open, eyes rolled back, my body quivering in obscene bliss.

That doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to the protestors in Ferguson — there’s just no way they could understand what it’s like to be a cop on the beat without wearing a badge themselves. Until you’ve stood up to an angry mob on the streets or a particularly unruly dinner crowd at the Kerr dining hall, you can’t know what it means to walk the thin blue line.

Sometimes I think that literally the only thing preventing me from gunning down a teenager is that I wouldn’t want my fellow cops to get a bad rap from the public. It would definitely be a hassle. I’d still get away with it, though.

Besides, we can’t risk losing our vast collection of assault rifles, armored military-style vehicles, night vision sniper scopes and other heavy equipment more suited to fighting drug cartels or terrorist factions in an urban warfare scenario than any college student, even an extremely dark-skinned one with a wallet that looks oddly similar to a gun.

Or a toy gun that looks like a real gun. Or a toy gun that looks nothing like a real gun. A wooden stick with a silhouette oddly reminiscent of a rifle. Maybe a plastic sword or other costume prop weapon. They all paralyze me with fear, and as a cop, the prescription for fear is a heavy dose of violence, applied indiscriminately without fear of consequence.

Bottom line: If you’re a student, and you feel like engaging in minor criminal mischief on my campus, I want you to know that there is always a chance, however slim, that I will shoot you in cold blood for no reason except that I wanted to end your life. I will get away with it, and you will die.

Even if you’re lucky enough to catch me on my good side when you break the law, I’m probably thinking about killing you the whole time I’m booking you. I could shoot you while you’re wearing handcuffs and get a paid vacation. Remember that.

But don’t take it personally. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a cop thing. Just keep your head down and you’ll probably be fine.