We had a very nice Thanksgiving yesterday with friends from overseas. We had a traditional turkey dinner, though not with a bird anywhere near the size of Norman Rockwell’s amazing levitating monster in “Freedom from Want.”

I am reminded of the time a group of students from my high school, a Catholic school in Virginia, delivered a turkey to a poor Black family living in a house on the outskirts of town. It was a gesture of goodwill, wildly misguided. Perhaps, even offensive.

When we arrived at the house – a bunch of fresh-faced White kids in school uniforms – it was obvious that our giant frozen turkey would not fit into the refrigerator, nor would it fit into the small oven, of this tiny shack with a cinderblock step at the front door, toys scattered on the bare earth around the yard. Nevertheless, the young mother who lived there, maintaining her dignity, graciously accepted the gift.