Posted on 12/28/2006 11:10:15 AM PST by Chi-townChief
A mere 1.6 percent of Americans observe it, and it's been criticized as separatist and contrived, but Kwanzaa may be the perfect holiday for all Americans to rally around. So "Habari Gani!" Today is the third day of Kwanzaa.
If you just took a second glance at my picture and decided "she's playing," I assure you I am not. Maulana Karenga, the college professor who founded Kwanzaa 40 years ago to encourage black Americans to reconnect with their African heritage, says all are welcome at the table. And why not? Africa, scientists say, is the motherland of us all.
Christmas and Hanukkah are more than 2,000 years old. Kwanzaa was born of the civil rights movement, when America was forced to make good on the promises of the Constitution.
The Fourth of July is our big flag waver. But on that holiday, the questions rarely go beyond "Got a cold one?" and "That meat about done?" Fireworks are fun, but after the big finale, everyone packs up and goes home.
The seven principles of Kwanzaa already thread through the national dialogue. Viewed in an American context, they provide the focus for a relevant and reflective national celebration. If all Americans practiced the seven principles of Kwanzaa, our nation would be stronger for it.
The seven principles Habari Gani means "What's the News?" in Swahili. The question is answered by one of the seven principles each day. Here's why they matter to every citizen: Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. Americans struggle to balance ethnic pride and diversity. We need to work harder at it. Unity at home and throughout the land seems more elusive than ever in the information and technology age. Family feuds pass for entertainment on TV, bitter insults pass as political discourse. We struggle with immigration reform, affirmative action, educational inequity. Why does it take an event like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina to bring us together?
Kujichagulia (Self-determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves. Another way to say "First Amendment."
Ujima (Collective work and responsibility): The expectation is that everyone contributes and everyone has an opportunity for a job. We saw this play out in Illinois' minimum wage referendum and Chicago's "big box" debate. The nation is diminished because we have failed to deal responsibly with universal health care and school funding.
Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain business enterprises and profit from them together. This principle is the "Made in America" tag. It's supporting neighborhood businesses. It's choosing which salesperson gets your commission for a big purchase like a major appliance or car.
Nia (Purpose): Building and developing our community. Call it gentrification, call it tax increment financing, call it a block club or community association or parish or school spirit.
Kuumba (Creativity): To leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it. Responsible citizens keep the grass cut, sidewalk shoveled, pick up litter, curb the dog, volunteer, plant community gardens and trees.
Imani (Faith): To believe in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. This is patriotism.
Kwanzaa, like Christmas, involves gifts for children. But two gifts are mandatory: a book and a heritage symbol. What child in the land would not do better with those two gifts? With only those two gifts?
In the coming days, we will learn whether Barack Obama will run for president, a possible candidacy spun off the strength of his call for unity. If that sentiment is what people are hungry to hear, then surely the principles of Kwanzaa have a wider audience.
"Any particular message that is good for a particular people, if it is human in its content and ethical in its grounding, speaks not just to that people, it speaks to the world," says The Official Kwanzaa Web Site. "The message of Kwanzaa has a universal message for all people of good will. It is rooted in African culture, and we speak as Africans must speak, not just to ourselves, but to the world."
Whether you wrap yourself in Kente cloth or the American flag, the principles of Kwanzaa give us a lot to think about as countrymen.
mailto:lbaldacci@suntimes.com
Female torturer "black christmas" alert.
Gracis No
"A mere 1.6 percent of Americans observe it,..."
Almost all 1.6% is MSM members and politicians.
I wanted to put up some Kwazy Kwanza decorations, but I can't find my hose and soldering iron.
"when America was forced to make good on the promises of the Constitution"
"Forced" by whom?
So, it's true. Leslie Baldacci is an idiot and will buy antyhing that comes down the proverbial white guilt highway.
Good Lord, Kwanzaa is BS.
I could be wrong, but I think more Americans observe Festivus!
This faux religion is perhaps the most laughable response to Christianity to date. Islam would be the clear winner here were it not for the fact that it murders people. Kwanzaa just burns up some candles.
Far more Americans observe Cinco De Mayo.
Me no kwanza, Bad Ju Ju!
Karenga's followers gunned down 2 Black Panthers...This reporter says that if we follow Kwanza America will benifit?
Karenga was asked how Kawanza differed from Communism...since these 7 steps in kwanza mirror the socialist Platform...He said "we also Hate whites"
And this reporter said, America would benifit from following the Kawanza Spirit?
This Reporter is a ToTal Socialist Moron.
It would be a lot easier to understand if the guy had been a candlemaker like Mr. Procter and Mr.Gamble; we could call it Kwizco!!
"Ujamaa" "What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine."
I have liven in majority black areas my whole life. I've never seen anything Kwanzaa-related in real life, ever.
The MSM and politicians push it for division's sake just like this writer is doing. It's pathetic.
I forget, is today Bling-Bling Day? Seems to me Leslie forgot the celebration of soldering irons and vise grips.
lol, "liven" = "lived".
And Americans are about the only peole who recognizes it as a 'holiday'. How many more years are the MSM going to push this down our throats?
Ummm hmmm!
"..encourage black Americans to reconnect with their African heritage.."
That's where the problem lies - reconnecting with something that happened hundreds of years ago and still claim to be an American. Don't we already have diversity enough to destroy us?
From Wikipedia:
Felony conviction and time in prison
In 1971 Maulana Karenga, Louis Smith, and Luz Maria Tamayo were convicted of felony assault and false imprisonment for assaulting and torturing two women from the United Slaves, Deborah Jones & Gail Davis. [4] A May 14, 1971 article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Ms. Davis's mouth and placed against Ms. Davis's face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said." They also were hit on the heads with toasters.[citation needed]
At Karenga's trial, the question arose as to Karenga's sanity. It is theorized that Karenga may have had a mental breakdown due to the stress of dealing with the violence and murders surrounding his United Slaves (US) organization and the Black Panther Party (BPP). His behavior became bizarre. And, at his trial, a psychiatrist's report stated the following: "This man now represents a picture that can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and illusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment."[citation needed] Now, despite his criminal acts and violent behavior, he is ironically the figure-head of a holiday that represents the importance of family, community, and culture.
"It is rooted in African culture"
Which African culture? Are these people aware that Swahili is not the only language or culture in Africa?
I have toasters hanging in front of the entry. Happy Kwanzaa!
Why? Because we are all communists now?
"Forced" by whom?
==================
And "forced" how? In re: to what and/or whom? And was this the entire Constitution, or just a line here or that had slipped under the radar these last 200+ years? Inquiring minds want to know.
NUTS!!!
I celebrate Christmas, thank you. I support neither the putative collectivist "principles" of Kwanzaa nor the acknowledged Marxist philosophy of its instigator, Karenga.
The only way Kwanzaa matters to me is that is another open manifestation of media commentators who have arrogated to themselves the right to choose my ideals, political candidates, and the language I must use to refer to them. The great thing about America is that Ms. Balducci is free to worship whatever idiotic fantasies she chooses. She isn't at liberty to dictate those for the rest of us.
You have to wonder if Ms. Baldacci is aware of that one.
"Which African culture?"
Exactly. That exposes this nonsense for what it is. These people act like Africa is the size of a postage stamp and only has one race,language, culture, religion, etc.
Does this idiot know that the Kwanza principles are identical to the tenets of The Symbionese Liberation Front and the Communist Party? Does she know that Swahili is spoken in Eastern Africa and that most American blacks trace back to slaves from Western Africa? Does she know that Ron Karenga was not a civil rights advocate but a killer who did time for the homocide of one of the Black Panthers? Or does she even care?
"Anglika" ...I like it.
March would be a fine month to celebrate Anglo heritage and achievements!
I celebrated Kwanzaa just for shits and giggles on the first day and I literally had to walk out of there because the holiday seemed like the most made up crap on earth.
And yes, I'm black.
Because if your neighbors are celebrating it, it might just be time to move. It's a black anarchists' celebration, nothing more. Civil disobedience and crime won't be far behind.
>>and it's been criticized as separatist and contrived<<
Yeah. And cancer is criticized for killing people.
>>I could be wrong, but I think more Americans observe Festivus!<<
Heck, I'll go out on a limb and say more Americans observe Katie Couric on Cbs.
No...it is Marxism.
If any white organization celebrated a holiday with this as one of its ideals, it would be branded racist in half a heartbeat!
"..encourage black Americans to reconnect with their African heritage.."
Better idea: Encourage black Americans to:
Stay in school and graduate
Stop having babies out of wedlock
Get married before having children
Raise your children in two-parent households
The date of Christmas was tied to the winter solstice to encourage celebration of a particular event.
The date for the start of Kwanzaa is pegged to the day after Christmas. It's the pilotfish of holidays.
Don't feel bad, I went to a "godless" wedding ceremony last saturday. Empty and pathetic are the first two words that come to mind.
By the way, I loved how I heard several times this year that this was the 40th year that they were celebrating it. Okay, now I'm 42. I went to a City University for college where diversity was quite free to assert itself (back in the mid-80s), and I hadn't heard of this before, say, 92 or 93, the earliest.
Now you're just being racist and trying to force the white man's ways on them. Funny thing, though, is that black Americans had more stable family structures than whites before welfare (or the War on Black Families) was enacted. Black Americans were one of the world's best economic success stories after slavery and before welfare. The Democrats couldn't have that, so they had to do something to get them back on the plantation.
I agree. I haven't heard anyone accuse the NAACP of being racist. I heard of a group called National Association for the Advancement of White People, and people accuse it of being racist.
I have a black friend who was conservative in high school. In an English essay, he said that NAACP stands for National Association for the Advancement of Communist People. His teacher was black, and she didn't like it.
United "Slaves"???
Hmmm....I'm thinking noooooooooo
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