Celebrate Reality, Not Fantasy

A friend sent me an e- mail recently with this short message: ``In bookstore today. Noticed `Rugrats First Kwanzaa.' I find this humorous.''

I messaged him back that if he really wanted some laughs, he should check out ``A Rugrats Kwanzaa'' on cable TV channel Nickelodeon, which ran a few times this month.

Days earlier when I went to the post office, the clerk had offered me a book of Kwanzaa stamps.

But Nickelodeon is where Kwanzaa, an alleged black- American holiday tradition, belongs - on a network that's most famous for its cartoons.

Made Up Traditions

There weren't too many memorable episodes in the last season of the hit sitcom ``Seinfeld,'' but one that stood out featured a holiday celebration called Festivus, invented by George Costanza's father.

Frank Costanza made up Festivus (``for the rest of us'') as a substitute for Christmas. His holiday celebration featured such charming traditions as an aluminum Festivus pole and a father-son wrestling match before dinner.

Now imagine if Festivus caught on and people were celebrating it to the extent that Hallmark was printing cards for it and the postal service had Festivus stamps. As crazy as it sounds, that is what has happened with Kwanzaa.

Although Kwanzaa is said to be a black tradition, it is only 35 years old. It was created in 1966 and is the brainchild of a college professor, Maulana Ron Karenga - born Ronald Everett - and is nothing but an eclectic borrowing of bits and pieces from African harvest festivals. But in the name of diversity and multiculturalism, this made-up celebration is increasingly being elevated to the status of other traditional holidays, like Christmas and Hanukkah.

I have some big problems with Karenga. In the 1960s he founded the black nationalist group US (United Slaves). His followers were easy to spot in those days, wearing shaved heads in a time of four-inch Afros. In 1969 some US members got into a gang-like shootout with members of the Black Panthers that left two people dead. He also spent time in prison for ordering the torture of one of his female followers.

Anyway, Karenga, like Frank Costanza with Festivus, made up Kwanzaa simply to counter the Western celebration of Christmas. He made up a word, made up its definitions and then made up the elements we recognize today as black ``traditions.''

But we've been told it is a ``black thing'' and must therefore it must be honored.

Real Black Heritage

When I wrote about the fallacy of Kwanzaa a few years ago, some irate black folks wanted to revoke my membership card in the race. One called to tell me that I was lost and didn't know my heritage.

I told him that if you had said the word ``Kwanzaa'' when I was growing up, the people in my all-black neighborhood would have asked, ``Who's she?''

During holiday season my black elementary school would have Christmas plays, and we would sing Christmas songs in both the classroom and assembly hall. In my black, working-class neighborhood, people would put up Christmas lights and visit each other on Christmas Eve after attending services in a black church.

That's the way it was in most black communities, and still is in many. They are traditions that bond families and communities.

Which is why I continue to wonder why we, with such a rich heritage and history, would need to celebrate the fantasy world of a radical college professor.

Ron Everett (aka. Maulana Karenga) / US Links

The Black Panthers and the Police: A Pattern of Genocide? - NEW YORKER MAGAZINE - February 13, 1971 (Includes great detail of the murders committed by Karenga's thugs)

PBS Interview with black radical Ron Everett (aka Maulana Karenga) - the guy that invented Kwanzaa 5 years before being sent to prison for torturing two young women

Ron Karenga - Dialog from the Black Radical Congress - December 1999

US, the organization the Ron Everett founded in 1965, the organization that murdered 5 members of the rival Black Panther Party is back Their website is here.

Graphic used on Official Kwanzaa Website for the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa)
Graphic used on Official US Website (US is Karenga's Gang that Murdered Members and Leaders of Rival Gangs) as their logo

The two members of the US gang who murdered the two Panthers after they dissed Karenga at a Black Studies meeting on the UCLA campus were Larry and George Stiner. Both were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. They escaped in 1974. Larry turned himself in to the FBI in 1994, but George Stiner is still at large. He is on California's 10 Most Wanted list which can be found here. There is also and International Crime Alert on this fugitive who is considered armed and extremely dangerous here.

Afrocentrism Links

Clarence Walker Encourages Black Americans to Discard Afrocentrism

Pride & Prejudice by Dinesh D'Souza, Vol. 6, American Enterprise, 09-01-1995, pp 51 (Google Cached Version)

Fighting Fiction With Fact by Mary Lefkowitz (Google Cached Version)

Fallacies of Afrocentrism - Grover Furr

The Skeptics Dictionary - Afrocentrism

TEACHING REVERSE RACISM A strange doctrine of black superiority is finding its way into schools and colleges

The Skeptics Dictionary Review of Mary Lefkowitz' Book "Not Out Of Africa"

Review of Mary Lefkowitz' Books on Afrocentrism Myth "Not Out Of Africa" and "Black Athena Revisited"

The Trap of Ethnic Identity - New York Times - Jan 1997

AFROCENTRISM The Argument We're Really Having

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