Kwanzaa was invented by Dr. Maulana Kerenga in 1966 to “promote Black Nationalism and…enhance the revolutionary social change for the masses of Black Americans.”
Unlike Martin Luther King day, a day to honor a great man who helped break down racial barriers in the U.S., Kwanzaaa seems to emphasize the “otherness” of Black Americans. Is this desirable? Any holiday that was designed to promote White Nationalism would be rightly denounced. Why is Black Nationalism OK? And the holiday seems to presuppose that all Black Americans believe in socialist economic principles (Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)and Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)). And just as a historical note, the Nguzo Saba are Swahili, but the ancestors of most Black Americans came from the Northwestern countries like Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Benin, so to really honor their ancestors’ language Dr Kerenga should have used Krio, Wolof, or Yoruba.
And why do Black Americans get public celebrations of Kwanzaa, MLK Day, and Black History month, but holidays of other ethnic minorities, like Cinco de Mayo, Lunar New Year, Ramadan, and Diwali get little or no celebration? Personally I’d like to get three days off for Chusok and Lunar New Year in the US like I did in Korea and Hong Kong, plus I really dig songpyon, dok guk, and mooncakes, and I could use some lai see or sebae don to fatten the wallet.
If you can get enough people together to celebrate chusok, No One will stop you. There are lots of celebrations around the country at Chinese New Year. Lots and lots of people celebrate (inappropriately) St. Patrick’s Day. Columbus Day does seem to have fallen on hard times as the Italian community has tended to drift out into the suburbs, but a lot of Italian communities still celebrate and part hearty on the Feast of the Assumption. Mainstream U.S. has co-opted the Irish traditions surrounding Hallowe’en, but we certainly recognize it. The Jews still observe the High Holy days occuring in September and Christians make a big deal about Holy Week and Easter. The more-or-less British and German traditions have been combined around Christmas, but those traditions are widely celebrated. A number of European groups have large celebrations (of varying sorts) around May Day.
In every location where there is a concentration of any ethnic group, that group tends to celebrate some aspect of their ethnic or religious ties.
Of course, since the process of de-culturation associated with the slave trade (and the random mixing of imported African people from widely varying ethnic groups) eliminated any direct tie to their own celebrations, when they make the attempt to be like “the rest of us” by creating their own ethnic celebrations, you want us to condemn them and raise the false bogeyman (here) of racism.
I had a co-worker who tried to denigrate my “blackness” because I refused to buy into Kwanzaa. I told him “I’m not African. Neither was my father, nor my grandfather. Not even my great-great grandfather. I am a Catholic American. I celebrate Christmas.”
You would not believe how upset some black people are by my attitude. As if my “blackness” was defined by where some distant ancestor of mine came from. I’ve got enough baggage being an American Black, Puerto Rican, Native American and I am not going to deal with it by reaching back into the mists of time for my identity.
I do not condemn; I’m asking a question? Kwanzaa has no relation to Africa, it is not a traditional African holiday, it’s an artificial construct set up to honor blackness itself. If Kwanzaa were a Yoruba harvest holiday or an Ibo winter fest, I’d have zero problem with it. Kwanzaa is not a traditional holiday associated with an ethnic group. My problem with Kwanazaa is that it specifically celebrates race.
So what if it honours race? Black people have had to put up with an unimaginable amount of shit. It’s hardly surprising that some of them wish to set up a holiday to commemorate and honour their survival of same.
No argument there, but three holidays (Kwanzaa, MLK Day, and Black History Month)? Why can’t we make Lunar New Year a national holiday? Why no national holiday for the Indians or First Nations as you say in Canada? And the Latinos, a sizeable section of America, have no national holiday, why?
And another thing, Black americans are americans, so why the pseudo-African claptrap? Why not celebrate traditional African-American food like gumbo, Memphis bar-b-que, and watered cornbread? Why not honor jazz and the blues?
Martin Luther King Day honors race? So, George Washington’s Birthday is about white people. MLK Day is to honor a great man.
Black History Month is not a holiday. It’s about Black History. I think it’s a great idea as all other people’s history is consumed by the great juggernaut of Popular Culture. There should be “History Months” for everyone.
You’ll have to forgive me if the fact the this was posted to the BBQ Pit rather than Great Debates or General Questions suggested that there was at least a little bit of condemnation in your post.
As to celebrating Ibo or Yoruba (or any other) festivals, the very process of importing slaves incorporated specific activities to deprive the children of those people from knowing which specific African culture was theirs. Why should they arbitrarily pick one group from Africa rather than creating their own, now?
Another point: look at the date when Kwanzaa was created. The Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1965 were still being fought by many communities. (Most of the regulations specified by those laws can not said to have been implemented until the early 1970s.) The white reactions in places such as Selma were less than a year old and there was still violent opposition (including murders) occurring at that time. Calling for a (peaceful) unifying celebration hardly seems to be a terribly destructive or divisive action.
In the years since, the “nationalistic” aspects of Kwanzaa have faded. The remaining celebration is devoted to simply encouraging community and self-respect. As Biggirl has noted, it is not even universally celebrated within the black community.
If you don’t want to celebrate Kwanzaa, we won’t insist that you do.
I figured that with such a possibly incendiary topic, I was saving the mods the trouble of moving it later.
I will absolutely laud community and self-respect, and I will take back the racism charge.
I don’t have any problem with anyone celebrating any holiday they like. I DO wonder, however, how many African-American families actually celebrate Kwanzaa. I know that it is studied in both my kids’ (mostly white) schools as an element of African-American culture. And I imagine that it is promoted in mostly African-American schools as well. And, to be perfectly honest, when I see celebrations of any religious or semi-religious holidays in my kids’ schools, including the Christian holidays that our family celebrates, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach because in order to celebrate them in the schools, their religious meaning has to be omitted. Which I think is harmful to the kids - if their meanings must be distorted in order to legally mention them in schools then they should not celebrate them in schools at all.
But back to Kwanzaa - is it really celebrated in African-American homes all that much? Is it a holiday imposed by African-American leaders or intellectuals or does it have genuine widespread acceptance among a large segment of the African-American population? Does anyone know of any data, surveys, etc?
May I horn in here, Sput, to add that polls show that most blacks do not use the term “African American?” I think there have been several threads on THAT. As a copy editor, I will only allow it in my magazine when it’s already within a quote, as I have seen too many people called “African American” who were neither African NOR American . . .
To add a light note, my little sister insists that we celebrate Kwanzaa. This is not notable until you realise that our genetic make up is mostly Irish, some German and Scandinavian. This makes us very pale people.
Nothing inherent in that, but when we’re buying Kwanzaa decorations we get some wierd looks. We live in an area that is mostly black. Most of them do not celebrate Kwanzaa (other than my family, I know of two who do. Sorry no stats.) Its kinda fun actually. That and it makes Becca happy.
Its easier to just go along with her than fight the tide that is Miss Rebecca.
**
Ugh! I started to type “Black” instead of “African-American” but changed it in an attempt to conform to what I thought was the currently most accepted term. I DO use “Black” in spoken conversation.
Side note: Though I don’t venture into the Pit very often, this is by far the most civilized discussion I’ve ever seen here - no cuss words yet!
Like a black taxi driver (from Surinam) said to me a few months ago: “I don’t get these Americans and their Political Correctness about their heritage. What the fuck am I then, a South-American African Dutchman?”.
