Perhaps you should have added that Kwanzaa, despite its “African name,” was created in the USA? (There have also been complaints from some people that Kwanzaa is being commercialized, and that it takes away from the “spirit of the holiday” to buy things like pre-made Kwanzaa candle sets.)
The one “gripe” I have with it is, one of the “tenets” of Kwanzaa involves buying only from African businesses. Imagine the outcry if “white people” tried this. (Then again, lumping “white people” together as a single group isn’t particularly fair, and you do have, say, Italians frequenting Italian businesses, Greeks frequenting Greek ones, Chinese frequenting Chinese ones, and so forth - it’s just part of “the human nature of familiarity.” Should those of African descent be looked down on for doing the same thing, just because of their skin color?)
Kwanzaa is a funny holiday. I cannot honestly think of one person I know that celebrates Kwanzaa in full. In fact, most of my friends and acquaintances have never been to any Kwanzaa event.
My family has a sizable number of Afro-centric educators in it so I grew up with yearly exposure to Kwanzaa despite not participating in the holiday at home. Every year from about 6 or 7 on, my mom would take me to either a colleague or one of my aunt’s Kwanzaa events. These usually just coincided with the weekend and the host would either have us go through the entire candle ceremony or they would stop at the corresponding day.
On the whole, I think that it is a nice idea and a good (fairly dated) way to celebrate black culture. Really the only black people that would get offended by “Happy Kwanzaa” probably get offended by anything. Usually my response is, “Thanks but I don’t actually celebrate Kwanzaa.”
I think that’s stretching the meaning of “Ujamaa” (Cooperative Economics) a bit. It is supposed to be about supporting black businesses not solely patronizing black business and ignoring all others. All of the tenets really do fall under community support and empowerment. Although, I am sure there are some vocal radicals out there that emphasize only patronizing black business.
Well, Hanukkah is a little “made-up” for lack of a better term, in the US. Liturgically, Hanukkah is a trivial holiday and traditionally it does not involve exchanging gifts (in Europe, traditionally children would receive some pocket change). Sure it comes in December (usually) but what it is NOT NOT NOT is the most important Jewish festival of the calendar. Treating it as equivalent to Christmas is something many Jews find ridiculous. In some of my circles, treating Hanukkah as similar in nature, and equivalent in importance, to Christmas is actually regarded as a bit self-hating.
My mom was a public school teacher for a few decades, with student bodies that were about 99% black. She always taught them about Kwanzaa (as well as genuinely African culture), and she never once had a single student whose family observed it in any way. Now, these kids were all from poor, inner-city families, so it may well be that it’s recognized more by middle-class, suburban blacks. But of course, the black population is disproportionately poor and urban.
It’s contrived out of bits and pieces of real African tradition. Keep in mind that the slave trade tore tribes and families apart, and drew from many different tribes in the first place. Very few African traditions were able to survive in the American black population, and even if you re-imported a genuine tradition from some African tribe, it might not be a tradition followed by any of the neighboring tribes.
BTW, I meant that teaching about it in school like it’s a common thing is what strikes me as trying too hard to be multicultural, not actually celebrating it. I’d go to a Kwanzaa celebration if someone invited me and if I wasn’t such a grinch (I don’t celebrate any holidays right now).
Yeah, and I don’t care if public schools tell kids about Hanukkah. No, actually, the point is that I hear the # of people who celebrate Hanukkah are about 3-5 per cent, but given that most Jews celebrate, observe, notice, or have celebrated Hanukkah, there’s the difference. Hanukkah is a Jewish thing. Kwanzaa is not a marker of black culture. It’s kind of a fail.
He knew that! He just thought that blacks celebrated it like Jews celebrate Hanukkah.
The part about the candle not burning out is probably quite made up, yes. But the Macabees and the rest seems to be hinged on a bit of truth. Thing is, Jews didn’t say, “Let’s make up a new holiday to promote our Jewish-ness!” a couple of generations ago. We’ve been doing the hanukkiyah thing for a couple thousand years.
My kid is getting cash on Hanukkah this year and a wrapped gift on the last night. All subcultures are influenced by the dominant culture – of course Hanukkah has gotten bigger – but Passover was also influenced by the Greeks. <shrug> This is probably why more American Jews care about Hanukkah than, say, Purim.
Let’s look at every single holiday that has become a cultural institution in recent memory. We’ve got things like Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, Mother’s day…
Everything i can think of pretty much is a result of some person or organization saying “Hey, we ought to have holiday XXXX where we do YYYY to celebrate ZZZZ.” I can’t think of any holiday that has just developed as a spontaneous communal expression of something, with perhaps the exception of 4/20. Indeed, you see a lot of opportunities where you’d think some kind of spontaneous shared form of observation would occur- like Sept. 11. And despite the emotional resonance of these days, there hasn’t been any real grassroots cultural institutions of observation developing.
I have no reason to believe the same rule wasn’t basically true in the past. Chances are, a couple thousand years ago someone with social influence probably thought this ritual would serve some purpose that he or she had in mind- which quite likely was something to do with Jewish identity, and people liked it and caught on. Like Kwanzaa plus a couple thousands years.
Kwanzaa was created because there were no holidays celebrating African American culture. Hanukkah was created to celebrate a reported miracle, after there were already many holidays celebrating Jewish culture. I don’t really think your comparison is apt.
Along those lines, both St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo are also “made up” American holidays. In Ireland and Mexico, these days are not especially significant.
For the sake of fighting ignorance I’ll once more post that in fact St. Patrick’s Day is a big enough deal in Ireland. It’s a national holiday for one and has been for over a century. I’m not sure where the misconception comes from that it’s not a big deal here, maybe Irish people abroad try to downplay it. I suppose the NYC and maybe some other St. Paddy’s Day parades are also a bit more elaborate than what you find here, or at least that was the case in the past. America does have some related traditions that aren’t really seen here, well at least not among those born and raised in Ireland, like the ubiquitous wearing of green, green beer etc.
Here’s the site for Galways St Patrick’s Festival; it’s last year’s, so don’t schedule your trip just yet.
Indeed, St Patrick’s day was formerly a day of religious observance in Ireland. Irish-Americans began arriving & asking “where’s the parade?” So the Irish decided to add some frivolous, secular & multi-cultural elements to the day. It appears that even the locals are glad to find something more to do on a day off than attend Mass. (Not just in the Republic, either.)
Holidays do change over time. History is still happening…
How do you know? It’s not like holidays advertise when they are political creations.
We like to think that Christmas celebrates the holy and joyful birth of Jesus. We don’t like to think about how it’s a cynical marketing move co-opting pagan winter festivals for the sake of luring converts that was likely decided on by some marketing committee trying to grapple with the fact that conversions were low because Christianity just wasn’t that much fun.
We like to think Thanksgiving commemorates a historic feast fundamental to our nation, not a pretty obvious attempt to turn a minor event into a myth in order to drum up a bit of patriotism years later.
Most holidays are political in origin, and serve to advance some shared identity or agenda. Most combine something that has foundations in reality (a pilgrim feast, a preexisting holiday, vague cultural memories of Africa) with a trumped up narrative giving it increased significance.
All traditions begin with one person, organization or family doing it first. These traditions have to spread from that first family to everyone else doing it somehow. Usually that means some person or organization in a position of authority, be it personal, cultural or political, led some kind of campaign to convince people to do something they didn’t used to do before.
Its not like the Jews all just started lighting candles spontaneously. Chances are one religious authority came up with the idea, probably to advance some goal (like, say, foster a feeling of unity and strength among a marginalized group). He then almost certainly marketed it.
Just because the origins are lost in the mists of time doesn’t mean it makes sense to attribute a nearly uniquely romantic origin to a holiday. And should Kwanzaa stick, don’t you think a much more pleasant sounding myth will pop up around it in the course of the next few thousand years?
I don’t think you understood me. Hannukah, as a holiday, has existed for a long time. However its relative importance in the calendar in the US is a recent invention and out of keeping with its history. It would be like if a group of expatriate Americans, in an effort to keep memories of their homeland alive, seized on Arbor Day as a symbol of their culture, because it happened to fall near a local festival of extremely high importance. Yes, it’s a recognized holiday, but no, it is not anything but laughable to elevate it to being representative of the culture as a whole.
I could also get into the fact that Hannukah celebrates the triumph of fundamentalism, using terror tactics against the citizenry, over secularism. If most Americans had any idea of the history of the Macabees beyond the sanitzed version you hear in school, they’de probably be quite offended.
That’s fair enough; the point here is not that Kwanzaa is “made up”, as all holidays are “made up”, it is that it has not really caught on with the target demographic–as only a small minority celebrate it. Not to say that it couldn’t catch on in in the future. This isn’t true of Hannukah, most Jews actually do celebrate it.
I never thought I’d see the Selucids held up as the exemplars of “secularism”. The Maccabees certainly were guerilla warriors with all that implies, and certainly used terror tactics, but the notion that the Selucid reaction to them was laudable is laughable.
A better revisionist case could be made that US Independence day celebrates the victory of a small coterie of self-interested home-grown aristocrats uninterested in paying their fair share for the 7 years’ war, resulting in mass exile of fellow-citizens who wished only to remain loyal. At least king George didn’t attempt to force Americans, on pain of death, to sacrifice pigs.
Did I say that the Sellucid reaction was laudable? I was referring the Macabee habit of targeting Hellenic jews. Attacking towns and circumcizing all the boys, for instance. Heartwarming!
Anyway, we’re getting far afield. Someone said that Kwanzaa is no more “made up” than Hannukah. I agree. They are both mythic inventions that either take root because they meet a need, or fizzle away because they don’t. Time will tell.
