People you know who celebrate Kwanzaa? And does teaching our kids this do us well?

In My Humble Opinion
101

If I understand correctly CP’s issue is that the schools seem to be advertising it as much more than that.

It seems to me to be the false presentation of Chanukah stepped up a notch. Chanukah, for its part, is made into a falsely big deal in the public schools and by American society in general, giving the non-Jewish majority a false impression it is a big deal religious holiday.This is false advertising. Chanukah is only a big deal in America because of its proximity to Christmas. It is a nothing holiday. Currently it is elevated because the standard issue response to “the December dilemma” is justify celebrating Christmas in the public schools by elevating other holidays at the same time and “teaching diversity”.

But at least most Jewish families do actually celebrate Chanukah to some degree, if only, ironically enough, so that their kids have a way of not being left out of the Christmas hype machine.

To give the typical schoolchild public the impression that Black Americans in general celebrate Kwanzaa as an important holiday, or even at all, is intentionally teaching false information, in service of “teaching diversity” … only during December. Curious that December is the month that diversity is suddenly important to teach.

Perhaps we can actually teach diversity year round and not have any “December dilemma”? In the Fall “some of us may be celebrating Rosh HaShanah right now, which is followed by Yom Kippur. In the Jewish tradition …” Whenever it falls “some of us may be fasting during the day this month in honor of Ramadam …” So on. The we can actually have both Winter celebrations and some serious mention in age appropriate curricula of Christmas and what it means religiously and about Winter Solstice as cross cultural source of holiday inspirations as well. And, in age appropriate ways, discuss the place that Kwanzaa actually has in society today, and that some of us may be celebrating it too.

I dream.

102

Apparently so. I’m in my 40’s, and have had at least some exposure to Jewish people from a young age, but only very recently did I learn that Chanukah is not considered a major Jewish holiday.

I mean, if it’s not a big deal, why would they schedule it near Christmas?

103

You’re unfamiliar with the War On Christmas?

104

The OP has used terms like “extremely upset” and “crushed” to describe her kid’s reactions to the truth about Kwanzaa’s uptake in the community. Given the complete lack of perspective that is revealed by this, odds are good the school hasn’t done anything wrong at all. The OP just wants to have something to complain about and is clearly willing to resort to turning molehills into mountains to achieve that.

105

Given the respective ages of the holidays in question, the question should be phrased the other way around: why was Christmas scheduled near Chanukah? :wink:

[I think it was a coincidence myself]

106

Would everyone agree that:

(1) So long as Kwanza and Hannukah and others are taught accurately, including making clear that some people think Kwanzaa is important and some don’t, and that they’re not really the equivalent of christmas, there’s no harm in teaching, even if it would be better to give a more balanced overview of “what are the most important celebrations of these other cultures and religions[1]”?

(2) There’s an unfortunate tendency to promote a simplistic view of multiculturalism, including lumping various winter festivals in as “someone’s xmas”. Which is well-meant, but potentially offensive, because (a) it sort of implies that thinking of Hannukah as Christmas is enough multiculturalism, you don’t have to know anything about it and (b) I don’t know, but it seems that teaching that black people automatically celebrate Kwanzaa may be pretty offensive to people who would rather identify as Americans, or Christians, or Muslims, etc. So schools should try to avoid that.

? Does that accurately sum up both problems?

[1] Maybe something like xmas = passover, new year = hannukah, halloween = purim, etc, etc… :slight_smile:

107

Mostly.

  1. I’d be careful with “other” … they are not “other”, they are “some of us” … even if none are in the classroom.

  2. Yup. Thing is that “teaching diversity” is not a real serious educational goal for most school systems, unless it can be used to justify something a majority wants to do. Should be though.

108

I think clustering major holidays around the yule season is a good idea, because so many people get off work; schools get out, etc… it’s just easier to find time to celebrate.

109

This is a whoosh, isn’t it?

110

My dad’s ex wife was Chinese. Well, both. But the one I’m thinking of = Chinese stepmom whom I lived with, Chinese brothers, Chinese Aunties and Uncles, visiting China…etc. from the age of 7 to 17. And from 18-25, it was Chinese Stepmom Number Two. They were from HK and Shenzhen, respectively.

I know the link I used cited 40 million black people and if we’re using different sources and polls to answer the question “How many blacks celebrate Kwanzaa?” that would create quite a discrepancy. The one I used by a black professor of black studies said 2 million at most.

Once again, DSeid explains what I don’t have the maturity or skill to express on the Dope.

Totally. I love nitpicking at everything ‘diverse’ in the world, especially as a history teacher in a predominately black and brown community. IANAexpert on Kwanzaa and all that, but my anecdotal/informal polling of a group of kids (with whom I’ve very close to) re: Kwanzaa went something like:

“Who the fuck celebrates Kwanzaa?”
“Why do white people always think up these crazy things?”
“Yeah right - I celebrate Christmas! Fuck Kwanzaa - no gifts!”
“What is Kwanzaa, anyway?”

When I told them about my son coming home thinking that black people had an African American Hanukkah, they cracked up and said, “Your kid is so cute. Bring him into class sometime.” So they were clearly not offended by my position on these things as the white people on the Dope are. Pardon me if I think their opinion is weighted heavier than yours. And none of my black adult friends celebrate it, either. Does it make you feel bad to know that Whitey didn’t Save the Day this time?

111

CitizenPained, monstro and **you with the face **are both black. It’s reasonable to assume there are other non-caucasian posters posting in this thread or reading it. Throwing terms like “whitey” around ain’t gonna win you this argument.

112

I was presumably under assault by many in the thread for being white, Jewish, and having an aversion to teaching kids about Kwanzaa in the way that it usually presented (with the winter holiday meme). There were more white people in the thread against me than black; I know monstro is black, but not you with the face. Either way, I fail to see why predominately white schools have to teach Kwanzaa for the sake of “winter diversity” instead of just teaching about diversity in general all year long. And are black communities pushing for Kwanzaa to be taught in schools or is that coming from the schools in the name of ‘diversity’? If schools want to recognize diversity, especially in urban areas, I’m not sure that celebrating or teaching about Kwanzaa is the only way to do it. Kwanzaa itself is not without controversy.

btw, my son’s 1st grade teachers are AMAZING and he learns a lot about other cultures and history year-round. But for whatever reason, he walked away with the wrong idea about Kwanzaa - and black people in general. He though blacks (he used the word “African American”) had a different set of holidays like Jews do. But my son goes to a nice private school that sits in a neighborhood of a country club but just a stone’s throw away from a totally different story. He goes to a ‘top ten’ private school. The public schools in Denver mostly suck. I’m thinking if some well-meaning teachers either a) flubbed it or b) my kid didn’t get it at his egalitarian, multicultural, liberal day school then what about the rest of the America? I learned about Kwanzaa in freshman year of high school during a unit on the 60s. I had no foggy idea of it til then. I can see how his seven year old perspective didn’t get it quite right.

Again, I’m wondering what the value of teaching Kwanzaa is during the wintertime when hardly any black people celebrate it (2-5 per cent seems like ‘hardly any’ to me). But I guess it’s part of education curriculum in the younger grades to teach about “winter holidays” so they feel better about being Christmas/Christian-dominant. I really wish Christians would ‘take back’ Christmas so that Jews could just have their latkes and enjoy it and white Christian teachers would stop painting African Americans as ‘others’ during the December month.

113

No, it isn’t, but I haven’t read all of the thread either, so if this was already addressed, just ignore it.

114

A quick Google will pull up several stores where Santa is “banned” on public schools but schools are celebrating Kwanzaa. So we ignore a holiday that most people celebrate but advocate a holiday that hardly any one does in the name of ‘diversity’. It’s silly. I’m Jewish and I sometimes feel embarrassed about what schools think is “PC” or “correct” to do during this time of year. It’s frigging Christmastime. It doesn’t matter if you celebrate it with Jesus or Santa, but why are people scared of it? It’s an American pastime as much as baseball is.

I do appreciate that my son did come home with another message. I actually called him over to tell me “Why do we have Kwanzaa?” And he said that “someone said that black people should have their own holiday because they didn’t have a holy one like we do, but people used to be mean to African Americans and they were slaves like Jews were slaves once. and they couldn’t even maybe eat at white people’s restaurants or go to their schools. And so they have a holiday that’s special for them.”

Which I thought was pretty cool, him getting a mini civics/history lesson as well. Like I said, his school is great and I appreciate the kinds of things they do in class…but it did make me stop and think, “Wait. Not many celebrate this. What message exactly does this send when we teach it? And are we teaching it correctly?” So his school probably did a great job, except for the part where not many people celebrate it. Again, great school (except for that damned kindergarten class), AMAZING teachers, great kid. But since every day I’m reading about how this or that school comes under fire for banning Christmas and Hanukkah, it made me think about what kind of message this is sending non-black (or even black) children. Are we stereotyping the Other?

btw, this thread gave me a great idea as a secondary teacher: Giving the history of Kwanzaa to my students and have them reflect/debate on the merits of celebrating it or having a round-table open discussion on it. Since I teach in a non-traditional classroom, there’s no place to put this in their curriculum (I teach dropout/credit recovery and their programs are on the computer, but I have group with them once a week).

There are 10,000 better ways to be diverse in the classroom. Perpeatuing a myth that blacks either don’t celebrate Christmas or instead pair it with pagan African rituals is just wrong. I’d love to see a poll of white people who think that most blacks celebrate Kwanzaa.

115

Just a quick point about the term “Whitey”, I have been called this in the past and it doesn’t upset or offend me in any way.

I AM Caucasian(Though a sort of pink colour normally, sometimes brown) and am not ashamed of being such, and in normal parlance I am white, though to pedants this is an innacurate term.

And as a whitey I am associated with all of the prejudices variously associated with the Spanish Inquisition, both world wars, Viking rape and pillage, the invention of nuclear weapons, colonialism, the Crusades and slavery.

But I suck it up.

116

You never answered the question I asked earlier.

There are millions of schoolchildren across the country that are learning about Hanukkah. Singing about it, learning about dreidels and lighting the menorah…the whole schmiel (except for the history).

From inner-city Atlanta to Park Slope, Brooklyn, this is happening. I know a music teacher who works in a rural county here in VA, where all of his elementary school kids are black. He is teaching them one of the Hanukkah songs I learned in school twenty-five years ago. I doubt that any of these kids are Jewish.

This is happening even though a small fraction of Americans are Jewish, and even though most Jews don’t really make a big deal of Hanukkah (at least compared to Christians and Christmas).

If Jewish people didn’t push for this kind of advertising, who did? And were they bad for doing this? That is my question to you.

Personally, I do not feel like my life was messed up because I learned about a holiday that does not affect me in any way. I don’t think it was a waste. And as a kid, no one ever corrected my assumption that Jews make up a big proportion of the American population. When I realized this wasn’t true, it did not disappoint me. I didn’t feel like I’d been ripped off or lied to. It was just one of many misconceptions that I had to correct as I got older. Teaching things 100% accurately to kids has never been the point of education. Giving them the bigger picture is more important.

My father didn’t sing Hanukkah songs as a kid. And he’s the meanest anti-Semite that I know. I’m not stupid enough to think one caused the other, but maybe if he had grown up knowing SOMETHING about Jewish people, he wouldn’t rely so much on stereotypes and prejudice.

As even sven said above, people are constantly crapping on black people’s culture. Or making fun of their lack of a “real” one. Lots of people even deny that black people have a culture of their own. Kwanzaa is not a major part of being black–this is true. But it is one of those things that belong to “black culture”, and it is something that is at least wholesome and positive. If a kid who’s never met a black person can be learn about Kwanzaa, maybe they won’t be so ready to crap on black people when they do get older. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too idealistic.

117

Obviously I haven’t seen the specific stories you’re talking about, but there does need to be a distinction made between teaching about a holiday and celebrating it. If they’re actually not mentioning Christmas at all but are teaching or celebrating Kwanzaa, of course that’s stupid. More likely would be that they’re not CELEBRATING either one, and the type of people who whine about the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are having persecution complexes again.

118

Thank you. And yes, sorry, I quite agree. I guess I mean, “other to the dominant culture that is likely the main one being ‘taught’”, but yes, I totally agree, “us” should be inclusive.

119

In attempt to find stories about schools celebrating Kwanzaa to the exclusion of other holidays, I found this announcement.

Let’s say they stop teaching about Kwanzaa in schools because the number of celebrants hasn’t reached critical mass. But it’s still out there in the universe. People are still doing Kwanzaa things. There are books in the library about Kwanzaa. You can buy Kwanzaa greeting cards. SOMEONE out there is celebrating it, even if it’s not everyone I meet.

Would I want my kid to be clueless about this? Or would I want them to know at least the essentials so they can be a knowledgeable member of society?

I’m thinking I’d want the latter.

120

I have no idea who ‘pushed’ for the ‘advertising’, but I don’t think that schools need to bend over backwards to teach Hanukkah. If you have a Jewish kid in your class, then as a teacher, yeah, make them feel welcome. (Same goes for Muslim, Hindu, etc…) That’s part of a responsive education. But in New York, Kwanzaa is part of the actual curriculum. How is that responsive exactly?

Maybe, maybe not. But do we take it too far? Banning menorahs on public grounds but putting up Christmas trees? Banning Christmas trees and menorahs but having kinaras? There’s clearly some inter-cultural wars going on in December.

Any good teacher includes all of their students. But I’m not sure if kids in Alaska need to be singing “Dreidel, Dreidel” in the name of “multiculturalism”.

Is there such a thing as being too idealistic? While I do agree that Kwanzaa is part of black culture (or Kosher is to Jews, even if most Jews don’t keep strict Kosher, or ____ is to _____, even if it’s not in the majority), I’m not sure why schools have to teach Kwanzaa so they can ‘include’ black people. Because do you want your kids growing up in a world (wait, you don’t want them, okay, nieces) where non-blacks think that all blacks celebrate Kwanzaa? Does it matter? Because I think stereotypes do.

I never mean to “crap” on anyone’s culture. While I don’t find that all cultures are equally valid (eg, cultures in which women are stoned for adultery), I really do question the benefit of reinforcing stereotypes or just teaching things wrong.

I liked this essay here called “The Myth of Multiculture”. But didn’t you scoff at the Obama’s Hanukkah celebration and their Passover seder? Is this any different from my opinon?

Here’s a Christian Post article about how all winter holidays were banned.

No Santa in Texas school. also here, kids are not allowed to exchange gifts.

A couple of years ago, NYC banned Nativity scenes but allowed menorahs. A court upheld that.

So not only does the the largest education system in the US downplay a major American holiday - Christmas - it allows depictions of other minority religious holidays.

I think it’s cool to teach about other cultures and minority traditions. Definitely. But while not celebrating Christmas is pretty central to Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims, I’m wondering why the teachers have to uphold the myth that Kwanzaa is the Black Christmas and that’s what black folk do.