I don’t know any black person who celebrates Kwanzaa who also doesn’t celebrate Christmas. They aren’t exclusive. Plenty of black churches do something Kwanzaa-esque.
even sven hit the nail on the head. Kwanzaa is more an institutional thing than a family thing. Your kid goes to a school or community center with an Afrocentric focus? He or she will likely be lighting the kinara.
It’s been my experience that most Kwanzaa participants are very politically conscious and very much into uplifting the community. They often work in their communities at the “grass-roots” level as social activists, afrocentric educators, or ministers. Their communities are the world they inhabit. They don’t necessarily inhabit the “mainstream” world that most Dopers would be most familiar with.
The few black people that you (generic you) know probably don’t celebrate it. But if they did, how would you know? Just because people don’t go around wearing “Merry Kwanzaa!” sweaters doesn’t mean it’s not celebrated. It just doesn’t have the over-the-top profile that Christmas does. And except for the gathering on the last day, there really isn’t any “celebrating” involved. Though, I have heard of people exchanging small handmade gifts in lieu of the materialistic gift-giving of Christmas.
True, but just like with religions the older a holiday is the more seriously it’s taken. Give Kwanza a few centuries; it’ll either be forget, a major holiday, or morphed into something totally unrecognizable.
I can’t answer for the OP, but some people are bothered by anything that seems to indicate that the US is anything other than The Christian United Christian States of Christian America for Christians.
Kwanzaa was founded by a left-wing college professor named Maulana Karenga.
Based on the bio in his Wikipedia entry, it looks to me like he was a preacher’s kid who turned his back on religion, but still wanted a pretext to demand a week off in December. So he cobbled together a bunch of Marxist rhetoric and Pan-African symbols, and wrapped them around a menorah.
I have to lol at Skald. I danced at a Kwanzaa celebration around the time the concept was getting started. Had a great time, all kids seemed to love it, and the colorful clothes were fantastic. Like Cinco de Mayo. I think it’s a heritage thing but I don’t really follow them, just participate if I’m around. If there are kettle drums, I dance.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Now if only I could convince everyone to give the same respect to Steak and Blowjob Day.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Knorf]
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
[/QUOTE]
Loren and Wally celebrates Grilled Steak and a You Know What Day every year. There’s even a t-shirt.
Who cares about the credentials or personality of the person who proposed the holiday? Shall we discuss the personality traits and negative elements for every holiday we celebrate?
Who cares whether it’s an arbitrary holiday set up with dodgy reasoning? They all were! (Excepting American Independence Day. And … uh … Nope, that’s it.)
Who cares whether no one you know in your cohort of friends and acquaintances (which is at best a small fragment of your neighborhood, let alone your city, much less your state, not to mention the whole damn country!) celebrates the holiday? Obviously someone does.
Honestly, I have to question the need for certain types to act all butt hurt about the existence of Kwanzaa. What’s it to you? Seriously.
If people want to celebrate it, let 'em. Live and let live.
I teach in a predominantly black area. None of my students, nor any of their parents who were my students before them, give the impression that Kwanzaa is important to them. I can’t remember ever hearing one of them even mention Kwanzaa. Xmas, now, is a big deal. That’s very much on every kid’s mind.