As I said to my wife last Steak and Blowjob Day, you just aren’t getting into the spirit of the thing!
Regards,
Shodan
I was erasing any lingering doubt.
I was going to say “must be that time of year again”, but you said it better! 
I grew up in an very white rural areal without any Black classmates, neighbours, or friends. Between that and every single cartoon I can remember having the token Black characters celebrate Kwanzaa I was in the 4th grade before I realized Black people actually celebrated Christmas. :o
This is not the Pit.
This. Entirely this.
Occasionally the local TV station does a Kwanzaa story, sending a reporter up to some community center in the university area where some folks in dashikis are interviewed on the specific rituals. Lighting candles, etc.
Kwanzaa is much too artificially constructed to get any real traction. Holidays evolve life. This one’s a ritualized, sanctimonious pamphlet; not a celebration.
The spirit of Kwanzaa mightta had a better chance if Dr Karenga were not such an incredibly boring, self-promoting blowhard. It’s almost impossible to chug through the annual message, or get past the Second Principle (you need to buy the book; all rights reserved) without napping off.
The largest type on the website side banner is “Make a Donation.” Paypal and Major Credit cards both accepted. Hello? Always makes me laugh to click around the website. Don’t miss the details for the New Year’s Eve Kwanzaa Karamu…hang on; that was 2013.
Website’s bottom line: You need to buy the book to understand Kwanza (and probably to figure out why some Egyption-looking guys are displayed so prominently). I don’t think the Onion could outdo Dr. Karenga if they tried.
When he checks out, Kwanzaa is toast. Not enough people bought the book.
I dunno, monstro. 162 views…Christmas tree in the background…
What you have there is not a “subculture” but a costume presentation to the public with the Old Country for a theme. Not a chance they got even that small crowd to the Johnson House community center for 7 days in a row to actually celebrate Kwanzaa. It’s too boring, and any recent african immigrants wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on.
And she said you’re just not getting the concept of eating out.
A Christmas tree does not negate a Kwanzaa celebration. My mother celebrates it, but as a Christian minister, she also celebrates Christmas. This conflict only exists in the minds of the unintiated.
It actually is a subculture, one that I’m familiar with since my mother and all her friends belong to it. So please don’t try to educate me on something I know quite well, thanks.
Do Jews gather around the menorah all eight nights of Hanukkah? Or do they light the candles nightly and MAYBE hold a family gathering at the beginning or the end? I’m not Jewish, so I have no idea how the holiday is celebrated. But I certainly wouldn’t use the absence of a continual festival to condemn it as a “fake” holiday.
Actually she explained the concept, and it worked out fine.
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant for dinner.
Regards,
Shodan
LOL. Kwanzaa has been a thing since the late 60’s. For something that lacks “real traction”, you gotta wonder how its maintained such staying power. As long as people keep buying kinaras and cards for it, the holiday will continue to be publically recognized. It’s as simple as that.
The inordinate amount of attention given to this minor cultural observance–principally by critics who keep declaring it irrelevant every year in spite of its continued existence–certainly doesn’t help Kwanzaa fade into obscurity. If you and others want the thing die (which is obvious), your best bet is to stop whining about it already.
White priviledge.
ETA: I used to celebrate Diwali and Christmas. That’s the beauty of living in this country - you can include all the holidays!
The linked-to video looks not at all like the real thing, it’s an edited, voice-overed promo featuring some performance artists who are basically trying to push the concept onto an audience that looks about as happy as they might if they were in a tax audit conducted by CIA torturers. It no more proves that Kwanzaa is a popularly celebrated holiday than the video of my 40-minute set at Comedy Bar proves I’m a famous comedian.
I don’t really get the hostility towards Kwanzaa. It’s just another attempt at marketing through holidays. Hell, every May 4 we get people crowing about it being Star Wars Day, for God’s sake. How is this any worse?
Any excuse to get together, have fun, and eat and drink is a good one. Will Kwanzaa last? Probably not, for the reasons Chief Pedant lists, but I guess you never know.
Several existing holidays that we celebrate were founded as marketing ploys. E.g. Valentine’s Day.
Why I myself have been known to send out a Kwanzaa card or three.
It’s been a “thing” alright. Even with me.
But it’s kind of a fake thing. More like a sense of obligation to throw a bone for the Cause.
I agree with the “minor cultural observance” summary. But not, of course, the Culture that any new african immigrant would understand. Throw in a little white guilt. A little black nostalgia. A little effort at cultural diversity. A general theme of non-judgment. And a lotta Dr Karenga, who has been Kwanzaa Claus since Day 1.
I would be stunned if anyone caught off guard (including Dr Karenga 
) could recite the Kwanzaa liturgy. This despite the fact that no Kwanzaa article anywhere forgets to fluff out the piece with the K fundamentals. Functionally Kwanzaa is a community club costume presentation, just like the video posted above. Pretty shallow roots, I’d say.
It will (has?) morphed into “thinking of africa” at Christmastime. But hey; go to the website and see where the Kwanzaa Karamus are for this year. Attend and then come back w/ photos to correct me. Or join the FB page and try to get them up to 3,000 Likes. Or pull up any Internet article and note the intense interest.
The haters of Kwanzaa make a much bigger deal about Karenga than anyone else.
I would think conservatives of all people would appreciate the principles of the holiday.
The only controversial thing here is “race”. But there’s precedence. I know in my mind, the majority of Jewish holidays seem to commemorate the Jewish people overcoming oppression together. And we of course celebrate Irishness on St. Patrick’s day.
Isn’t self-determination the very spirit of rugged individualism? Isn’t that as American as apple pie?
Seems to me conservatives are always blaming black people for not having enough ujima.
See above.
Again with the self-empowerment. How scandalous!
Who knew Karenga was both artsy-fartsy AND racist!
Sounds like something any church-going American should be able to get behind.
Black folk can’t win. They had their cultures snatched away from them. Then they found themselves the laughing stocks of their new cultural milieu. Then they turned around and found the dominant culture appropriating from them even as they were STILL despised. Finally, fed up with the whole thing, some of them decided to reinvent themselves in a different way–a way that affirms and dignifies their identity and dreams. And the dominant culture still can’t stop laughing and throwing spitballs. Of course pan-Africanism is “made up”. Maybe if all the laughing and demeaning and stigmitizing would stop, there would be no need for it.
I know this much. Recent current events aren’t making young black folks exactly move away from things like Kwanzaa. Speaking for myself, the more racist comments I read on the internet, the more comforting it is being around Afrocentric ideas and people. I may just turn into my mother after all.
Rape Month?
Except I don’t think boozing it up is a Kwanzaa thing. The creators seem too earnest for that. Kinda doomed from the start, it was.
There is the pouring of libation ceremony, though. At the last Kwanzaa party I attended (shit, that would have been more than 15 years ago), we drank some wine. And it was mighty fine wine.